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Short Stuff: How California Got Its Name · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and there's Jerry out there, and this is
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: short Stuff California. Here we come right back where we
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: started from. I love California, as you know. It's uh.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I lived in l A, but I'd love northern California.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I think Emily and I have designs on maybe even
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: retiring there one day. Maybe there are people I don't know.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, somewhere in Wine Country would be just lovely. Man,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: that would be so nice. Now. I saw the soap
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: one time called Santa Barbara, and it looks real nice there.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Santa Barbara is awesome. Um, yeah, I don't know. I mean,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: it depends on what happens with with Ruby. You know,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: we don't want to we've kind of pledged to follow
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: her around. Oh yeah, so I'm gonna tell her how
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: great San Francisco is. Take her there a lot. So
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: maybe she'll want to end up in San Francisco and
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: then we can be nearby in Sonoma or something. Yeah.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I'm sure she's going to love that. She's really going
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: to grow up to look forward to being really close
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: to her parents for her whole life. She's going to
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: end up a Republican in Michigan. Just you watch Mark
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: my words. Yeah, she does have a Detroit edge to
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  Speaker 1: her nice So um, obviously, Chuck, we're talking about California
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and where the whole thing got its name. Um, and
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: apparently no one fully knows what we're going to talk about.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Is a um An interpretation that's been around since the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century, but it's pretty pretty widely considered as the
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: correct answer. But no one wrote down like, this is
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: what California is named after, and some earlier attempts to
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: explain it is that it was derived from the Arabic
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: word caliph, as in Caliphate there's a Greek word called
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: callos that means beautiful. And then some people said, no, no,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: it's after caliente, which means hot, and furnace, which is
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: means furnace. So California is a hot furnace, and everybody's
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: just like, just go back to bed rather lovely, actually
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: restart this day, man. Um. So there's this guy in
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I think the eighteen forties or eighteen fifties who he
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: was like an amateur historian. He wrote a paper saying, um,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: this is where I think California comes from are he said,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: this is pretty good, man. Yeah, I think this makes
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of sense. Uh. There was an author named
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Garcia Rodriguez de Montalbo of Seville, Spanish writer who wrote
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: a novel called I'm uh man, I was doing so
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: good Amadis de Gala or Amadis of Gaul, and Amadis was,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I guess, sort of an action hero of the time.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: And the book was really big, so much so that uh,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Montalbo wrote a sequel to the book featuring the son
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: of Amadis uh Las Serga's Day Esplandian or the Exploits
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: of Esplandian. And this is just sort of a setup
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: of these books and a very kind of neat little
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: factoid that lies within. Yeah. Like these two books right here,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: we're like Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton all rolled together
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: like they reached in huge. I've heard it, like that
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: is it? They were huge? I've always said, but I
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: have no until just a minute ago, but I've heard it.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I've heard it as Christian. Let's say how about this.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Let's say Tom Clancy and um uh Laura Ingles Wilder
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: mashed together like that is the level of popularity that
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: these books had in the in the early sixteenth century,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I think um. And so we mentioned the first one
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: because the second one is where California possibly comes from,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: or the name California comes from. Because in Las cergust
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: esplandian Um, the the a lot of the action is
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: the sacking of the town of Constantinople, held then by
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the Turks by a bunch of different um countries and
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: nations and armies UM sacking the city together UM as allies.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: And one of them is a group of basically Amazonian
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: women who bear a striking resemblance to the Amazons that
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: produced Diana Oka, a wonder woman. But in this case
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: these um these women were led these women warriors were
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: led by a queen Califia, so yeah, looks familiar. They
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: were very strong, They had pet griffins, and they fed
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: men to these griffins, so yeah, their male offspring got
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: fed to the griffins. Pretty cool story. I think it
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: was like the scum manifesto, that's right, which you can
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: find in the book The Stuff You should Note book.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: That is so he described their homeland. Apparently the homeland
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: was called California, And if that's true, then that seems
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  Speaker 1: pretty straightforward to me. Right, Yeah, it definitely does. But
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  Speaker 1: the interesting thing is that that's not really the end
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  Speaker 1: of the story. There's a lot more to it. And
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: this antiquarian basically said, here's here's basically proof, and I
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: think we'll we'll take a break and then talk about
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: that in a minute. How about that sounds good? M hm, So, Chuck,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: we were saying that, Um, in the book Let's Cergus
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Indian that they mentioned that Queen Califia is from California.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: That's the name of this mystical land where, um, there
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: are all these beautiful cliffs. They only metal to be found,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: there is gold. And so all of the all of
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: the warriors under Queen Califia UM war like golden armor
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  Speaker 1: and um, while they were flying around on their griffins. Um,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: it was just kind of like this mystical place basically
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: paradise on Earth. Right. And so when the Spanish showed
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: up around the time that these books were at the
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: peak of their popularity, UM, we can assume that some
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: of them would be familiar with this wildly popular work
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and the um land of California that was described in Yeah,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: and that they might have literally brought these books over. Um.
