| October 12 Christopher Columbus encounters the New World near the present Bahamas Islands. |
| An estimated 300-500 Native American Indians are living in what is now Los Angeles County. The region has been inhabited for at least 10,000 years. Native American populations in what is now the United States are estimated at 1,000,000 |
1513 |
| Vasco Nunez de Balboa crosses the Isthmus of Panama and sees the Pacific Ocean |
1521 |
| August Hernan Cortez conquers the Aztecs in what is now Mexico and proclaims the authority of Spain in the region |
1526 |
| The first permanent European settlement in what is now the United States is established by Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon on the coast of present day South Carolina |
1540 |
| Franciso Vasquez de Coronado explores what is now the American Southwest, possibly reaching as far as what is now Blythe, California |
1542 |
| Search for the mythical realm of "California" begins with a seaborne expedition led by Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo. On the journey up the coast, Cabrillo encounters the Los Angeles basin. Because of numerous Native American campfires, he refers to it as "The Bay of Smokes". |
| September 28 Cabrillo drops anchor near present-day San Diego |
1579 |
| Sir Francis Drake explores the California coast just north of San Francisco Bay |
| Explorer Sebastian Vizcaino encounters some California coastal points including San Diego and Monterey |
1607 |
| Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States, is established |
1612 |
| The founding of New York City |
1763 |
| Jose de Galvez is appointed Viceroy General. He will be the ultimate planner and "father" of future exploration of California |
|
1768 |
| Gaspar de Portola appointed Governor of California and Fr. Junipero Serra, leader of missionary activities |
1769 |
| July 1 Exploring sites for future colonial outposts, Gaspar de Portola and Father Junipero Serra reach what is now San Diego |
| July 16 Father Serra erects a brush shelter that has been called California’s first church, which would become the state’s first mission San Diego de Alcala |
| August 2 Portola and Serra reach what is now Los Angeles. As California’s first governor, Portola names the river that flows through the basin Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles de Porciuncula. Father Juan Crespi, travelling with the group, comments on the excellence of the site for a settlement. |
| November 1 The party comes upon what is now San Francisco Bay |
| March 5 In Boston, Massachusetts, the confrontation between citizens and British troops called the Boston Massacre takes place. |
1771 |
| Founding of Mission San Antonio de Padua |
| September 8 Mission San Gabriel, the fourth California Mission is estab1ished by Father Junipero Serra |
1773 |
| December 16 The "Boston Tea Party" takes place in Boston Harbor. |
1774-1775 |
| Juan Bautista de Anza opens an overland route connecting Sonora, Mexico to what is now Southern California. |
1774 |
| August The San Diego Mission is moved to its present site |
| December 14 "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" is fired. The American Revolution is underway. |
1775 |
| Felipe de Neve is appointed governor of Baja and Alta California, with the assigned task of establishing more settlements in the region. |
| November 4 Approximately 800 local Kumeyaay Indians attack San Diego, killing one priest and burning mission buildings. The presidio survives. |
1776 |
| Franciscans baptize their first Indian converts at the newly rebuilt San Diego Mission |
| Founding of Mission San Juan Capistrano |
| Mission San Gabriel is moved to its present site |
| July 4 The United States Congress approves the Declaration of Independence. |
1777 |
| August 26 Felipe de Neve selects a possible site on the banks of the Porciuncula River for a civilian settlement. The site named El Pueblo de la Reina de los Angeles will become Los Angeles. |
| July 17-18 Attacks by Yuma Indians close Anza overland route between Mexico and Alta California. |
| September 4 The Pueblo of Los Angeles is officially established. Settlers recruited in Sinaloa and Sonora villages of Mexico begin to arrive in June 1781and continued to trickle into the new Pueblo until the last arrives in October. Forty-four in all, the pobladores were of African, Indian and Spanish descent. |
