Today in 1850, California became a state. When Mexico ceded the land in the Treaty of Hidalgo, no one told them gold had been found and would lead to the world's greatest gold rush to the island (because California is an island or was for a long time as European cartographers documented many times) with many of the 49ers being Irish in search of riches. The state has since become the most powerful economic and cultural force in the country and in much of the world. Much of California still belongs to Mexico and is divided into two states south of the border, Baja (Lower) California and Sur de (South of) California, a peninsular land that certainly looks like a great island and, when sea levels were higher, may well have been. California started as a free state, avoiding slavery but not for the abolitionist principles for which others fought. The Natives were wiped out and nearly erased, the grizzlies were all killed or driven out (only remaining on Catalina Island, a part of Los Angeles County). Is it time to break away from the rest of the country?
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