The San Jose Mercury News is an American daily newspaper, published in San Jose, California. It is owned by Media News Group. The Mercury News encompasses all other Bay Area newspapers owned by Media News Group, including the Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times, Marin Independent Journal, San Mateo County Times, Santa Cruz Sentinel, and 10 other local daily newspapers, each of which are branded as "an edition of the San Jose Mercury News," which accounts for the newspaper's high circulation.

History

The San Jose Mercury was founded in 1851 as the San Jose Weekly Visitor, while the San Jose News was founded in 1883. In 1942, the Mercury purchased the News and continued publishing both newspapers, with the Mercury as the morning paper and the News as the evening paper. In 1983, the newspapers were merged into the San Jose Mercury News, with morning and afternoon editions. The afternoon edition was later abandoned.

The paper says that the name "Mercury" refers to the importance of the mercury industry during the California Gold Rush, when the city's New Almaden Mines (now Almaden Quicksilver County Park) were the largest producer of mercury in North America. The name has a dual meaning, as Mercury is the Roman messenger of the gods as well as the god of commerce and thieves, known for his swiftness, and the name Mercury is commonly used for newspapers without the quicksilver association.

San José or San Jose is Spanish for Saint Joseph and most often refers to:

San José or San Jose may also refer to:

Places

Argentina

Belize

Bolivia

Chile

Colombia

6216 San Jose is a main belt asteroid. It orbits the Sun every 4.57 years.

The minor planet was discovered on September 30, 1975 by S. J. Bus at the Palomar Observatory and given the provisional designation 1975 SJ. In 1998 was renamed San Jose to honor the city of San Jose, California, United States, for its long support of nearby Lick Observatory particularly in efforts to reduce light pollution.

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External links

San José was a 60-gun, 3-masted galleon of the Spanish Navy. It was launched in 1698, and sunk in battle off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia in 1708 while laden with gold, silver and emeralds worth about USD$1 billion (£662m) today.

Career

San José was designed by Francisco Antonio Garrote and built by Pedro de Aróstegui at the shipyard at Mapil, Usurbil, Spain. Construction started in 1697 and ended in 1698. They built twin ships simultaneously and named them San José and San Joaquín.

San José and San Joaquín were part of the Spanish treasure fleet during the War of the Spanish Succession, under General José Fernández de Santillán, the Count of Casa Alegre. On its final voyage, San José sailed as the flagship of a treasure fleet composed of three Spanish warships and 14 merchant vessels sailing from Portobelo, Panama to Cartagena, Colombia. On 8 June 1708, the fleet encountered a British squadron near Barú, leading to a battle known as Wager's Action. During the battle, the powder magazines of San José detonated, destroying the ship with most of her crew and the gold, silver, emeralds and jewellery collected in the South American colonies to finance the Spanish king's war effort. Of the 600 people aboard, only eleven survived.