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Speaker 1: Fellow Ridiculous Historians, we have an absolute banger of a

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Speaker 1: classic episode for you today. No fooling California doesn't just

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Speaker 1: know how to party. It was also named in a

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Speaker 1: really ridiculous way.

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Speaker 2: Do you think Anthony Ketis knows about this? I hope

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Speaker 2: he does. He really likes California. Yeah, we gotta check

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Speaker 2: the bridge he's under there somewhere. California was in fact

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Speaker 2: admitted to the United States as the thirty first date

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Speaker 2: of eighteen fifty, but it acquired its own unique name

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Speaker 2: a lot earlier. And the provenance of this name is

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Speaker 2: a little more ridiculous than you might think, and it

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Speaker 2: comes from the realms of fiction.

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Speaker 1: And we'll tell you the facts behind it.

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Speaker 2: Let's jump in.

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Hellow Ridiculous Historians.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning in. My name is Ben.

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Speaker 1: I have a question for you as well as my compatriots.

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Speaker 1: Lay it honest brother, all right, Noel super producer Casey

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Speaker 1: Pegrim here's the question. I noticed recently that we have

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Speaker 1: been doing a lot of cool stuff with US states,

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Speaker 1: and today we're going to look at another US state,

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Speaker 1: a large one, a big one. And it inspired me

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Speaker 1: to pitch the following idea. I propose that we Ridiculous

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Speaker 1: History endeavor to do an episode at least one about

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Speaker 1: every US.

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Speaker 2: State, like Sufi Stephens style.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but we'll actually do You think we will though, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because we're not making a whole album.

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Speaker 2: That's true, and we do kind of have to do

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Speaker 2: the show until we keel over. So it's in our contract.

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Speaker 2: That's the language which we signed in blood. Yeah, I'm okay, Ben,

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Speaker 2: I'll raise you one. Let's do one on every state

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Speaker 2: and territory, every state and territory. Yeah, historical territories are

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Speaker 2: current territory. You got me, Ben, I don't know what

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Speaker 2: the difference is. You know what. We'll be there. I

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Speaker 2: bet you will.

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Speaker 1: We'll wrap up our fiftieth state episode and then we'll

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Speaker 1: say we want to do more territories. It'll be a

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Speaker 1: learning adventure. It will be, and we're off to the races.

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Speaker 1: We are traveling today in spirit, in mind to place

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Speaker 1: that both of us love the state of California.

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Speaker 2: I'm a huge fan of California. Yeah, I love it

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Speaker 2: despite the traffic, am I right? Bumper to bumper? The one,

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Speaker 2: the five, the four five, the five oh one. You

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Speaker 2: know what, that's not real? You know yours what's real?

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Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, though, Los Angeles makes me tired.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's such sprawl that it's like it takes forever

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Speaker 2: to get anywhere. I mean, not that we're not used

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Speaker 2: to that here in Atlanta. The traffic's quite bad, but

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Speaker 2: the geography of Los Angeles very spread out. And yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's a bit of a slog to get anywhere. But

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Speaker 2: boy do I enjoy it when I find a cool

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Speaker 2: area that I dig. Like. I've got a friend who

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Speaker 2: was in Highland Park really like that whole area and

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Speaker 2: like Silver Lake and all that stuff. And we actually

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Speaker 2: have a studio there with our comedy division that's right

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Speaker 2: in the heart of Hollywood Boulevard.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it's headed by our pal Jack O'Brien, who

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Speaker 1: was a founder of Cracked dot com.

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Speaker 2: I wonder if Jack O'Brien knows the mythical history of

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Speaker 2: California the name at least he might.

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Speaker 1: He's one smart hostess, Cupcake, but he if he knows

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Speaker 1: this history, he is an exceptional person. Because this was

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Speaker 1: new a hazard to both of us.

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Speaker 2: Hazard away because you're right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So one thing that I think occurs to many

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Speaker 1: school children here in the States, is this moment of

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Speaker 1: epiphany where you're looking around at the name of the

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Speaker 1: state in which you reside, or the names of other states,

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Speaker 1: and you go, hey, that's.

