50 Fun Facts About San Francisco Bay Area

Which city is the most populous in the Bay Area, with close to a million residents?

San Jose passed San Francisco as the Bay Area's most populous city at the 1990 census. It began in 1777 as a small farming pueblo, the first civilian settlement in Spanish California.

Which martial arts film star was born in San Francisco in 1940 during his father's opera tour?

Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco but raised in Hong Kong, where his father, a Cantonese opera singer, got him into films as a child actor.

Which treat is the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park said to have first served in America?

Fortune cookies were reportedly first served in America by the garden's caretaker, Makoto Hagiwara, in the early 1900s. San Francisco's Court of Historical Review backed his claim over a Los Angeles rival in 1983.

Which frozen treat did 11-year-old Frank Epperson invent by accident in the Bay Area in 1905?

The Popsicle began when Epperson left a soft-drink mix and its stirring stick outside on a freezing night. He first sold the pops at an Alameda amusement park in 1923.

Which noisy animals have crowded the floating docks at San Francisco's Pier 39 since arriving in 1989?

Sea lions began hauling out on the marina's K-Dock in late 1989, and by January 1990 they were arriving in droves and had taken the dock over from the boat owners.

What kind of natural feature is the Golden Gate, which gave San Francisco's famous bridge its name?

A strait linking San Francisco Bay to the Pacific, the Golden Gate was named in 1846 by John C. Frémont, who compared it to the Golden Horn harbor of ancient Byzantium.

Which San Francisco merchant teamed up with tailor Jacob Davis to patent riveted work pants in 1873?

Levi Strauss was a dry-goods wholesaler when Davis, a Reno tailor and one of his customers, asked for help patenting the rivet idea that became blue jeans.

Which sitcom's opening credits show the Painted Ladies, the row of Victorian homes on San Francisco's Alamo Square?

Full House and its sequel Fuller House both show the Steiner Street row in their credits. The homes have appeared in an estimated 70 films, TV shows and ads.

Which Bay Area stadium, longtime home of the Giants and 49ers, hosted the Beatles' last full public concert?

Candlestick Park heard the Beatles' final 33-minute set on August 29, 1966, and the band's press officer taped it at their request.

Which Chicago gangster, jailed for tax evasion, was moved to the newly opened Alcatraz prison in August 1934?

Al Capone behaved well enough on the island to play banjo in the prison band, the Rock Islanders, which gave Sunday concerts for the other inmates.

The Golden Gate Bridge is painted in a shade officially called International what?

Orange it is: architect Irving Morrow chose International Orange over a US Navy suggestion to paint the bridge in black and yellow stripes.

Where in San Francisco Bay did an immigration station hold new arrivals, mostly from Asia, from 1910 to 1940?

Angel Island, sometimes called the Ellis Island of the West, was built to enforce the Chinese Exclusion Act. About 100,000 Chinese and 85,000 Japanese immigrants passed through.

Which San Francisco street on Russian Hill squeezes eight hairpin turns into a single steep block?

Lombard got its curves in 1922 to tame a natural 27 percent grade that was too steep for most vehicles of the day.

Which San Francisco vehicles, first run on Clay Street in 1873, are the last manually operated ones of their kind?

Cable cars were the idea of Andrew Hallidie, reportedly after he watched a horse-drawn car slide backwards down a wet hill. Only three of the original 23 lines survive.

Which 1933 Art Deco landmark on San Francisco's Telegraph Hill was funded by a socialite's bequest?

Coit Tower is often said to resemble a fire-hose nozzle in tribute to its donor's love of firefighters, but the likeness is a coincidence.

Which national monument in Marin County protects a grove of old-growth coast redwoods?

Muir Woods survived because William Kent bought the canyon with borrowed money to stop logging, then donated the grove to the nation to block a planned dam.

Which fault, where the Pacific and North American plates meet, ruptured in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake?

San Andreas was first identified in 1895 by Berkeley geologist Andrew Lawson, who after the 1906 disaster worked out that the fault ran all the way into Southern California.

Which rail system, running since 1972, crosses beneath San Francisco Bay through the Transbay Tube?

BART first ran only between Oakland's MacArthur station and Fremont. Its trains did not cross under the bay until the tube opened in 1974.

San Francisco International Airport is owned by the city but actually sits on land in which county?

San Mateo is where the runways lie, on unincorporated land about 12 miles southeast of the city, yet the airport keeps a San Francisco mailing address.

Which large animals have grazed in a paddock in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park since 1891?

Bison came to the park when its commission bought a small herd, and a breeding program there went on to produce more than 100 calves.

What caused most of the destruction in San Francisco in the days after the 1906 earthquake struck?

Fires raged for several days and caused at least 80 percent of the destruction. Some were started by firefighters untrained in dynamite as they blew up buildings to make firebreaks.

What name is given to the 1989 earthquake that hit the Bay Area moments before a World Series game?

Loma Prieta is the peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains nearest the epicenter. The quake killed 63 people, 42 of them when a double-deck Oakland freeway collapsed.

What was the settlement of San Francisco called until an 1847 proclamation gave it its present name?

Yerba Buena means good herb in Spanish, after a wild mint that grew thickly around the cove where the village stood.

Which organization's founding charter was signed in San Francisco in June 1945 by delegates from 50 countries?

The United Nations took shape at a two-month conference in the city, where delegates drafted the charter and then signed it in the Veterans' Memorial Hall.

Which San Francisco neighborhood drew as many as 100,000 young people for the 1967 Summer of Love?

Haight-Ashbury filled with hippies a decade after the Beat writers had made nearby North Beach a bohemian magnet. A council formed that spring gave the summer its name.

