A - Z of Interesting Facts about San Francisco

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A - Z of Interesting Facts

A - Z of Interesting Facts about San Francisco

Here you can find a full A - Z list of quirky and interesting facts about the City and County of San Francisco.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

	A is for Alcatraz - Alcatraz means pelican in Spanish. The rocky pelican's island was a military fort before it became a prison. Today's resident deer mice, banana slugs and California slender salamanders aren't nearly as famous as former prisoners Al Capone, George "Machine Gun" Kelly and Robert "Birdman" Stroud.
	B is for Bay - San Francisco Bay is considered the world's largest landlocked harbor. In 1579 when Sir Francis Drake landed near San Francisco, however he missed the entrance to ths magnificent natural harbor.
	C is for Cable Cars - San Francisco cable cars are the only moving National Historic Landmark, and 9.7 million people take a nine mile per hour ride on them each year. At the Cable Car Barn Museum, 500-horsepower electric motors turn the endless cable loops.
	D is for Denim - Denim jeans were invented in San Francisco for the Gold Rush miners who needed tough, comfortable clothing.
	E is for Earthquake - On April 18, 1906, a quake estimated at a terrifying 7.8 to 8.3 on today’s Richter scale struck the city. For 47 seconds, the city emitted unholy groans and crashes as streets buckled, windows popped and brick buildings imploded. Wooden structures snapped into firewood were set ablaze by toppled chimneys, and ruptured gas mains spread the fireIt is estimated there are approximately 500,000 detectable seismic tremors in California annually.
	F is for Fortune Cookie - The country's first Chinese immigrants came to San Francisco in 1848. In an act typical of San Francisco's mixing of cultures, the Japanese Hagiwara family invented "Chinese" fortune cookies at Golden Gate Park’s Tea Garden, and at Chinatown’s Ross Alley fortune cookie factory, a Rube Goldberg-like contraption turns them out by the dozens.
	G is for Golden Gate Bridge - John C. Fremont named the San Francisco Bay's entrance "Chrysopylae" (Golden Gate) because it resembled Istanbul's Golden Horn. The Golden Gate Bridge, with 23 miles of ladders and 300,000 rivets in each tower, was the world's longest span when it opened in 1937. Seventeen ironworkers and 38 painters constantly fight rust and renew the international orange paint on its 1.7-mile span. The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco has enough steel wires in its cables to circle the earth at the equator 3.5 times.
	H is for Hills - San Francisco has been built on 43 hills, the beauty of the city is express through the undulating terrain and beautiful views obtained from the hilltops. Twin Peaks offers a great view across the city.
	I is for Ikebana - As part of San Francisco’s multicultural past and present, San Francisco is home to Ikenobo Ikebana Society. This is the oldest and largest society outside Japan for ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging, with the displays to prove it: a curly willow branch tickling a narcissus under its chin in an abstract jiyubana (freestyle) arrangement, or a traditional seven-part rikka landscape featuring pine and iris.
	J is for Janis Joplin - The wide-open moral and musical landscape of San Francisco was almost unnervingly fertile during the 1960s. Despite competition from endless numbers of less talented singers, Texas-born Janis Joplin formulated much of her vocal technique before audiences in San Francisco. Her breakthrough style was first acknowledged at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1967.
	K is for K – We couldn’t manage to find something related to San Francisco beginning with a K, however neither could the street naming commission that worked in 1909 making San Francisco’s postal service more efficient and the streets easily to navigate. Starting with Twenty-seventh Avenue, the streets would be designated by male or female saints, starting with San Antonio and ending with Santa Ynez at Forty-Seventh Avenue. Unable to find Spanish saints with names beginning with K, Q, W, X or Z, they chose first Alcatraz, then Ayala for Forty-eighth Avenue and La Playa for Forty-ninth Avenue.
