Welcome back to the Learn English Podcast, the podcast teaching English in context so you can learn naturally.
On today's episode, I want to talk a little bit about my home state of California.
I have mentioned it here before on the podcast that I am a teacher and I'm from the United States and specifically California.
Last year I did an episode celebrating the anniversary of California becoming a state and I wanted to do that again.
California became a state on September 9th, 1850.
That means it is almost the 175th anniversary of California becoming a state.
On today's episode, I want to talk about three of these really iconic landmarks from my state.
I'm going to talk about the history and, of course, help you build your English vocabulary.
So if you're interested in learning about these iconic Californians landmarks, then follow along, because we're about to begin.
Before we get started, I want to remind you to look at the description of this podcast episode.
There you will find a list of the words and phrases that I used in the episode, so you can take them, study them and build your English vocabulary.
Now let's talk about some of these iconic California landmarks.
These are things that are really recognizable, that everyone knows are part of California and, of course, they're very popular tourist sites.
Maybe you have visited them, if you've ever been to the state or if you're ever planning on visiting the state.
Maybe these are some things that you would like to see.
We're going to start with the first one, and it's in Northern California, in San Francisco, and it is the Golden Gate Bridge.
I will leave a link for the episode that I did last year on the anniversary of California becoming a state.
But I mentioned in that episode that the reason California became a state was in part because of a gold rush that happened in 1849.
A gold rush means that it was thought that there was gold in the area and a bunch of people rushed over to that area to try to become rich.
And they tried to get all of the gold that was in that particular area.
That is a gold rush.
That gold rush was up in Northern California.
And that's one of the reasons why California is called the Golden State and why this bridge is called the Golden Gate Bridge.
The golden gate bridge is located in san francisco bay and prior to it being constructed, it was actually really difficult to get from one part of the bay to the other.
So at the time, the only way to get from one side of the bay to the other was to take a ferry, and this was difficult because the ferries tended to be a little bit slower And also they really depended on the weather.
If you have ever been to San Francisco, you know that San Francisco is famous for its fog.
Fog is when you have a lot of water droplets in the air and it makes it so you can't see very far.
It limits your visibility.
San Francisco Bay is really known for having this dense water fog a lot of the year because the ferries had to go across the bay on the water, they had to deal with this fog and if there was bad weather, if there was some type of storm, then the ferries would not be able to run.
You couldn't go from one side to the other.
In the 1920s cars became more popular.
I did an episode on the 1920s and the vocabulary and the things that happened in that decade.
I will leave a link for that episode as well.
So you can listen to that if you're interested.
But again, I talked about this.
I talked about how cars became more popular because of the Ford Model T that was released at that time.
That was much more affordable.
So more people were able to buy it.
As cars became more popular, there really was this increasing demand to go across the bay via car.
Now, in 1929, there was this stock market crash that led to the Great Depression in the United States and in many countries all over the world.
And during the Depression, a lot of people did not have work.
It was really difficult for people to find jobs.
This idea of a bridge was thought of to be a way to connect one side of the bay to the other, but also a way to help employ people.
A lot of people would be needed to help build the bridge and it was thought that this could help give jobs, create jobs for people and really help people during this tough economic time.
But this was going to be a very challenging task.
The bay is 17 miles, which is about 27 kilometers across, and at the time it was thought that this would be a very difficult thing to build.
No bridge had ever been that long in length before.
However, the chief engineer, Joseph Strauss, promised that it could be done safely, and construction began in 1933.
It did create jobs because a lot of people were needed to help build the bridge, but they did have to work in very dangerous conditions.
There was a lot of wind, a lot of fog and the workers were working very high up in the air trying to construct this bridge to help keep people safe.
There was a safety net that was installed underneath where the workers were working at the time.
This meant that if they did fall down for any reason, they would land in a net instead of having a more dangerous outcome of actually falling in the water.
It took four years, but the bridge was completed on May 27, 1937 and it was the longest suspension bridge in the world.
It actually remained the longest suspension bridge for decades, as it had a span of about 4200 feet, which is around 2800 meters.
One of the most recognizable things about the bridge is the color.
Even though it is called the Golden Gate Bridge, it is actually not golden in color.
