This work is a sweeping history of the region from the time of its indigenous people to the 21st c. Chapters cover the Spanish, Mexican, Victorian, WWI and WWII eras and the postwar boom, up to the 2015 centennial celebration of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition, the legalization of medical marijuana, and a future outlook from 2016. Includes a chronology of events, plus bibliography and index.