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Speaker 2: A weird word.

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Speaker 1: You know Oklahoma, for instance, that's.

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Speaker 2: A weird word.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, right, California we just all accept as normal. Sure,

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Speaker 1: but it's a strange word.

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Speaker 2: It is. And I think there's this overarching notion that

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Speaker 2: most of the weird word states come from Native American words, right,

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Speaker 2: But that's not entirely true, especially not in today's case.

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Speaker 1: Yes, today we are exploring the strange story of how

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Speaker 1: California became, you know, California, California, California. Yeah, I love

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Speaker 1: that sketch.

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Speaker 2: It's a good sketch.

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Speaker 1: Yes, So right now it's used by the The term

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Speaker 1: California is used by three different places. It's used here

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Speaker 1: in the US. It's the name of the state of California.

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Speaker 1: In Mexico, there are two states. One is called Baja

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Speaker 1: California and then Baja California, sir, So like South Baja California.

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Speaker 2: That's right. I think originally California was called Las California's

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Speaker 2: province of the Vice Royalty of New Spain.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a mouthful doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.

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Speaker 2: No it doesn't. But where did all this California business

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Speaker 2: come from? Then?

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Speaker 1: We were startled to find There were several explanations, but

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Speaker 1: one of the strongest, and the one we want to

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Speaker 1: focus on today, is the idea that the name California

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Speaker 1: came from a work of fiction.

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Speaker 2: It's right, a work of fiction by a gentleman by

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Speaker 2: the name of Garcie Rodriguez de Montevallo. I think that's okay, Casees, Now,

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Speaker 2: we're not gonna consult. He's a Francophone. Yeah, he's not

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Speaker 2: a spania phone. Is that a word? Doesn't matter? Mark

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Speaker 2: Tavallo and he wrote a novel, a romantic, swashbuckling kind

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Speaker 2: of epic, part of a series called Las Sergas Esplandion,

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Speaker 2: which means the Exploits or Adventures of Esplandion.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. This was around the turn of the sixteenth century

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Speaker 1: and largely thought to be inspired by real life stories

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Speaker 1: of explorers traveling to what they called the New World

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Speaker 1: in the fourteen hundreds. Noel, as you said, this is

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Speaker 1: part of a five part series. This was the final

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Speaker 1: book and it featured a specific land. We can go

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Speaker 1: ahead and let's see.

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Speaker 2: You want to hear a quote. We got a little

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Speaker 2: quote about this from the book. Quote away, my man,

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Speaker 2: all right.

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Speaker 1: Know that on the right hand from the Indies exist

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Speaker 1: in islands called California, very close to a side of

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Speaker 1: the earthly Paradise, and it was populated by black women

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Speaker 1: without any man existing there because they lived in the

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Speaker 1: way of the Amazons. They had beautiful and robust bodies

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Speaker 1: and were brave and very strong. Their island was the

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Speaker 1: strongest in the world, with its steep cliffs and rocky shores.

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Speaker 1: Their weapons were golden, and so were the harnesses of

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Speaker 1: the wild beast that they were accustomed to taming, so

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Speaker 1: that they could be ridden, because there was no other

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Speaker 1: metal in the island than gold.

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Speaker 2: That, my friend, was a summary of the recent DC

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Speaker 2: Comics film A Wonder Woman.

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Speaker 1: Right, there are some there are some clear parallels.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: That is from the Exploits of Esplandian, which, as we said,

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Speaker 1: turn in the century. He published it in Severe in

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Speaker 1: fifteen ten.

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Speaker 2: In fact, it's actually it predates Don Quixote by Cervantes,

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Speaker 2: and it's cited in that work as a list of

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Speaker 2: one of the books in Don Quixote's library. So it

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Speaker 2: was a very popular work and folk like, uh oh,

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Speaker 2: I don't know. Hernan Cortes, the famous conquistador, would have

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Speaker 2: been intimately familiar with this story, right.

