48 Fun Facts About Berkeley

Berkeley, California is named after an 18th-century bishop and philosopher from which country?

Ireland: George Berkeley, the Anglo-Irish Bishop of Cloyne, wrote 'westward the course of empire takes its way', the line trustee Frederick Billings recalled in 1866 when proposing the name.

In which California county is Berkeley located?

Alameda County, which contains Berkeley, moved its county seat to Oakland after an 1868 earthquake destroyed its courthouse in San Leandro.

Which chain's founders learned roasting from Berkeley's Alfred Peet?

Starbucks cofounder Jerry Baldwin later bought Peet's itself, several years after Alfred Peet sold the company in 1979.

Which Native people lived on the site of Berkeley, leaving a shellmound at Strawberry Creek?

The Chochenyo Ohlone's sacred shellmound area regained a Fourth Street parking lot in 2024, after the developer that had fought to build there agreed to sell it to an Ohlone land trust.

Which Spanish soldier received the land grant, Rancho San Antonio, that included present-day Berkeley?

Luis Peralta never lived on Rancho San Antonio himself; he divided it among his four sons, and Berkeley grew mostly on son Domingo's share.

Which Intel co-founder transferred to UC Berkeley to study chemistry?

Gordon Moore studied chemistry at Berkeley and Caltech before co-founding Intel, and his forecast that chip transistor counts keep doubling became Moore's law.

What was the name of the waterfront settlement of saloons and industry that became West Berkeley?

Ocean View's working-class voters helped Denis Kearney's anti-Chinese Workingman's Party win Berkeley's first town elections after incorporation in 1878.

A 1908 statewide referendum rejected moving what to Berkeley?

The state capital bid failed, but Northbrae's developers had already named its streets after California counties, and those names remain.

In 1992, 500 years after Columbus's first voyage, Berkeley renamed Columbus Day as what?

Indigenous Peoples' Day began in Berkeley as a counter-protest to Columbus Day, pushed by local activists who won over the city council.

What land-use rule did Berkeley pioneer in 1916 to keep minorities out of white neighbourhoods?

Single-family zoning was championed by Berkeley developer Duncan McDuffie, whose own neighbourhoods already kept out non-white residents through private deed restrictions.

Which 1964 university action sparked the Free Speech Movement?

'Banned distribution of political literature on campus' sums up the September 1964 rule that barred advocacy tables at the campus's main southern entrance; the arrest of a former student at one table set off the sit-ins.

Which governor sent the National Guard to occupy Berkeley during the 1969 People's Park fight?

Ronald Reagan declared a state of emergency after 'Bloody Thursday', when police fired shotguns at protesters and killed an onlooker, James Rector.

Which Berkeley street became the focal point of the hippie movement in the late 1960s?

Telegraph Avenue carried marching crowds toward People's Park in May 1969, after the university had fenced the park off.

Which Berkeley restaurant is credited with launching California cuisine?

Chez Panisse's founder, Alice Waters, went on to start the Edible Schoolyard in 1995, turning a vacant lot at a Berkeley middle school into a garden classroom.

What did Berkeley's Ecology Center launch in 1973, among the first of its kind nationally?

A curbside recycling program: the Ecology Center's 1973 pickup was the first in the US, and the nonprofit later won a city contract to keep running Berkeley's curbside service.

What nickname did North Berkeley's famous food district carry for decades?

The Gourmet Ghetto nickname, credited to comedian Darryl Henriques in the 1970s, drew complaints in 2019, and the business association voted to drop it.

Which legendary all-ages punk venue in West Berkeley helped launch Green Day?

924 Gilman, a volunteer-run, all-ages club that opened on Gilman Street in 1986, hosted Green Day's early shows; its no-major-labels rule later kept the band out after they signed.

Which seismic zone runs through Berkeley, straight down the middle of the university's stadium?

The Hayward Fault runs under Memorial Stadium's field nearly goalpost to goalpost, so the stadium needed a major seismic retrofit, completed in 2012.

Which East Bay parkland occupies the upper reaches of Wildcat Canyon east of the city?

Tilden Regional Park, opened in 1936 and named for park-district founder Charles Lee Tilden, fills upper Wildcat Canyon with a steam train, a carousel, a botanic garden and Lake Anza.

On which body of water does Berkeley's western shoreline lie?

San Francisco Bay's Berkeley shoreline includes César Chávez Park, a former city landfill whose methane is burned off at a flare station.

Which element, first made at Berkeley, fuelled the Nagasaki atomic bomb?

Plutonium was named after Pluto, then counted as a planet, because uranium and neptunium, the two elements before it, were named after Uranus and Neptune.

Which president signed the Morrill Act behind UC Berkeley's founding?

Lincoln signed the Morrill Act in 1862, letting states sell grants of federal land to fund public colleges such as the University of California.

Which Berkeley professor invented the cyclotron and won the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics for it?

Ernest Lawrence's Radiation Laboratory grew into Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and element 103, discovered there in 1961, was named lawrencium in his honour.