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  Speaker 1: The Spanish believed there's an area south uh in southern California,
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  Speaker 1: kind of um, like as far south as you can get,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: called Baja California. And I think that's actually Mexico, right,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: or is that part of California it is? Well, I
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: think there's Baja California and there's Baja Mexico, and I think, okay,
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  Speaker 1: there's just like the border goes right through it. As
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: far as I know. I've never been down there. Um.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I always wanted to, but Emily and I were so
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: broke when we lived in l A that we didn't
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: do a ton of traveling throughout California. We did most
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: of that since we've moved, ironically, but um, Baja California
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: they thought was an island, just like the island where
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Queen uh Califia or Califia lived in the novel, and
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: so they called, you know, these European colonizers called it California. Um.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: They later learned that it was not an island. Actually
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  Speaker 1: it's a peninsula and Baja means lower California. And then
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the upper part was named as Alta California. UM. Not
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: to be confused with what we think of as northern, northern,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: and southern California. It was literally like sort of what
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: we think of as Mexico and just California. Yeah, And
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: so initially when they came upon Baja, they thought Baja
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: was an island, not a peninsula. Didn't figure that out,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: so they didn't call Baja Baja California. They just called
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: it California because in the book, California was an island
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: as well, right, But it wasn't until that expedition where
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: they're like, oh, there's this thing just keeps on going,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: um that they came up with Baja California and all
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: to California, and then all to California just became California.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: That's what everybody calls California now, right. But it gets
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: a little more interesting too, because the word California goes
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: back supposedly even further. They think this book was written
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: in ten but apparently the author of the book based
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: part of it on the Song of Rowland, which is
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: a French poem written in the eleventh century about Charlemagne
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: in the eighth century. And in this poem, Charlemagne list
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people that he expected to like combat
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  Speaker 1: him and come after him and rebel against him, including
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: men of Africa. This is in votes men of Africa
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: and those of Califern or Califerni. Either way, c A
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  Speaker 1: l I F E r n E. Califerni is with
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  Speaker 1: the people in the ozarks called California today. Did you
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: have you've been thinking of that joke for the best day,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: my friend, It literally rolled out of my brain. Kudos, kudos,
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  Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. So you've got Charlemagne worried about Califernie,
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  Speaker 1: and people said, well, what is Califerni um in this
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Song of Roland? And it turns out that at the
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: time when the Song of Roland was popular, um, would
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: you say the eleventh century, eleventh and twelfth century? I
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: guess eleven centuries when it was written, okay, so um,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: people were very, very familiar with the town that was
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: basically called Californy, like they were. He was referring to
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: the author of the Song of Roland was referring to
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: a real place into what's today um Algeria, but at
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the time was considered the Barbary Coast, and there was
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: a there were basically fortified settlements that were called generically
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Cola or calat and um. They often would be they
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: combine that word meaning like today you call it, like
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: you know, fort josh if I founded it fortified town.
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  Speaker 1: This virtually what we're talking about here. And one of
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: these particular places, actually very magnificent, seemingly wealthy place was
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: founded by a warrior named Benny Hamad Bennie Hammad, not
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Benny like Benny Hill, ben I Hamad, and he named um.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: He was followed by a group called the Benny if
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  Speaker 1: Friend and Um. Now we kind of start to very
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  Speaker 1: get the root of where California came from. That's right,
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  Speaker 1: But Kela, I think Cola was just sort of a
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  Speaker 1: prefix for a lot of different places right at the time.
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  Speaker 1: The fortified town. It's like what we would say instead
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: of fort they would they said Cola. Yeah, so Cola
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  Speaker 1: if Rin, which could be sort of loosely looked at
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  Speaker 1: as maybe California that actually crumbled in the twelfth century
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  Speaker 1: after the Song of Roland, not too long after the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Song of Roland was written. And I guess they think
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  Speaker 1: what I don't see as the connection. I mean, do
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: you think he lifted that all those years later for
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: his book? That seems a bit of a stretch. Yeah, No,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think so there this famous, this
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  Speaker 1: North African city calla calla freen Um was very very famous,
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  Speaker 1: like in Europe, Like the Europeans knew all about this.
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  Speaker 1: It was almost like Um, like a city of gold almost.
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  Speaker 1: It was extremely wealthy Um. So it's entirely possible that
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: it survived, you know, knowledge of this thing survived a
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: few hundred years or kind of morphed into Um. This
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  Speaker 1: a generic term for like a paradise on Earth, so
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: like this guy might have just grabbed this term, possibly
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: without knowing its origin. But then what's interesting is that
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: got morphed into the state of California, and everybody forgot
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  Speaker 1: that origin too, So it's basically a famous North African city.
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  Speaker 1: Was cited in the song of Roland, which ended up
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  Speaker 1: in the Las Sergas state as Blondean, which ended up
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  Speaker 1: as the name for California. As far as we can tell,
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  Speaker 1: I love it. I do too. I'm buying it big time.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I'll buy it twice on Sunday. Uh. And since I
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: said that everybody short, stuff is out. Stuff you should
• 12:32
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• 12:35
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