Which San Francisco supervisor, elected in 1977, was the first openly gay man to win public office in California?

Harvey Milk served less than a year before he and Mayor George Moscone were shot dead in City Hall by a former supervisor.

Which political organization did Huey Newton and Bobby Seale found in Oakland in October 1966?

The Black Panther Party began by monitoring Oakland police and went on to run a free breakfast program for children, first out of a local church.

Which San Francisco eccentric declared himself Emperor of the United States in 1859 and issued his own money?

Joshua Norton paid for meals with his own scrip, which some restaurants accepted. The few surviving notes now sell for more than $10,000 at auction.

Which San Francisco bank did two American Express founders start in 1852 to serve Gold Rush California?

Wells Fargo was born when Henry Wells and William Fargo found that their first company had no interest in serving California, so they set up a second one.

Which San Francisco neighborhood behind the Dragon Gate on Grant Avenue is the oldest of its kind in North America?

Chinatown is also one of the largest Chinese enclaves outside Asia, and its Tin How Temple, founded in the early 1850s, is among the oldest Chinese temples still operating in the United States.

Which type of bread has San Francisco's Boudin Bakery made since 1849 with the same Gold Rush starter?

Sourdough made Boudin famous: founder Isidore Boudin blended the tangy bread of the gold miners with French techniques, and the bakery is billed as the city's oldest continually operating business.

Which seafood stew did Italian immigrant fishermen from North Beach create in San Francisco in the late 1800s?

Cioppino was built around the catch of the day, typically Dungeness crab, clams, shrimp and squid, by fishermen who worked off Meiggs Wharf, many of them from Genoa.

Which rum cocktail did Victor Bergeron claim to have invented in 1944 at his Trader Vic's restaurant in Oakland?

The Mai Tai is said to take its name from a Tahitian word for good. Rival bar owner Donn Beach insisted he had mixed the drink first, back in 1933.

Which San Francisco neighborhood gave its name to the oversized, foil-wrapped burrito born there in the 1960s?

The Mission style, a large flour tortilla folded around its fillings and served in aluminum foil, has since spread widely across the United States and Canada.

Which chef opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley in 1971 and helped launch the farm-to-table movement?

Alice Waters started the restaurant with a Berkeley literature professor and built its menus around fresh, seasonal food bought directly from local farmers.

Which company began in 1939 in a Palo Alto garage now called the birthplace of Silicon Valley?

Hewlett-Packard was named with a coin toss, and one of its first customers was Walt Disney Studios, which bought eight audio oscillators to prepare theaters for Fantasia.

Which Silicon Valley city is home to Apple Park, the ring-shaped headquarters nicknamed the spaceship?

Cupertino heard the plan from Steve Jobs himself, who presented it to the city council in June 2011. About 80 percent of the finished site is green space.

Which English sea captain is believed to have landed near Point Reyes in 1579, claiming the land as Nova Albion?

Francis Drake had been raiding Spanish ships and needed a safe harbor to ready the Golden Hind for the long voyage home around the world.

Which Native American people lived along the coast from San Francisco Bay to Monterey Bay when the Spanish arrived?

Ohlone groups were long called Costanoans, from the Spanish for coast dweller, and spoke a family of related languages rather than a single tongue.

In which wine country town did American settlers raise the Bear Flag in June 1846 to declare a California Republic?

Sonoma was the seat of a breakaway republic for just 25 days, until a US Navy lieutenant raised the American flag in front of the town barracks.

Which 49ers quarterback won all four of his Super Bowl starts and was named the game's MVP three times?

Joe Montana arrived from Notre Dame in 1979 and threw 11 touchdown passes without a single interception across those four title games.

Which Golden State Warriors star was named the NBA's first unanimous Most Valuable Player in 2016?

Stephen Curry took every first-place vote that year. He had played his college ball at little Davidson, which had recruited him since the tenth grade.

Which center fielder, nicknamed the Say Hey Kid, came west with the Giants when they moved to San Francisco?

Willie Mays had already made one of baseball's most famous plays, an over-the-shoulder catch in the 1954 World Series, while the Giants were still a New York team.

What is the annual football meeting between Stanford and Cal, first played in 1892, traditionally called?

The Big Game winner has taken home the Stanford Axe since 1933, a trophy that both sides have stolen from each other on several occasions.

Which big-wave surf break near Half Moon Bay is named after a German Shepherd that swam out with surfers?

Mavericks honors Maverick, a roommate's white-haired dog who had to be tied up on shore when the water got too rough, yet seemed to enjoy the outing most.

Which rock band led by Jerry Garcia formed in Palo Alto in 1965 as the Warlocks?

The Grateful Dead played their first show at a Menlo Park pizza parlor and changed names on learning that another band had already put out a record as the Warlocks.

Which soul singer began writing a number-one hit about a dock on a rented Sausalito houseboat in 1967?

Otis Redding recorded the song just three days before he died in a plane crash, and it became the first posthumous number-one single in the US.

Which North Beach bookstore, co-founded by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti in 1953, published Allen Ginsberg's Howl?

City Lights opened as the first all-paperback bookstore in the US and won national fame when Ferlinghetti was put on trial for obscenity over the poem.

Which Marin County peak is regarded as the birthplace of mountain biking in the 1970s?

Mount Tamalpais was the playground of early riders such as Gary Fisher, Charlie Kelly and Joe Breeze, and pioneer frame builders set up shops in the towns nearby.

Which tidal lagoon in the heart of Oakland became the first official wildlife refuge in the United States in 1870?

Lake Merritt was dammed by Oakland mayor Samuel Merritt, who then pushed for the refuge to protect its birds from duck hunters and to stop gunfire so close to town.