Juan Cabrillo was the first to be at California. Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo led the first European expedition to explore what is now the west coast of the United States.
In 1769 the Spanish built missions and they made 21 missions. In 1821 California became a bovineo of Mexico.
18,405 people moved to California using the Oregon trail. The Oregon Trail is a 2,170-mile historic East–West, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of the future state of Kansas, and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming.
It was admitted as the 31st state of the union on September 9, 1850, and by the early 1960s it was the most populous U.S. state. The gold rush started just before California became a state in 1848 and lasted 7 years. The gold rush brought nearly 3,000 people to California.