Nice little tidbit of California history.

A lot of people don't know that around that same time Imperial Russia laid claim to the Pacific Northwest from Sitka, Alaska all the way south to San Francisco Bay. This encroachment by the Tsar lead to the Monroe Doctrine which decreed that any more colonization of the Western Hemisphere by Europe would be considered an act of war. Not long after Russia abandoned their fur trading settlements having wiped out all the sea otters.

Had history played out differently perhaps we might have seen Argentina going to war against Russia over California!