Hi. I just posted this Happy 250th Birthday card to my beloved San Francisco. On March 27, 1776, less than four months before British colonists on the other side of the country issued a document they called a “Declaration of Independence,” the great Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza became the first European to spend the night in what is now San Francisco—on the shores of Mountain Lake in the Richmond District. Anza’s camp-out begins San Francisco’s official history. Enjoy!