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Speaker 1: Hernan Cortes, who was a conquistador who led the expedition

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Speaker 1: that brought about the fall of the Aztec Empire and

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Speaker 1: brought lots of what is modern day Mexico under the

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Speaker 1: rule of Spain, he would have been aware of this book.

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Speaker 1: And when the Spanish forces were exploring California, they originally

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Speaker 1: thought that southern peninsula that they ran into, Aha, right,

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Speaker 1: they thought it was an island exactly.

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Speaker 2: I think it was. It was quite a long time

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Speaker 2: before they realized there was more.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a long time. And you can you

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Speaker 1: can see maps from the mid sixteen hundreds and so

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Speaker 1: that depict it as an island. A sort of just

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Speaker 1: imagine the peninsula as if the rest of the.

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Speaker 2: Top of California it doesn't exist exactly. And Cortes was

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Speaker 2: in fact the governor of Mexico at the time, and

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Speaker 2: he sent an expedition to the western coast of California.

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Speaker 2: Pilot Fortune Jimenez actually there was a mutiny too, involving

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Speaker 2: the murder of the expedition leader, Diego Bessera. But this

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Speaker 2: was the first European to sail near what you just described,

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Speaker 2: Ben Baja, California. This was in the year fifteen thirty four,

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Speaker 2: and as you said, mistook it for an island and

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Speaker 2: decided to call it California. Why why Ben, We talked

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Speaker 2: about this story a minute ago. Did we name the

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Speaker 2: character the Queen Ah? Yes, the queen We mentioned her

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Speaker 2: in the quotation Khalifa Khalifa. And the island is called California,

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Speaker 2: and it is ruled by this badass Amazonian type woman

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Speaker 2: with weaponized griffins and all kinds of crazy golden armor

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Speaker 2: and spears. And I think there was a there was

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Speaker 2: a note about they only allowed to come to the

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Speaker 2: island one day a year so they could procreate, and

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Speaker 2: if ever an offspring was a male, they would they

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Speaker 2: would give it the axe or the spear right or

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Speaker 2: drowning in the sea. I don't know. They would cut

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Speaker 2: the kid's life off very early. Take time.

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Speaker 1: And here's one of the fascinating things. This was a

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Speaker 1: work of fiction, right, that's we know clearly it was

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Speaker 1: a work of fiction, but it still inspired Cortes enough

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Speaker 1: to think of this later as California. Now, it's not

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Speaker 1: clear if California had already been named at the time

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Speaker 1: when Cortes led that expedition, but we do know that

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Speaker 1: he had. Originally he had also thought it was an island.

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Speaker 1: He named it Santa Cruz, but the historical records pretty

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Speaker 1: soon after that referred to it as California, named after

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Speaker 1: the fictional land Rodriguez's book. And there's another weird part here.

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Speaker 1: For a long time afterward, it would appear that the

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Speaker 1: connection between this fictional novel and the state what would

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Speaker 1: become the state of California, was lost to history. The

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Speaker 1: novel languish, it was obscure, nobody connected it with the

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Speaker 1: name of California until around eighteen sixty four.

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Speaker 2: That's what I read as well. Yeah, interesting, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: A guy named Edward Everett Hale was translating this novel

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Speaker 1: for the Antiquarian Society, and this translation they did was

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Speaker 1: printed in The Atlantic, and so Hale was trying to

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Speaker 1: figure out how this caliph entered the author's mind at all,

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Speaker 1: and he was thinking, well, maybe it was he was

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Speaker 1: taken a term for a leader of an Islamic community.

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Speaker 2: Oh, you mean like a caliph. Yeah, that's right. There's

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Speaker 2: actually two different ways you'll see it spelled. One is

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Speaker 2: klafia s c A l a fia. Sometimes you'll see

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Speaker 2: it Khalifia. But it does date back to that term caliph,

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Speaker 2: which the Arabic is spelled kh a l I f

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Speaker 2: a h. And then we mangle it up to be

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Speaker 2: c a l iph here in English, but that would

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Speaker 2: be the leader of an Islamic religion or a group

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Speaker 2: or a state, which is interesting. A lot of times

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Speaker 2: religious leaders end up being political leaders as well in

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Speaker 2: that culture.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can read in depth about the Conquistador

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Speaker 1: in California in a book by W. Michael Mathis called

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Speaker 1: The Conquistador in California. This strange relationship between fiction and

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Speaker 1: fact reminds me a little bit of the inspirations we've

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Speaker 1: seen in earlier episodes. But let's stick with Cortes for

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Speaker 1: a second, because he did not have the happiest of live.