The color that it is painted is called International Orange.
The reason this color was selected was that it was thought that that color, that International Orange color, blended well in with the landscape of the time, the colors that were in the soil and in the nature around San Francisco, and also because it gave the bridge more visibility.
Like we've discussed, San Francisco Bay has a lot of fog and they really wanted to select a color that would stand out and would give sailors more visibility.
So there weren't any accidents, so that people didn't accidentally run into the bridge when they were trying to enter into the bay.
And that color is still being reapplied to the bridge to this day.
The bridge, because it is above salt water, has to deal with corrosion.
Corrosion means that the metal that's in the bridge breaks down over time And the paint that is applied to it helps protect it, helps keep the salt water away from the metal.
For that reason, there are actually workers who go onto the Golden Gate Bridge every day.
They do inspections for safety and they work on the most corroded and damaged parts of the bridge.
They repair it and paint it.
So the bridge is constantly being repainted to help maintain the bridge and make sure that it remains safe to use.
The bridge itself has been in numerous TV shows and movies.
Anything that is based in San Francisco almost always will show the bridge in the background.
Think of Star Trek, for example, or any other movie or TV show that you've ever seen, based in San Francisco.
And that's made it a very popular tourist site.
If you want to visit the bridge, you can go to the Welcome Center.
There you can see photos, engineering models, and learn some more about the history of the bridge.
And you can also walk it or bike ride on it pedestrian path that you can go on and, of course, get really nice photos, take photos of yourself or of the view and, of course, if you want to take pictures of the bridge, you can go to the golden gate bridge viewpoint, hawk hill or fort point and take pictures of the bridge itself.
For our second iconic place in California, we're actually going to talk about a natural wonder, and that is the Redwood Forest.
The Redwoods are mainly located along the Pacific Coast up in Northern California and there are Redwood National and State Parks.
The Redwood trees are some of the tallest and oldest living things on Earth.
It's estimated that some of them have actually been alive for over 2,000 years.
Before this part of North America was colonized, there were indigenous populations of Native Americans who lived in the redwood areas.
They used the wood for tools and also for spiritual practices.
People who have gone to the redwood forest will say that they have almost a spiritual experience, because the area is so beautiful and because these redwood trees are so tall, it makes you feel very small.
It gives this almost church-like or spiritual quality to a visit there.
With the arrival of the Europeans and the colonization process that took place throughout the 19th century, logging became a very popular practice.
A lot of the great redwood trees were actually cut down to provide timber for growing cities.
By the early 1900s, so many of the redwood trees had been destroyed that there was some concern.
People became concerned that these trees were being cut down and that the redwoods as a species would not be able to survive.
And this really created a conservation movement to try to protect these forests.
Environmentalists and local activists started campaigning and trying to get these trees protected, and that's what eventually led to the redwood national and state parks being established in the 1960s.
This created an area where the redwoods would be protected and hopefully would continue not only to survive but to regrow and have more trees in the future.
That was needed because the redwoods are very important to the local ecosystem.
Because they are so tall, they're called living skyscrapers.
And their height helps them to shelter local plants and animal species that live in that environment.
If you are interested in visiting the Redwood Forest, there's a number of ways to do it.
If you are flying into the area, one of the airports is in Eureka.
Eureka is a city in Northern California and it's a place that you can stay if you are interested in visiting the Redwoods nearby the area.
Of course there's other cities up there as well, but that is a popular one, especially because the airport is there.
The parks themselves are open year round.
I know i have mentioned this before, but california tends to have very nice weather all year round.
Because of the nice weather, the parks are open year round.
It has a very mild climate there, so if you are interested in visiting, really almost any time of the year is a good time to go visit.
There are a number of ways to see the trees.
One is by driving through the redwood forest.
There are a number of scenic drives.
For example, there is one road called Howland Hill Road where you can drive and go around the redwoods.
If you want to get up close to them, there are a number of different walking trails.
One of them is called Lady Bird Johnson Trail where you can get really close to the redwoods.
And if you just want more information, if you want to have a guided tour, there are ranger-led tours at the parks.
The rangers are very knowledgeable.
