Simi Valley
Simi Valley is a city located in Ventura County, California. The population is about 124 000 people.
Simi Valley is the place where the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is. There, the former U.S. president was buried after his death in 2004.
The town became famous in 1992 when the trial against four policemen from Los Angeles who carried out violence against Rodney King started.
The city is the site of the first U.S. nuclear accident, which happened in 1959 in the laboratory of Santa Susana Field.
The city of Simi Valley is surrounded by the mountains Santa Susana and Simi Hills, west of the San Fernando Valley and east of the valley Conejo. The region has well developed computerized business.
Simi Valley was inhabited by the Indians Chumash, who lived in the area of about twelve thousand years ago. Around five thousand years ago, the Indians made a living by gathering plants, hunting and fishing. The name of the city of Simi Valley comes from the Indian word Shimiyi, which means filamentary clouds. They are typical of the region.
The Rancho Simi, also known as San Jose de Nuestra Senora de Altagarcia y Simi occupied four hundred fifty-seven square kilometers of land. It was a Spanish donation in eastern Ventura County and western Los Angeles County.
The land was a gift to Francisco Javier Pico and his two brothers - Patricio Pico and Miguel Pico in 1795 by Governor Diego de Borica. Rancho Simi was the first Spanish colonial land grant in this area.
In 1842, Jose de la Guerra y Noriega, who was a captain, bought the ranch from the Pico family.
After Jose de la Guerra y Noriega died in 1858, the ranch was sold to the oil company of California and Philadelphia. Since in the area of the ranch was not discovered oil, the ranch was sold in parts.
In the early nineteenth century a city began to take shape, known as Santa Susana del Rancho Simi.
In 1890, the first school was built. Flooding in 1952 dealt severe damage to the city. In 1969 Simi Valley was officially recognized as a city of ten thousand people.
In the late forties of the twentieth century in the Santa Susanna Field Laboratory were conducted nuclear tests associated with nuclear missiles. In July 1959, an experiment was carried out with a soda reactor. It failed and radioactive gas was released into the atmosphere.
On November 27, 1991 Judge Stanley Weisberg of the Court of Appeal of California chose Simi Valley as the location for the trial against four police officers from Los Angeles. Stacey Koon, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, and Theodore Brisenio were accused of using unnecessary force on the third of March in 1991 and beating African American motorist Rodney Glen King.
The act of the police was declared racist. The process was based on amateur video of a man who witnessed the incident. The court sentenced Koon, Wind and Brisenio without condemning Powell.