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Speaker 2: This is not at all and just a quick aside.

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Speaker 2: Spain does have a big relationship with the Islamic culture.

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Speaker 2: The Iberian Peninsula was actually invaded by Muslim forces in

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Speaker 2: the year seven eleven and eventually conquered the peninsula. So

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Speaker 2: it would make sense that that language would be floating

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Speaker 2: around in the ether there.

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Speaker 1: And there would be what are called loan words, right,

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Speaker 1: that came from Arabic and were incorporated into Spanish. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: And you know, I really appreciate you bringing up that

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Speaker 1: point because for a long time from what seven eleven, well,

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Speaker 1: at various times between seven eleven and fourteen ninety two,

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Speaker 1: there was a caliphate of Cordoba, right, and Islamic Iberia's

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Speaker 1: another name you'll hear thrown around. This was not a

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Speaker 1: solidly Spanish place.

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Speaker 2: Now, and fourteen ninety two, as it turns out, was

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Speaker 2: when a Montevallo wrote the book in question. So give

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Speaker 2: us Cortes, my friend.

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Speaker 1: Ah Cortes, unhappy life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So this expedition to California is one of his last

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Speaker 1: big plays. This in the fifteen thirties. You'll hear anywhere

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Speaker 1: between fifteen thirty four to fifteen thirty six. He was

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Speaker 1: not super popular in Spain. He returned a few years later.

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Speaker 1: And this is just an aside because I just want

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Speaker 1: to show that it wasn't all trumpets and angel farts

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Speaker 1: for this guy. When he returned to Spain in fifteen

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Speaker 1: forty one. He kept trying to get the Emperor to

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Speaker 1: meet with him, means like, I've won so much land

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Speaker 1: for Spain, I've conquered so much territory for you, and

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Speaker 1: no one would talk to him. And it got so

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Speaker 1: bad that he had to follow the Emperor's carriage through

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Speaker 1: town one day and there was a crowd surrounding him.

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Speaker 1: He forced himself through the crowd. He jumped up on

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Speaker 1: the carriage, which you know, imagine a presidential motorcade and

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Speaker 1: and seeing someone run up and try to jump in

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Speaker 1: the car It's essentially what he did. And the Emperor said,

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Speaker 1: who is this man? Who is this incredibly, I guess,

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Speaker 1: rude audacious fellow, and Cortes, according to the record, said,

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Speaker 1: I am a man who has giving you more provinces

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Speaker 1: than your ancestors left you cities. He spent a lot

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Speaker 1: of his own money to finance his expeditions. He was heavily, heavily,

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Speaker 1: heavily in debt, and when he died in fifteen forty seven,

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Speaker 1: his body would later be moved multiple times after his burial,

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Speaker 1: around eight times ugh insult to injury, and when Mexico

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Speaker 1: became independent, it was thought that his body might be desecrated.

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Speaker 1: Just a couple of Cortes facts here. The strangest thing, though,

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Speaker 1: is that when we think of this idea of an

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Speaker 1: island that's so close to the Garden of e right,

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Speaker 1: and it's full of gold, we know the Spanish expeditions

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Speaker 1: were very, very focused on finding those material riches, right.

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Speaker 2: Sure.

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Speaker 1: It seems strange though that they would name this island

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Speaker 1: after something that they had to know to be fictional, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean it's sort of the way. We recently went

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Speaker 2: to a wrestling match out in kind of a rural

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Speaker 2: part of Georgia, and I really got the sense that

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Speaker 2: some of the folks there did not know that it

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Speaker 2: wasn't real, and they were acting accordingly. So you got

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Speaker 2: to wonder, back in these days, even if something was

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Speaker 2: a quote unquote work of fiction, was there maybe a

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Speaker 2: sense that it was written from a place of real

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Speaker 2: discovery and this was like a mythical land they could find,

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Speaker 2: Because that's certainly what I'm seeing that they saw this

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Speaker 2: island and they were like, surely this is the place

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Speaker 2: of note from this the story.