Which Berkeley chemist shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for CRISPR gene editing?

Jennifer Doudna has said The Double Helix, James Watson's book about discovering DNA's structure, was a major early influence on her.

Sather Tower on the Berkeley campus is nicknamed after which Venetian landmark?

St Mark's Campanile in Venice was the model for Sather Tower, completed in 1914 and known on campus simply as the Campanile; it stands 307 feet tall with a 61-bell carillon.

What is the name of Cal's costumed bear mascot, introduced in 1941 to replace live bears?

Oski shares his name with the old Oski Wow Wow yell, and the secretive Oski Committee guards the identity of whoever wears the suit.

What trophy has gone to the winner of Cal's Big Game against its arch-rival since 1933?

The Stanford Axe, stolen by Cal students in 1899 soon after its debut, became the Big Game trophy in 1933, three years after Stanford's 'Immortal 21' took it back.

What were the university's first school colours, chosen by students in 1873?

Yale Blue and gold were chosen in 1873, the blue honouring Yale, alma mater of several founders, and the gold standing for the Golden State.

Which league did Cal's teams join in 2024 after the collapse of the Pac-12?

The ACC took in Cal for the 2024-25 season, but Cal reportedly accepted only about 30% of a full member's share of league revenue at first.

The California Victory Cannon fires after every Cal score from which spot overlooking Memorial Stadium?

Tightwad Hill got its name because fans there can watch Cal games for free, right beside the platform the Victory Cannon fires from.

Which Berkeley grad student put together the first BSD release of Unix?

Bill Joy started compiling the first BSD in 1977 because other universities wanted the Unix improvements his Berkeley group had made.

Which Apple co-founder is a Berkeley alumnus?

Steve Wozniak left Berkeley in the early 1970s, then returned after Apple made him famous and finished his degree under the name Rocky Clark.

Which is UC Berkeley's primary special collections library, known for its archives on western North America?

The Bancroft is home to the Mark Twain Papers and Project, which is editing everything Twain wrote.

Who became Berkeley's first chancellor when UC reorganised into campuses in 1952?

Clark Kerr, later president of the whole UC system, defended free speech by saying the university's job was to make students safe for ideas, not ideas safe for students.

To repay its $445 million stadium debt, what did Cal plan to sell?

Premium 30-year seats in the Endowment Seating Program were meant to repay the debt, but sales fell well short of the university's goal.

What did the state's 1876 'mile limit law' ban within a mile of the new university?

'Sale or public consumption of alcohol' is the answer: the 1876 mile limit law barred liquor sales within a mile of campus, keeping saloons out of the district for decades.

In 2012, Berkeley became what is thought to be the first US city to officially recognise which day?

Celebrate Bisexuality Day was started in 1999 by three bisexual activists, as a way to fight bias against bisexual people from both straight and gay communities.

Which company ran the first electric interurban trains from Berkeley to a San Francisco ferry pier in 1903?

The Key System opened its first electric line in October 1903, running from Berkeley to a pier where ferries met the trains; from 1939 its trains crossed the Bay Bridge's lower deck to the Transbay Terminal.

How did Berkeley's population change between the 1900 and 1910 censuses?

It roughly tripled, after the 1906 earthquake drove thousands of refugees to Berkeley.

Which architect designed Berkeley's First Church of Christ, Scientist, completed in 1910?

Bernard Maybeck's church became a National Historic Landmark, and its Friends group later won Getty Foundation and Save America's Treasures grants to restore it.

Which Pacifica radio station has broadcast from Berkeley since 1949?

KPFA pioneered listener-supported radio and once broadcast Allen Ginsberg reading his controversial poem 'Howl'.

In November 2014, Berkeley voters approved the first US tax of what kind?

A soda tax, Measure D, added a cent per ounce to sugary drinks, and later studies found Berkeley residents drank markedly less of them.

On November 8, 1971, Berkeley became the first place in the US to pass what kind of measure?

'A sanctuary resolution' passed on 8 November 1971 offered refuge to sailors from the carrier USS Coral Sea who refused to sail for Vietnam, the first measure of its kind in the country.

Which Berkeley theatre company won the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre?

The Rep, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, created Green Day's American Idiot musical, which moved to Broadway and won two Tony Awards in 2010.

Which philanthropist funded the international competition that produced Berkeley's campus master plan?

Phoebe Apperson Hearst's competition was won by French architect Émile Bénard, but he declined to oversee the work, so John Galen Howard took over.

What is the oldest surviving building on the Berkeley campus, completed in 1873?

South Hall was built to house the College of Agriculture, but the campus's oldest building now houses the School of Information.

The Big 'C' on Charter Hill was built in 1905 by two classes to replace which brawling campus tradition?

Rush pitted freshmen against sophomores in a race up the hill that often turned into a wrestling match, so the classes united to build the C instead.

Whose arrest in Sproul Plaza in 1964 set off the events that became the Free Speech Movement?

Jack Weinberg's arrest ended in a standoff, as students sat around the police car holding him for 32 hours.