Ronald Reagan was the 40th President of the United States, serving from 1981 to 1989 after a career as a Hollywood actor and governor of California. He is remembered for his conservative policies, tax cuts, and role in ending the Cold War.
Richard Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. He is best remembered for his foreign policy achievements and for resigning during the Watergate scandal, becoming the only U.S. president to do so.
John Muir was a Scottish-American naturalist and writer who played a key role in the creation of national parks in the United States. He co-founded the Sierra Club and worked tirelessly to preserve wilderness areas like Yosemite Valley.
John C. Frémont played a key role in Manifest Destiny by leading multiple expeditions that mapped and explored the American West, providing vital information for settlers and expansion. His reports and maps encouraged migration to California and Oregon, and he later helped secure California for the United States during the Mexican-American War.
César Chávez was a Mexican American labor leader who co-founded the United Farm Workers (UFW) union to fight for better wages and conditions for farmworkers. He is remembered for using nonviolent protests, boycotts, and marches to bring national attention to farm labor struggles.
Junípero Serra was a Spanish Franciscan missionary who founded nine of California’s 21 missions in the 1700s. He is remembered both for spreading Christianity and for the controversies surrounding the treatment of Native peoples under the mission system.
The Donner Party was a group of American pioneers who set out in 1846 to migrate west to California but became trapped by snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Their journey was delayed by a difficult and untested shortcut, leading to severe hardship and loss of life during the harsh winter.
