WEBVTT - Short Stuff: How California Got Its Name 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:06.600 Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:09.800 there's Chuck and there's Jerry out there, and this is 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:14.640 short Stuff California. Here we come right back where we 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:21.799 started from. I love California, as you know. It's uh. 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.520 I lived in l A, but I'd love northern California. 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:29.000 I think Emily and I have designs on maybe even 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:34.760 retiring there one day. Maybe there are people I don't know. 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:37.560 I mean, somewhere in Wine Country would be just lovely. Man, 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:39.720 that would be so nice. Now. I saw the soap 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.480 one time called Santa Barbara, and it looks real nice there. 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.239 Santa Barbara is awesome. Um, yeah, I don't know. I mean, 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:49.640 it depends on what happens with with Ruby. You know, 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.600 we don't want to we've kind of pledged to follow 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.240 her around. Oh yeah, so I'm gonna tell her how 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:58.880 great San Francisco is. Take her there a lot. So 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:01.440 maybe she'll want to end up in San Francisco and 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.920 then we can be nearby in Sonoma or something. Yeah. 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:07.600 I'm sure she's going to love that. She's really going 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:09.560 to grow up to look forward to being really close 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:13.520 to her parents for her whole life. She's going to 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.800 end up a Republican in Michigan. Just you watch Mark 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:19.520 my words. Yeah, she does have a Detroit edge to 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:25.000 her nice So um, obviously, Chuck, we're talking about California 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.760 and where the whole thing got its name. Um, and 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.839 apparently no one fully knows what we're going to talk about. 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:35.720 Is a um An interpretation that's been around since the 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.640 nineteenth century, but it's pretty pretty widely considered as the 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:42.920 correct answer. But no one wrote down like, this is 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:47.800 what California is named after, and some earlier attempts to 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:51.200 explain it is that it was derived from the Arabic 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:55.760 word caliph, as in Caliphate there's a Greek word called 0:01:55.840 --> 0:02:01.559 callos that means beautiful. And then some people said, no, no, 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:06.240 it's after caliente, which means hot, and furnace, which is 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.680 means furnace. So California is a hot furnace, and everybody's 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:13.200 just like, just go back to bed rather lovely, actually 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:17.600 restart this day, man. Um. So there's this guy in 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:21.600 I think the eighteen forties or eighteen fifties who he 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.799 was like an amateur historian. He wrote a paper saying, um, 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:29.560 this is where I think California comes from are he said, 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:32.480 this is pretty good, man. Yeah, I think this makes 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.840 a lot of sense. Uh. There was an author named 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:42.239 Garcia Rodriguez de Montalbo of Seville, Spanish writer who wrote 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.600 a novel called I'm uh man, I was doing so 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:51.680 good Amadis de Gala or Amadis of Gaul, and Amadis was, 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:55.000 I guess, sort of an action hero of the time. 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:58.400 And the book was really big, so much so that uh, 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.160 Montalbo wrote a sequel to the book featuring the son 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:07.359 of Amadis uh Las Serga's Day Esplandian or the Exploits 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:10.560 of Esplandian. And this is just sort of a setup 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:12.880 of these books and a very kind of neat little 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:16.160 factoid that lies within. Yeah. Like these two books right here, 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:21.200 we're like Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton all rolled together 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.040 like they reached in huge. I've heard it, like that 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:29.600 is it? They were huge? I've always said, but I 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:33.360 have no until just a minute ago, but I've heard it. 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.640 I've heard it as Christian. Let's say how about this. 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:42.440 Let's say Tom Clancy and um uh Laura Ingles Wilder 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:46.160 mashed together like that is the level of popularity that 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:49.400 these books had in the in the early sixteenth century, 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:54.080 I think um. And so we mentioned the first one 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.560 because the second one is where California possibly comes from, 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.040 or the name California comes from. Because in Las cergust 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:06.120 esplandian Um, the the a lot of the action is 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.880 the sacking of the town of Constantinople, held then by 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.760 the Turks by a bunch of different um countries and 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:19.440 nations and armies UM sacking the city together UM as allies. 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:23.800 And one of them is a group of basically Amazonian 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:28.000 women who bear a striking resemblance to the Amazons that 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:32.800 produced Diana Oka, a wonder woman. But in this case 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:36.200 these um these women were led these women warriors were 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:41.840 led by a queen Califia, so yeah, looks familiar. They 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.919 were very strong, They had pet griffins, and they fed 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.320 men to these griffins, so yeah, their male offspring got 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.880 fed to the griffins. Pretty cool story. I think it 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:55.760 was like the scum manifesto, that's right, which you can 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:58.680 find in the book The Stuff You should Note book. 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:03.039 That is so he described their homeland. Apparently the homeland 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:07.040 was called California, And if that's true, then that seems 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.680 pretty straightforward to me. Right, Yeah, it definitely does. But 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.560 the interesting thing is that that's not really the end 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:15.279 of the story. There's a lot more to it. And 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:21.240 this antiquarian basically said, here's here's basically proof, and I 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.159 think we'll we'll take a break and then talk about 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:55.679 that in a minute. How about that sounds good? M hm, So, Chuck, 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.800 we were saying that, Um, in the book Let's Cergus 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:04.680 Indian that they mentioned that Queen Califia is from California. 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.479 That's the name of this mystical land where, um, there 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.960 are all these beautiful cliffs. They only metal to be found, 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:14.039 there is gold. And so all of the all of 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:18.640 the warriors under Queen Califia UM war like golden armor 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.240 and um, while they were flying around on their griffins. Um, 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.520 it was just kind of like this mystical place basically 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:29.880 paradise on Earth. Right. And so when the Spanish showed 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.160 up around the time that these books were at the 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:37.160 peak of their popularity, UM, we can assume that some 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:40.719 of them would be familiar with this wildly popular work 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:45.480 and the um land of California that was described in Yeah, 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:48.840 and that they might have literally brought these books over. Um. 