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Speaker 1: Right, yeah, Because it's not as if they could hop

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Speaker 1: on snopes dot com or something and check whether this

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Speaker 1: was real. And we know that the idea of an

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Speaker 1: Amazonian legend would have been very familiar to people. We

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Speaker 1: also have to remember that at this time it was

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Speaker 1: much much more difficult to differentiate fiction from fact, and

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Speaker 1: there were a lot of allegorical works of antiquity that

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Speaker 1: were taken to be literal truths.

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Speaker 2: Tell you what else is interesting about the book, it's

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Speaker 2: actually pretty radical. Montevallo really injected this story with a

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Speaker 2: lot of characteristics that kind of mirrored the experience of

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Speaker 2: conquered indigenous people and colonized indigenous people throughout the Americas.

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Speaker 2: Later in the novel, Calafia actually converts to Christianity, coming

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Speaker 2: from much more of a pagan tradition. It's hard to

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Speaker 2: say if he was doing this the writer in in

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Speaker 2: protest or as like satire in some way, or if

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Speaker 2: it was sort of meant to be almost that's the

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Speaker 2: word propaganda, right, because that was certainly what the Spanish

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Speaker 2: conquistadors were all about when they found these indigenous people,

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Speaker 2: was setting up all these missions, you know, all the

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Speaker 2: missions that are in California and the presidios and the like,

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Speaker 2: all about converting the native people to Catholicism, So pretty

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Speaker 2: interesting trajectory the story has, yeah, and we.

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Speaker 1: Also can see how this would have been seen as

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Speaker 1: inspirational to Spanish explorers because they had expelled at the

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Speaker 1: time the dominant Muslim forces that were ruling Spain and

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Speaker 1: there was nothing left to conquer unless they set out

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Speaker 1: to find a western route to India. But no, why

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Speaker 1: don't we learn a little bit more about Montalvo's book,

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Speaker 1: because he's a relatively obscure author himself in real life,

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Speaker 1: but we know a little bit about his care.

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Speaker 2: We do, and I have not read it myself, but

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Speaker 2: I learned a lot of really cool stuff from an

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Speaker 2: article on Miss Magazine's blog from a Beanie Morino entitled

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Speaker 2: Klafia Reappropriating the Amazon Queen. And there's a pretty incredible

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Speaker 2: quote here. So apparently later in the story, Klafia gets

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Speaker 2: married and she gives her title of queen to one

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Speaker 2: of her bodyguards, and then this is what she says

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Speaker 2: to her. She says, you shall be my signor, and

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Speaker 2: you shall rule over my state. On account of you,

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Speaker 2: the island will change the style of living. Whereas the

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Speaker 2: island has been isolated from men for many ages. Henceforth

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Speaker 2: it will adopt the practice of natural generation of men

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Speaker 2: and women. So this idea of being outside of the

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Speaker 2: patriarchy and kind of there was even like when they

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Speaker 2: were in battle, they would take men as their prisoners

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Speaker 2: and execute them or keep them around for approcreation purposes.

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Speaker 2: Now they're kind of opening up their borders to allow

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Speaker 2: men to live amongst them. And there's this sense that

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Speaker 2: a lot of this had to do with Montevalo's need

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Speaker 2: to kind of tame the character. So it is I

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Speaker 2: think less, I think unfortunately, it is less of a

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Speaker 2: satire and a little more of the propaganda vibe that

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Speaker 2: I was talking about earlier, where he kind of has

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Speaker 2: this strong female character that don't need men and turns

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Speaker 2: it to the point where they kind of become more

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Speaker 2: beholden to men and also more Christian ideology.

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Speaker 1: Oh, in speaking of appropriation, very important point here. Montalvo

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Speaker 1: did not write all of the books in that series.

