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California became the 31st state on September 9, 1850, admitted directly as a free state under the Compromise of 1850, without ever passing through territorial status — one of the few states in the country to skip that step entirely. The admission came just four years after the Bear Flag Revolt, the short-lived 1846 uprising in Sonoma that first raised the flag California still flies today. From Bear Flag to Statehood In June 1846, a group of American settlers in Mexican California, distru …