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:54.360 The Spanish believed there's an area south uh in southern California, 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.680 kind of um, like as far south as you can get, 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.360 called Baja California. And I think that's actually Mexico, right, 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:05.000 or is that part of California it is? Well, I 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.360 think there's Baja California and there's Baja Mexico, and I think, okay, 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:10.760 there's just like the border goes right through it. As 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.720 far as I know. I've never been down there. Um. 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:15.800 I always wanted to, but Emily and I were so 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:18.160 broke when we lived in l A that we didn't 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:21.320 do a ton of traveling throughout California. We did most 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:25.640 of that since we've moved, ironically, but um, Baja California 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.600 they thought was an island, just like the island where 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:33.880 Queen uh Califia or Califia lived in the novel, and 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.920 so they called, you know, these European colonizers called it California. Um. 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:40.360 They later learned that it was not an island. Actually 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:44.480 it's a peninsula and Baja means lower California. And then 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.760 the upper part was named as Alta California. UM. Not 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.320 to be confused with what we think of as northern, northern, 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.200 and southern California. It was literally like sort of what 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:57.560 we think of as Mexico and just California. Yeah, And 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.520 so initially when they came upon Baja, they thought Baja 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:02.840 was an island, not a peninsula. Didn't figure that out, 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.520 so they didn't call Baja Baja California. They just called 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:10.239 it California because in the book, California was an island 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.240 as well, right, But it wasn't until that expedition where 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:15.640 they're like, oh, there's this thing just keeps on going, 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:18.640 um that they came up with Baja California and all 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.880 to California, and then all to California just became California. 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:27.000 That's what everybody calls California now, right. But it gets 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:31.040 a little more interesting too, because the word California goes 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:35.440 back supposedly even further. They think this book was written 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:39.320 in ten but apparently the author of the book based 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.040 part of it on the Song of Rowland, which is 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:46.720 a French poem written in the eleventh century about Charlemagne 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:51.360 in the eighth century. And in this poem, Charlemagne list 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:55.200 a bunch of people that he expected to like combat 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.400 him and come after him and rebel against him, including 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.160 men of Africa. This is in votes men of Africa 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:06.959 and those of Califern or Califerni. Either way, c A 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:09.800 l I F E r n E. Califerni is with 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.600 the people in the ozarks called California today. Did you 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.360 have you've been thinking of that joke for the best day, 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:20.960 my friend, It literally rolled out of my brain. Kudos, kudos, 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:27.079 thank you, thank you. So you've got Charlemagne worried about Califernie, 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:29.840 and people said, well, what is Califerni um in this 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:31.840 Song of Roland? And it turns out that at the 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.000 time when the Song of Roland was popular, um, would 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:37.360 you say the eleventh century, eleventh and twelfth century? I 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:41.240 guess eleven centuries when it was written, okay, so um, 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:45.120 people were very, very familiar with the town that was 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:48.480 basically called Californy, like they were. He was referring to 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:51.000 the author of the Song of Roland was referring to 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:55.800 a real place into what's today um Algeria, but at 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.120 the time was considered the Barbary Coast, and there was 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:05.080 a there were basically fortified settlements that were called generically 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:10.559 Cola or calat and um. They often would be they 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:13.839 combine that word meaning like today you call it, like 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:17.800 you know, fort josh if I founded it fortified town. 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.840 This virtually what we're talking about here. And one of 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:26.480 these particular places, actually very magnificent, seemingly wealthy place was 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:30.880 founded by a warrior named Benny Hamad Bennie Hammad, not 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:35.680 Benny like Benny Hill, ben I Hamad, and he named um. 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:37.680 He was followed by a group called the Benny if 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:42.719 Friend and Um. Now we kind of start to very 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.680 get the root of where California came from. That's right, 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.520 But Kela, I think Cola was just sort of a 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:51.560 prefix for a lot of different places right at the time. 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.360 The fortified town. It's like what we would say instead 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.319 of fort they would they said Cola. Yeah, so Cola 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:01.480 if Rin, which could be sort of loosely looked at 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:05.959 as maybe California that actually crumbled in the twelfth century 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.520 after the Song of Roland, not too long after the 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:12.160 Song of Roland was written. And I guess they think 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.160 what I don't see as the connection. I mean, do 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.920 you think he lifted that all those years later for 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:21.520 his book? That seems a bit of a stretch. Yeah, No, 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.240 I don't know. I think so there this famous, this 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:29.480 North African city calla calla freen Um was very very famous, 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.600 like in Europe, Like the Europeans knew all about this. 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.400 It was almost like Um, like a city of gold almost. 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:41.160 It was extremely wealthy Um. So it's entirely possible that 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:44.400 it survived, you know, knowledge of this thing survived a 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:48.520 few hundred years or kind of morphed into Um. This 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:53.880 a generic term for like a paradise on Earth, so 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.840 like this guy might have just grabbed this term, possibly 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:00.400 without knowing its origin. But then what's interesting is that 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.840 got morphed into the state of California, and everybody forgot 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.880 that origin too, So it's basically a famous North African city. 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:10.760 Was cited in the song of Roland, which ended up 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:15.280 in the Las Sergas state as Blondean, which ended up 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.880 as the name for California. As far as we can tell, 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.280 I love it. I do too. I'm buying it big time. 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:24.800 I'll buy it twice on Sunday. Uh. And since I 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:32.160 said that everybody short, stuff is out. Stuff you should 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.040 know is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.959 for my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:39.680 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.