This Sunday at Five Facts

In this week’s #SmarterEverySunday post, we’re going back to the Land of Oaks, Oakland. But before we proceed with the second edition of Five Facts: Oakland, we would like to make sure that you saw our important—and fun—questionnaire on the last #SocialWednesday post. Please contribute below, and enjoy this week’s Five Facts post!

 

 

1. Did you know what Oakland’s symbol is? You guessed it right! It’s an oak tree! The fun fact about the city’s symbol is, it is implemented to many different places within the city. Including the street signs.

Photo Credit: CosmicAdventure

2. Speaking of street signs… The signs in Oakland’s Chinatown are supplemented by smaller signs in Chinese as you can see above. According to Wikipedia, Chinese were the first Asians to arrive in Oakland in the 1850s, followed by Japanese in the 1890s, Koreans in the 1900s, and Filipinos in the 1930s and 1940s.

Photo Credit: TheOaklandStandard

3. One of Oakland’s most iconic buildings, the Tribune Tower was opened in 1924 as the base of operations for Oakland’s newspaper, Oakland Tribune. Tribune Tower was the tallest building in the city in 1920s; however, it is now the 11th tallest building in Oakland. The six-story base of the tower was built in 1906, and the building of the tower was completed in 1923.

Here’s how majestic it looks in the nights just in case if you’re wondering:

Photo Credit: J Shin

 

4. Oakland’s well known amusement park, “Children’s Fairyland” was the very first themed amusement park in the United States. The park was opened for visitors on September 2, 1950. However, the fame of the park does not end there…

Photo Credit: Mark Willard

5. Now, I know what you’re thinking… What does Disneyland have to do with all this, right? Well, Walt Disney toured numbers of amusement parks in 1950s in search of inspiration for Disneyland. He was so amazed by the concept of Fairyland that he hired the first director of the park to work at Disneyland. It is assumed that Children’s Fairyland as the first themed amusement park had a great influence on Disneyland’s creation.

Wrapping up

We hope you enjoyed reading the second edition of Five Facts: Oakland. We still have more interesting facts to share with you; so stick around to keep becoming #SmarterEverySunday. If you missed the first edition of Five Facts: Oakland, click here to read it. If you still haven’t checked out our website’s newest feature the “Categories Section”, make sure to check it out by just scrolling down all the way on any page, and picking a category of your choice!

We are really appreciating the amount of views we have been receiving since the launch, and your feedback means the world to us! Please contribute in this brand new 4 question survey to let us know a little bit about your thoughts. You can also let us know what you think of GGU Social so far, and submit the topics and features you would like us to include by e-mailing us at ggsocial@ggu.edu!