	L is for LGBT – In the post car period, San Francisco became a center of counterculture and the hippie movement, contributing to San Francisco's liberal outlook. San Francisco also became a center for the gay community during this time, leading to the development of gay neighborhoods like the Castro. A resident of this neighbourhood, Harvey Milk, who was portrayed in the recent film ‘Milk’, fought for gay rights and became a city supervisor and America's first openly gay politician. Harvey Milk was assassinated, along with Mayor George Moscone in 1978, by political rival Dan White.
	M is for Museum - San Francisco is home to the Pez Memorabilia Museum and the American Antique Slot Machine Museum, as well as the Museum of Modern Art and the Palace of the Legion of Honor holds primarily European antiquities, works of art, and one of the world's most significant Rodin collections at its Lincoln Park building modeled after its Parisian namesake.
	N is for Napa Valley – The famous Napa Valley wine region is one of the best features of the San Francisco Bay Area. A road trip through the Napa Valley was immortalised in the Oscar winning film ‘Sideways’ and Californian wines are world famous.
	O is for Opera - The War Memorial Opera House houses the San Francisco Opera, the second-largest opera company in North America as well as the San Francisco Ballet.
	P is for Pier 39 – Pier 39 is a famous historic landmark on San Francicso Bay, with a festival marketplace with more than 110 stores, 12 Bay view restaurants. You can also see sea lions basking in the sun.
	Q is for Quail – The state bird of California is called the California Valley Quail. The California Quail is a highly sociable bird that often gathers in small flocks known as "coveys". One of their daily communal activities is a dust bath. Although this bird coexists well at the edges of urban areas, it is declining in some areas as human populations increase.
	R is for Rush - James Marshall found gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848, and the world poured in. By 1852, the city swelled to almost 35,000. Waves of immigrants came to the city to seek their fortunes, including large numbers of Chinese immigrants, forming one of the largest Chinese populations outside of Asia.
	S is for Shipwrecks - In 1850, gold seekers abandoned over 600 vessels in the bay. Some became landfill, now lying beneath the Jackson Square Historic District where the city's few surviving nineteenth century commercial buildings include Ghirardelli's first chocolate factory.
	T is for Twelfth - the City of San Francisco is the 12th most populous city in the United States and is the fourth most populous city in California, with a 2008 estimated population of 808,976. It is the second most densely populated major city in the U.S. and is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the larger San Francisco Bay Area, a region of more than seven million people.
	U is for United Nations Plaza - To honor the signing of the UN charter in San Francisco, San Francisco has this brick-paved triangle offering a clear view of city hall. A farmers' market provides a fresher perspective on the Tenderloin every Wednesday and Sunday, from about 07:00 to 17:00 .
	V is for Volcano - Portions of Mount Lassen in Northern California still resemble an active volcano with boiling mud pots, hot springs, and steam rising from the side of the mountain. Mount Lassen last erupted less than 100 years ago with a seven mile high plume of ash.
	W is for Weird Weather - San Francisco's summer fog rushes in on ocean breezes as the city's cool air moves toward warmer places inland. San Franciscans make friends with the fog, and when the Coast Guard removed the bay's last foghorn, cries of protest soon brought it back.
	X is for Xanadu Gallery: Folk Art International - Shrink the Guggenheim and plop it inside a brick box with a sunken Romanesque archway, and there you have Frank Lloyd Wright's 1949 Circle Gallery Building, which since 1979 has been the home of Xanadu Gallery. The nautilus shell ramp in the atrium leads you on a world tour of high-end folk art, from Fijian war cubs to mounted nose ornaments from the Andes.
	Y is for Yerba Buena – Yerba Buena Cove was named for wild mint (good herb) growing nearby, and the first resident pitched his tent here in 1835. The first mayor changed the town's name in 1848 and San Francisco was born, its 469 residents including Ohlone Indians, Americans, Spanish Californians, Hawaiians, Europeans, South Americans and New Zealanders.
	Z is for ZigZag - San Francisco is famous for its bendy streets. Vermont Avenue between 22nd and 23rd is "crookedest," and Filbert between Hyde and Leavenworth is steepest at 31.5 degrees, but neither fact discourages tourists from flocking to Lombard Street's seductive curves.