Interesting Facts

Which is worse, a relentless shark attack or a leveling earthquake? In San Jose, you can find out for yourself firsthand, for the city is home to the NHL's Sharks and MLS's Earthquakes as well as the Sabercats (AFL) and the Giants baseball club (CAL).
Mark Twain, the great American novelist and social critic, began his successful career as a lecteur in San Jose in 1866. Why San Jose of all places? He originally planned to give the lectures in San Francisco, but feared that he would embarrass himself in front of the large audiences that tended to gather there.
As a result of its close proximity to the high-tech businesses located in Silicon Valley, San Jose has become a modern city in its own right. In fact, the Hyatt San Jose was the first hotel in the world to offer its guests a high-speed computer terminal in every room.
San Jose's population of approximately 945,000 people makes it the third largest city in California, trailing only Los Angeles and San Diego. That figure also pushes San Jose onto the list of the fifteen largest cities in the United States.
Writer John Steinbeck, a Pulitzer Prize winner and native of the Salinas Valley area, lived in nearby Monte Sereno, a small town northwest of Los Gatos, in the 1930s. During his time there, he wrote two of his greatest novels, "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Of Mice and Men."
Once a Spartan, always a Spartan. Jeff Garcia, who quarterbacked the NFL's San Francisco Forty-Niners from 1999 to 2003, played out his college career at San Jose State University.
San Jose's Symphony, whose roots date back to the Civil War-era, is the oldest orchestra on the West Coast. The original group was a social club called the Germania Verein.
Sarah Pardee Winchester, heiress of the great rifle-making family, lived in San Jose from 1886 until her death in 1922. Highly superstitious, Miss Winchester believed that harm would befall her if construction on her home ever stopped; thus, for the 36 years she lived there, carpenters worked on the house every day.
Do you have any secrets to share? The Left Coast's largest museum dedicated to ancient Egyptian artifacts, the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum and Planetarium, is located in San Jose.
If you want to see one of Ludwig van Beethoven's original manuscripts or even a lock of the famous composer's hair, then try San Jose State University. The campus is the proud home of the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies, the only such center in North America.