May 15 – Bay to Breakers Race

Posted on May 15, 2016

It's billed as the oldest footrace in America. But the 12-kilometer route from the San Francisco Bay to Ocean Beach (which of course has "Breakers," as in waves) is actually the longest- consecutively-run footrace in the WORLD!

(Other races have skipped years or changed courses or changed lengths over time.)

It's billed as a race built by the people. It was first started as a way to lift the spirits of the city of San Francisco after the devastating 1906 earthquake.

Once the tradition got going, people kept it up. During World War II, few people came out for the race--fewer than 50. Still, some people came every year, even then, and so the tradition continued. The 1986 race set a world record for the largest footrace, with 110,000 racers. Nowadays some 30 to 40 thousand participants register every year, and many more thousands walk behind the runners, swelling the number of participants to 50,000 to 80,000.

Since 1912, over 1.8 million racers, many of them costumed, have run the Bay to Breakers Race.

According to the official website,  that 1.8 million has included runners, walkers, and centipedes.

Centipedes?

Well, remember that some participants choose to dress in costumes. We're talking Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider Man, unique characters like this pink gorilla...

The centipedes are not people dressed up as the arthropods, as you might suppose. Instead, there is a special division of the race called “centipedes.” Thirteen runners run together while being tethered. The leader of the pack is called the Head Pede. An untethered fourteenth runner is allowed to run alongside the centipede; he or she can help pace the runners and can sub in if someone has to drop out.

This division is very competitive. Really good running teams such as University of California track teams sometimes participate in this division!

Check out a few more costumes: 

Salmon who run “upstream”...

"I Dream of Jeannie" genies

Before and after the race there are parties and a festival!

Also on this date:

San Isidro Day in Madrid 

Straw Hat Day

Archeologist Marta Rieche's birthday

Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum's birthday

Paraguay's Independence Day

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

• May holidays 
• May birthdays 
• Historical anniversaries in May

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• June holidays
• June birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in June

January 30 – Yerba Buena Gets a New Name

Posted on January 30, 2015

Once upon a time there was a small settlement named Yerba Buena in the Spanish colony called Las Californias. It was named “good herb” because of the mint plants growing all over the area.

The town was located between the Presidio of San Francisco (a fort) and the Mission San Francisco de Asis (a church). It was started in 1776, and by 1792, when English explorer George Vancouver sailed into San Francisco Bay, he mentioned staying “in a place they called Yerba Buena.”

In the early 1800s, the colony of Las Californias was split into Alta (upper) and Baja (lower) California. And shortly after that split, Mexico won its independece from Spain. So Alta California, including Yerba Buena, became a part of Mexico.

But it was a part of Mexico that was far from the capital, Mexico City – even further than the rest of California! And little attention was paid to the town with its port and plaza and trading post.

By the middles of the 1800s, English settlers had built homes and started businesses in Yerba Buena, and when Mexico and the US locked horns in the Mexican American War over the control of, not only California, but Texas and the entire Southwest, in 1846, navy and marine officers claimed Alta California for the United States and raised an American flag in the plaza of Yerba Buena.

On this date in 1847, the Americans who now ruled Yerba Buena officially changed its name to San Francisco. Just one year later gold was discovered in California, and San Francisco almost immediately became the most important city on the West Coast. It grew like wildfire!

In 1845, the sleepy Spanish town of Yerba Buena had just 400 people. Fifteen years later, the same town (but now called San Francisco) was 56,000 people!

Yep, they do not call it the Gold Rush for nothing!

Today there are more than 800,000 people in San Francisco. That is a lot of people when you consider how small the city is! There are almost 18,000 people per square mile—more than six times the density of my own city!

Also on this date:

Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution

Anniversary of the First Lifeboat 

Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day 

Birthday of Thomas Rolfe, son of Pocahontas

Anniversary of the discovery of the world's tallest geyser

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest pages on:

• January holidays 
• January birthdays 
• Historical anniversaries in January

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• February holidays 
• February birthdays 
• Historical anniversaries in February

January 17, 2013 - Cable Car Day

Does your town have an endless wire ropeway?

Well, nobody's town calls their mass transit by this name (darn!), but the inventor of the cable car first called his invention an endless wire ropeway!

When people say, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” they mean that people see a need and create a new device to meet that need. And when Andrew Smith Hallide saw a horrible accident on the hills of San Francisco—a horse working with a team of horses to pull a streetcar lost its footing on the steep roadway, and fell, resulting in its own death and the death of several other horses!—Hallide knew there had to be another way to take people from here to there over those steep hills! A way that didn't endanger horses.

And his idea involved a sort of rope made of wire.

That's what the cable in a cable car is, after all. Ropes are made by many, many fibers twisted or braided together to make a strong cord, and cables are very similar except, instead of fibers twisted/braided together, cables are made up of twisted/braided metal wires.

So I love the name “endless wire ropeway”—although I have to admit that a 5-syllable name isn't as handy as a shorter name.

If you're wondering why today, of all days, is Cable Car Day, this marks the anniversary of Hallide's first cable car railway patent, in 1871. That's 142 years of clang-clang-clang history!

Take a virtual ride on a cable car here. 

This video shows how wire rope cables are made, and this one shows how normal fiber ropes are made. 

Also on this date:

Kid Inventors' Day 

Benjamin Franklin's birthday

Anniversary of the Pope moving back to Rome