California

California is called the "Golden State". Its population is 33,871,648, it's the biggest population in the U.S. Its size is 155,973 square miles. The capitol is Sacramento, the motto is "Eureka" it means "I found it". The state tree is the redwoods, the bird is the California Valley Quail, and the flower is the California Poppy. The present governor is Arnold Scharzenegger. It has eight regions: Klamath Mountain, Coast Ranges, Central Valley, Cascade Mountains, Sierra Nevada, the Basin and Range Region, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

California is very vulnerable to earth quakes because of the big rock plates underneath the whole state. One earth quake almost destroyed San Francisco in 1903. 90% of California's population live in urban areas.

	Death Valley is California's most popular desert in California, it's 282 feet below sea level, it's the lowest place in the United States. It was established on February 11, 1933. It gets up to 134 degrees Fahrenheit. It only has up to 3 inches of rain per year.
	The Golden Gate Bridge was designed in 1916 by Joseph B. Strauss. It was opened in 1937, it was designed a suspension bridge and it cost 27 million dollars! It's 8,981 feet long, and the length of the steel wires used in the cables is enough to circle the earth 3 times!

Alcatraz is an island off of the coast of California, it's a very bad prison for only the worst criminals went to. It's out in the bay so even if a prisoner managed to escape, they wouldn't be able to make it to the mainland, there were many attempts to escape, but nobody never ever did.

Frank Wathername was the last prisoner to ever leave Alcatraz. On July 23, 1956, Floyd P. Wilson was serving a life sentence because he was a murderer, he got 25 feet of cord when he was doing work, he began tying up driftwood he collected to make a raft. When he was discovered missing, the guards sounded the alarm. When he heard the alarm, he abandoned his raft idea and hit in a crevice in the rock, he hid there for nearly for 12 hours and was repeatedly hurled at the wall by the waves. Finally bruised and tired, he turned himself in.

Alcatraz was closed on march 21, 1963. The land was up for sale, but nobody wanted to buy it, there was talk about a second statue of liberty, or a memorial to honor the United States. Today, closed and deteriorating, it's a tourist attraction and receives over 1.3 million people per year.

Escape number 1 was on April 27, 1936. Joseph Bowers didn't get far, he climbed a fence in full view of a guard and was shot and killed. Number 2 was on December 16, 1937. It was the last time either Ralph Roe or Theodore Cole were seen. The sawed through a window in the Model Industries building and disappeared. Attempt number 3 was on May 23,1938, James Lucas, Thomas Limerick, and Rufus Franklin armed themselves with a hammer and clubbed officer Royal Cline to death, then made an assault on the gun tower, the guard killed Limerick and wounded Franklin, Lucas was captured.

Escape number 4 was on January 13, 1939, Arthur "Doc" Barker, Dale Stamphill, Rufus McCain, William Martin, and Henri Young sawed through window bars in D-Block and scrambled to the water's edge. Barker was fatally wounded and the others were captured.