ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Timeline of Mountain View, California

Okay, kiddo! Let me tell you a story about the timeline of Mountain View, California.

A long, long time ago, before any people were living here, this place was covered with trees and grass. But then, around 1769, a man named Gaspar de Portolá and his team of explorers came here from Spain. They were looking for new places to conquer and claim as their own.

Fast forward to the 1850s, and the United States government made California an official state of America. People started moving out west from the east coast because they heard there were opportunities for work and land. In the 1860s, a man named William Shockley moved to the area. He was really smart and studied science at a nearby college. He went on to invent something called the transistor, which was a really important part of computers.

By the 1900s, Mountain View was a small town with farms, orchards, and a few shops. But then something amazing happened. In the 1950s, a bunch of really clever people started working at a company called Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. They were inspired by William Shockley's work, and started making more and more computer chips. Soon, they were selling them all over the world and making lots of money.

It wasn't just the people at Shockley Semiconductor who were doing cool things, though. In the 1960s, a man named Douglas Engelbart invented something called the computer mouse. It was a small device that you could use to control the computer screen. It made working on a computer way easier!

As time went on, more and more tech companies moved to Mountain View. Today, lots of big and important companies that you might have heard of, like Google and LinkedIn, have offices here. People all over the world use things that were invented or created in Mountain View!

So, that's the story of the timeline of Mountain View, California, from the time of exploration to the rise of the tech industry!