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Speaker 1: The first three books were written by an unknown author.

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Speaker 1: He picked it up, wrote the fourth book and the

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Speaker 1: fifth book, which would be The Exploits or the Adventures,

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Speaker 1: and then after him. The saga continued that there was

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Speaker 1: a sixth novel, a seventh novel, an eighth, and a

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Speaker 1: ninth novel that we know of. Jeez, and it's strange

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Speaker 1: when we think of it alternating between different authors, you know,

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Speaker 1: especially when those first three books are unknown today.

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Speaker 2: Could you even get away with it?

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Speaker 1: All? Right?

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Speaker 2: My my dyslexia is showing. I don't really have dyslexia.

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Speaker 2: But I've been mispronouncing this man's last name entirely and

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Speaker 2: correctly for the entire episode, which is fine. When we

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Speaker 2: need to correct it. I'm just gonna go ahead and

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Speaker 2: say it right now. I said, I'm Manta Valo and

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Speaker 2: it's Montalvo. But I just I switched up the the

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Speaker 2: V and the and the A. It's fine, it's fine.

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Speaker 2: I just wanted to put it out there now and

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Speaker 2: then fix it from here on out. But just don't

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Speaker 2: email us about it. I didn't, you know, I think

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Speaker 2: you're beating yourself up. I did not, for my part, notice.

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Speaker 1: But what I did notice, no, is that there were

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Speaker 1: a couple of other competing theories about the etymology of

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Speaker 1: California's name.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's one of like a a poem, I think, yes,

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Speaker 2: the song of Rolling Yeah, give it to us.

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Speaker 1: Also, the inspiration in part for Stephen King's The Dark

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Speaker 1: Tower series or a thing based on that child.

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Speaker 2: Into the Doug Dunslinger. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So the Song of Roland is an eleventh century

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Speaker 1: old French epic poem, and people who believe that it

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Speaker 1: inspired the name California.

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Speaker 2: I can't not say a California in the set, Stuart.

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Speaker 1: Sorry, Please do check out the Californians on Saturday Night Live.

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Speaker 2: You heard it? Great show? Yeah right, you should really

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Speaker 2: check it out.

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Speaker 1: It's a it's a weekly sketch show in case anybody

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Speaker 1: somehow doesn't know.

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Speaker 2: Been running since like the seventies at the least, right.

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Speaker 1: So this poem, the Song of Roland, is about the

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Speaker 1: defeat of Charlemagne's army by the Muslim army and a

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Speaker 1: battle in the Pyrenees in seven seventy eight. And in

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Speaker 1: if let's get specific, in line tw twenty four of

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Speaker 1: the poem again it's an epic poem. In verse two

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Speaker 1: o nine, the word Califerne c A l I f

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Speaker 1: E r n e is one of the lands that's mentioned,

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Speaker 1: but they don't say in the poem where it is.

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Speaker 1: They don't tell you what it's next to or you

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Speaker 1: know it's named after a reference to what people believe

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Speaker 1: is Africa. Cool, So people are saying, maybe Montalvo found

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Speaker 1: that somewhere, and maybe that's where he found the name California.

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Speaker 1: And then there's the other idea that the term could

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Speaker 1: derive from a Spanish phrase, an old Spanish phrase call

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Speaker 1: it fournee, an alteration of the old Latin term kalida fornax,

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Speaker 1: which means hot furnace.

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Speaker 2: I don't you know what.

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Speaker 1: I think we stick with the novel. I think that's

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Speaker 1: the most interesting answer.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the thing two is it really is

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Speaker 2: kind of up in the air. It's not clear when

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Speaker 2: California was named, and there was no like documentation of

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Speaker 2: I hear my name this land California, right, you know,

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Speaker 2: like like like the way you get in other foundings.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's much more of a thing like that

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Speaker 2: Mitchell and websketch that we keep referencing ad nauseum. Go

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Speaker 2: to Ridiculous Historians and join our Facebook group and you

401
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:13,240
Speaker 2: can see it for yourself, or you know, just google it.

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Speaker 1: It's not ad nauseum yet, No, it's ad nausium.