They will give you information about the trees, about the ecosystem, and it's a way to maybe get a little bit more information and also a way that you can use to ask questions if you want to find out more about the Redwoods.
For our last iconic California symbol.
We're going to go to Southern California, a lot closer to the area where I live in, and we are going to talk about the Hollywood sign.
If you've ever been to Southern California, this might be hard to imagine.
But prior to the 1910s and 1920s, California was not very populated.
Like I said, if you've been here now, Southern California is just a huge mass of cities and people.
California has the largest population of any state in the United States.
About one in eight Americans live in the state of California, so it can be hard to visualize this.
But prior to the 1920s, it was mainly farmland.
There was not a lot of business in the area.
There weren't a lot of people in the area.
It was mainly farmland and orange groves at the time.
Hollywood became part of the Los Angeles area in 1910, but it was a very quiet area.
Hollywood was actually chosen to become the center of American film production because of the mild weather that made it easy to film movies here.
And also because of the diverse landscapes.
California has a very diverse landscape and it's very easy to travel from one landscape to the other so that they could do multiple filming scenes.
They can make different areas look very different because of that diverse landscape that is here.
When American film production really took off in Hollywood.
Of course, the city grew, there became more people and there was a need for more houses.
In 1923, there was actually a developer, Harry Chandler, who built the Hollywood sign.
But it was not the Hollywood sign that we think of today.
The sign at the time actually said Hollywoodland.
And the reason it was built was to advertise this new upscale neighborhood of houses.
Each letter was over 50 feet tall, which is over 15 meters, and the sign was very long and had over 4000 light bulbs.
The original plan was only to have the sign up for 18 months, but because Hollywood was growing so much, the sign actually stayed up for much longer.
Eventually, the sign started representing more than just this new neighborhood of homes.
It became a symbol of the glamour, the excitement, and the dreams of the entertainment world.
However, during the Great Depression, the neighborhood of Hollywood Land started to struggle and the sign started to fall into disrepair.
It really started to break down and fall apart.
In 1949 the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce decided to remove the land part that was at the end of the sign and make it so.
It was a symbol of the entire Hollywood area.
By the late 1970s, the Hollywood sign was in such poor condition and it had fallen apart so much that a number of Hollywood celebrities actually donated money to help rebuild it.
It was rebuilt with steel letters that were meant to last for decades, and that is why we still have the Hollywood sign today.
The sign itself has been featured in numerous TV shows, movies, and commercials.
It is one of the main symbols of Hollywood today.
If you want to visit the Hollywood sign, you actually cannot get that close to it.
It is a very monitored area and police have been known to show up if someone gets too close to the sign.
However, you can hike around the Hollywood sign.
There are a number of trails in Griffith Park that you can use and you can get relatively close to it.
There's also some viewing locations that you can go to to take pictures of.
I would say just be very respectful if you're doing this.
A lot of the places that people go to take pictures of the sign are in neighborhood areas, in residential areas, and that has caused traffic and inconvenience for people who live in those neighborhoods.
Just be mindful of that.
Make sure you know where is a good place to go if you do want to go and visit.
Like I said, you can do a lot of the hiking trails like Hollywood Trail, Brush Canyon Trail, Canyon Drive Trail.
Those are all good options.
You can also go to the Griffith Observatory, which is located in Hollywood, and it is an observatory that is on a hillside.
It has really good views of the Hollywood sign and of Los Angeles in general.
It's another popular place that tours go to, so that is another option you can do if you're interested in viewing that sign.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and learned a little bit about some of these iconic California locations.
If you've ever been to one of these locations, please leave a comment and let me know.
I have lived in California my entire life, but the only one of these locations I've actually been to is the Hollywood sign.
I've never even been to San Francisco.
So if you have been there, leave me a comment.
I definitely want to go visit the Redwood Forest.
I definitely want to go to San Francisco in the future.
I just haven't been able to get up there yet.
If you have, please tell me about it.
And also tell me if you liked this episode.
If you liked learning about some of these tourist locations.
There are a lot of places that people go to in California and, of course, in the United States in general.
So if you want more episodes like this in the future, please let me know.
Leave a comment.
Tell me about it so that way I can plan more episodes like this in the future.
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