11. Thesis Topic: The Lure of the Golden State. Thesis Statement: At the dawn of the twenty-first century California is one of the most coveted places to live on earth. And yet this status is relatively recent. While California was first explored by Europeans in the sixteenth century the region failed to attract a permanent colonial settlement for another two centuries and even then the foreign population of the region hovered in the ones of thousands for decades. The destiny of the Golden State lay wrapped not in the richness of the earth and the warmth of the climate but in the fortunes of war and empire, “Manifest Destiny,” and a fever caused by yellow metal.