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Speaker 2: If I think if we do it four times, oh no,

404
00:24:17,560 --> 00:24:20,199
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's it applies, because it

405
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Speaker 2: really is. It's very much like I will call this

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Speaker 2: the West Indies, like why it makes sense, or this

407
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,919
Speaker 2: shall be named henceforth New Connecticut.

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Speaker 1: Or of no, not North Wales, no South Wales.

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Speaker 2: But yeah.

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Speaker 1: This what's interesting here is that it's also a story

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Speaker 1: of cartography, because maps were bibles of geography right at

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Speaker 1: this time, and they didn't agree nearly as often as

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Speaker 1: maps do nowadays. And maps don't agree here as often

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Speaker 1: as you might think even in the modern day.

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Speaker 2: For sure. I want to backtick it a little bit

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Speaker 2: to Montalvo. I got it right there, I go, I'm

417
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Speaker 2: on the right track. He absolutely eroticized and exoticized this

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Speaker 2: woman and other people and her her body and her

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Speaker 2: strength and the like, in almost a fetishistic kind of way.

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Speaker 2: There's a quote in this fabulous article from a blog

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Speaker 2: called afro dot com that that reads as such, and

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00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 2: this is a little rough language, but I just want

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00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:32,680
Speaker 2: to it also is it's quite racist? He was quite racist? Yes,

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Speaker 2: So here here it goes. He describes Queen Califia as

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Speaker 2: such as a queen quote queen of majestic proportions, more

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Speaker 2: beautiful than all others and in the very vigor of

427
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Speaker 2: her womanhood. She was not petite, nor blonde, nor golden haired.

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Speaker 2: She was large and black as the ace of clubs. Oof.

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Speaker 2: That's rough. That's a hard that's a big oof. And

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Speaker 2: I'm just saying I think it, really it makes sense

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Speaker 2: that this would have been written in such a way

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Speaker 2: as to take these characters and twist them to this

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Speaker 2: particular kind of worldview of the Spanish at the time.

434
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 2: He would have been around during like the Spanish Inquisition

435
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 2: and a lot of the kind of medieval thinking around

436
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 2: some of this stuff, and it shows.

437
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it calls to mind the person for whom both

438
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:35,639
Speaker 1: New World continents are named after. America is named after

439
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: Amerigo Vespucci. Not a good guy, not the best, not

440
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 1: the best one. But luckily, California as a modern state

441
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: has moved well beyond the othering racist descriptions found in

442
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:57,920
Speaker 1: ma Tavo's novel It's true, and become not only one

443
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:01,879
Speaker 1: of the most progressive states in the United States, but

444
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:04,320
Speaker 1: also the largest economy I believe.

445
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 2: Oh my god, for sure. Here's a one more thing

446
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 2: from this afro dot com piece. It talks about there's

447
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 2: a woman that's interviewed for this piece, whose name is

448
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:22,159
Speaker 2: Tamra El Dickis, and she is actually mounting, or at

449
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 2: least at the time of this article, was mounting a

450
00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:30,200
Speaker 2: campaign to change the seal of California to include an

451
00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:35,920
Speaker 2: image of Califia as opposed to Minerva, who was the

452
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 2: Roman goddess of wisdom, and also in the Greek tradition

453
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 2: she would have been Athena exactly. And so she is

454
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:51,120
Speaker 2: featured on the seal that was designed by a Confederate

455
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 2: soldier who just kind of made the seal on his

456
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:57,479
Speaker 2: own and then he even used, according to the article,

457
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:01,120
Speaker 2: a false name and it just kind of stuck. And

458
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:05,680
Speaker 2: this woman, Tamara al Dickas Is mounted a campaign called

459
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:11,000
Speaker 2: Cali is Me to quote right the wrong and put

460
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 2: Califia on the seal, to you know, have this beautiful

461
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 2: black woman featured and to show kind of the history

462
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 2: of the naming. But again all of the stuff that

463
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:26,359
Speaker 2: we've just discussed about that history, right nah exactly on

464
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 2: shall we say yeah?

