California Island?

“Know, that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise; and it is peopled by black women, without any man among them, for they live in the manner of the Amazons.”           

This very erroneous statement came from a romantic novel called Las Sergas de Esplandian. It was written in 1510, by Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo. As ridiculous as it is to believe that in 1510, Europeans believed California to be a sacred paradise, the notion was not proven as false until the 18^th century in 1776, by Juan Bautista de Anza.

In 1751, Benjamin Franklin demonstrated that lightning was a form of electricity by flying a kite and a key during a storm, but even at the time of this revolutionary discovery, people still believed California to be “an earthy paradise like the Garden of Eden or Atlantis.” In 1770, the American population was around 2,205,000. Still, with this many people populating the country, California was still believed to be an island. The Declaration of Independence was adopted the year California was proved to be part of the North America land mass!

It’s ironic that a place that was the subject of such fictional beliefs has turned out to be the home of many major movies studios and the center of creative imagination and entertainment. 

Sources:
http://listverse.com/2009/01/19/10-debunked-scientific-beliefs-of-the-past/
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=california+island&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&sa=N&rls=en&biw=1186&bih=621&tbm=isch&tbnid=i-v6xXu7ZKxvOM:&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_California&docid=28x6h1l7LDrVCM&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/California_island_Vinckeboons5.jpg/350px-California_island_Vinckeboons5.jpg&w=350&h=243&ei=7YpOUPmaLsTz0gHcvYCABA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=104&vpy=181&dur=760&hovh=187&hovw=270&tx=163&ty=136&sig=106803548166308161713&page=1&tbnh=109&tbnw=157&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:89