Tax Fun Facts!

Ah yes, taxes are due today!  And here are a few interesting sites you might want to visit.

Why are taxes due today, April 18th?

Basically because the 15th fell on a Saturday and Monday was Emancipation Day in Washington DC.  Read more about it here.

Tax Freedom Day

Tax Freedom Day is a significant date for taxpayers because it represents how long Americans as a whole have to work in order to pay the nation’s tax burden.  Basically you are working for the government!  Continue reading

Hillmap for Backcountry Travelers

Hillmap is a web based mapping app that lets you create and print free, customizable maps from high quality map layers.  You can also use Hillmap tools to calculate slope and distance, check the weather at your destination, analyze snowpack, and more.

This app is definitely handy to calculate your hiking route and check on the slope.  You can also turn on multiple overlays, like slope, weather radar, and other map information.  Give it a spin!

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California As An Island Map Exhibit

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, many believed California was a remote island with plenty of gold, free-loving amazons, and strange beasts.

A new exhibit at Cal State Fullerton’s Pollak Library features a selection of maps from the Roy V. Boswell Collection for the History of Cartography, one of the University’s special collections. The exhibit, “California As an Island and Worlds That Never Were,” will be on display Jan. 22 to March 29 in the Salz-Pollak Atrium Gallery.

Continue reading

CHS Cartographic Collection

52 19th and early 20th century maps of California have been added to the California Historical Society’s new Digital Library. The images represent a sampling of unique or uncommonly held titles ranging geographically from an 1863 map of the copper region of Del Norte County in the north, to a circa 1866 Topographical Map Showing the Locations of the Sutro Tunnel and the Comstock Lode, to a colorful 1913 townsite map of Date City (now called Calipatria) in Imperial County in the south. In between are city, county, mining, real property, water-supply, road, and railroad maps of various localities throughout the state.  Check it out!

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