465
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 1: And speaking the name One quick correction here, I believe

466
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:35,880
Speaker 1: it was me who said that once. By a time

467
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: Cortes tried to name the island quote unquote island Santa

468
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 1: Cruz no, no, no, no, no no. He went back

469
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:49,280
Speaker 1: and tried to rename it Santa Cruz and everybody said, sorry, buddy,

470
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 1: you took your shot. It's California, gotcha. And that's how

471
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: it's always been, So think about it. Things went a

472
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: little bit differently in history. We would not have the

473
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: fine state of California. We'd have the fine state of

474
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 1: Santa Cruz.

475
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 2: It's very true. And Khalifia is actually featured in a

476
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 2: kind of a multimedia exhibition that ended in two thousand

477
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 2: and eight at Disney's California Adventure Park in Anaheim, where

478
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 2: Whoopi Goldberg actually plays her in sort of projection mapped form,

479
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 2: where there are these busts, these statues of the goddess,

480
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:24,440
Speaker 2: well really a goddess. I guess she was more of

481
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 2: a warrior queen, sure, and she narrates kind of this

482
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 2: history of California with all these you know, Disney bells

483
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 2: and whistles and stuff. But they retired that in eight,

484
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 2: but it was kind of the centerpiece of the whole production,

485
00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 2: so they clearly felt pretty good about having that heritage there.

486
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: And we feel pretty good about the name California overall,

487
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: despite its dodgy beginnings. We hope this has been as

488
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 1: fascinating and strange for you all as it is for us.

489
00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 1: And this concludes our episode today. But we have a

490
00:29:58,320 --> 00:30:00,800
Speaker 1: couple of questions for you. First, have you ever seen

491
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 1: a griffin in real life?

492
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 2: That they're not real? No? Cool? Okay, just make sure

493
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:07,400
Speaker 2: it's not like you know how I feel about birds.

494
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 2: I don't really keep up with them, so maybe I

495
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 2: figure out maybe I missed. But you, like, you know,

496
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:14,920
Speaker 2: what isn't a griffin like a like a bird lion

497
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 2: or something like that. That's what it is.

498
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 1: They're super cool too, So yeah, surprise us if you

499
00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: have actually seen a griffin.

500
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 2: Let us know. We will be astounded.

501
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: Also, let us know what states you think we should

502
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 1: cover next in an upcoming episode of Ridiculous History.

503
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 2: Now we got to keep track. Well, we we're good

504
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 2: so far. Yeah. Yeah, we haven't doubled up, have we? No?

505
00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 2: Not yet? Are you certain? Yes? Okay?

506
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 1: And we are going to uh, we're going to have

507
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 1: so much fun with this.

508
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 2: It's going to be so strange.

509
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 1: If you'd like to have fun with us, then check

510
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: out our community page on Facebook Ridiculous Historians, where you

511
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 1: can hang out with your fellow listeners and learn some

512
00:30:56,280 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 1: very strange facts. You can also give us topics suggestinen

513
00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:02,719
Speaker 1: who knows they might appear on the air. You can

514
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 1: find us on Instagram and Twitter as well.

515
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 2: You can also write to us at ridiculous at HowStuffWorks

516
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 2: dot com and we might even read one of your

517
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 2: letters on the show.

518
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:14,440
Speaker 1: But we have one last thing to do. We hope

519
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 1: you will join us in doing this. Wherever you're listening

520
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 1: to this podcast, say it out loud with us. We

521
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 1: are going to, on the count of three, bid our

522
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram bon voyage. All right, one, two, three.

523
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 2: A bon voyage Casey.

524
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 1: He will return very soon. We have a cavalcade of

525
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 1: super producers who will be sitting in.

526
00:31:37,240 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 2: A cadre, a cadre stable of them, yes, a roster

527
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 2: of battalion. And again Twist and Casey's arm hopefully is

528
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 2: going to send us some cool audio postcards from a Perry.

529
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 2: I'm gonna make eye contact real quick with him. You

530
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 2: already said, yes, he's nodding. Okay, We'll see you next time.

531
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

532
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:08,440
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,