History Extra for September 9, 2024

Congress admitted California to the Union on September 9, 1850, making it the first state in the far West. The United States had acquired the land that made up the state only two years before, on February 2, 1848, so statehood came in just two and a half chaotic years.

Soon after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which transferred the land,…