Berkeley city i Alameda county i Kalifornien i USA

Arkiv:
Länk: Berkeley city

Berkeley är framförallt känt för sitt universitetscampus, University of California, Berkeley, men även för dess radikala politik, alternativa kultur och studentprotesterna på 1960-talet.

Berkeley är en del av San Francisco Bay Area (eller bara Bay Area), en kontinuerlig samling tätorter som bildar ett band runt San Francisco-bukten och har över 7 miljoner invånare, med San Francisco och Oakland som största orter. Det finns gott om förbindelser med San Francisco via Bay Bridge (bron mellan Oakland och San Francisco) och tunnelbanesystemet BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), men Berkeley har trots det karaktären av en egen stad snarare än en förort till San Francisco. Punk/rock-sångaren Billie Jö Armstrong är född och numera bosatt i Berkeley.

1923 drabbades staden av en stor brand.

The first people of European descent (most of whom were born in America, and many of whom were of mixed ancestry) arrived with the De Anza Expedition in 1776. Today, this is noted by signage on Interstate 80, which runs along the San Francisco Bay shoreline of Berkeley. The De Anza Expedition led to establishment of the Spanish Presidio of San Francisco at the entrance to San Francisco Bay (the Golden Gate), which is due west of Berkeley. Luis Peralta was among the soldiers at the Presidio. For his services to the King of Spain, he was granted a vast stretch of land on the east shore of San Francisco Bay (the contra costa, ”opposite shore”) for a ranch, including that portion that now comprises the City of Berkeley.

It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley.

The site of today's City of Berkeley was the territory of the Chochenyo/Huchiun band of the Ohlone people when the first Europeans arrived. Evidence of their existence in the area include pits in rock formations, which they used to grind acorns, and a shellmound, now mostly leveled and covered up, along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay at the mouth of Strawberry Creek. Other artifacts were discovered in the 1950s in the downtown area during remodeling of a commercial building, near the upper course of the creek. This pit in the surface of a rock at Indian Rock Park is typical of those used by Ohlone Indians to grind acorns.

Berkeley is home to the oldest campus in the University of California system, the University of California, Berkeley, and to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which is managed and operated by the University. It also has the Graduate Theological Union, one of the largest religious studies institutions in the world. It is one of the most politically liberal cities in the United States.