| October 19 British General Cornwallis surrenders to American Colonial troops at Yorktown, marking the end of the Revolutionary War. |
1782 |
| Father Junipero Serra visits the Pueblo of Los Angeles and condemns moral conditions in the settlement |
1783 |
| September 3 The American Revolutionary War officially ends with Peace Treaty signed in Paris. |
1784 |
| The rancho period begins in the Los Angeles area with the granting by Governor Pedro Fages of the first three land concessions. They were San Pedro, San Rafael and Los Nietos. In time, the pueblo is surrounded by ranchos and it become a social and trading center |
1786 |
| Jose Vanegas, an Indian, is appointed as Los Angeles’ first alcade (mayor). |
| September 9 Official titles to lands in the pueblo are conveyed to the settlers on orders of Governor Fages. |
1787 |
| Jose Vicente Feliz is placed in charge of the pueblo as comisionado . |
1789 |
| April 30 George Washington is inaugurated as the first President of the United States. |
| America’s first census determines that the population of the United States is 3,929,625 including 697,624 slaves. The largest city is Philadelphia with a population of 42,444. The population of the Pueblo of Los Angeles is 139 |
1791 |
| Population of presidio at San Diego includes 112 men and 85 women. 15 Indians work as servants |
1793 |
| Francisco Reyes serves as the Pueblo of Los Angeles’ first black alcalde |
| British Captain George Vancouver visits San Diego Harbor on his return from explorations in the northwest. He reports to London that the port was poorly defended |
1797 |
| September 8 Father Francisco de Lasuen founds Mission San Fernando Rey de Espana, in what is now the northeastern part of the San Fernando Valley. |
1798 |
| Mission San Luis Rey de Francia founded |
| The population of the Pueblo of Los Angeles is 315 |
| The first American ship, the brig Betsy, enters San Diego Bay to take on wood and water |
1803 |
| April 30 American President Thomas Jefferson acquires the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon for $15 million, expanding the territory of the United States by 140%. |
| "The Battle of San Diego." Harbor guns fire on the American brig Leila Byrd, on suspicion of smuggling activities |
1804 |
| The government in Mexico divides California into two regions, Alta and Baja, north and south. |
| The first local orange grove, six acres and 400 trees, is planted on the grounds of the San Gabriel Mission. |
| May 14 The Lewis and Clark expedition sets out from St. Louis to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. |
1805 |
| November 8 The Lewis and Clark expedition reaches the Pacific Coast. |
| The first American visits the Pueblo of Los Angeles, Captain John Shaler. On board the sailing ship Lelia Byrd, he is on a return voyage from Hawaii to New England. His visit marks the beginning of the hide and tallow trade along the California coast |
1806 |
| Zebulon Pike begins explorations of the Southwest, through the Rio Grande Valley to Mexico City. |
1810 |
| The third U.S. census shows the population of America as 7,239,881. The population of the Pueblo of Los Angeles is 354. |
| In Mexico, Fr. Miquel Hidalgo y Costilla urges Mexican independence from Spain |
1811 |
| Work begins on the Cumberland Road, an important route for early Westward expansion. |
1812 |
| The first elected ayuntamiento (common council) takes office |
| June 18 The U.S. Congress declares war on Britain, beginning the War of 1812. |
| December 8 A severe earthquake strikes Southern California. The new church at Mission San Juan Capistrano is destroyed, killing 40. Missions at San Diego, San Gabriel and San Fernando are also damaged. |
1814 |
| December 24 The Treaty of Ghent is signed, ending the War of 1812. |
1815 |
| Because of flooding, the Plaza, the center of the pueblo, is moved to higher ground northwest of its present location. In the process, a site for a Plaza Church is selected |
| First foreigner, Jose Antonio Rocha of Portugal, arrives in Los Angeles. Later, a Russian trader arrives and is imprisoned |
1816 |
| The first gas company is established in Baltimore to provide coal gas for lighting city streets. At night Los Angeles depends on candle power and the light of the moon. |
1817 |
| The pueblo’s first school is opened by retired soldier Maximo Pina. |
1818 |
| Arrival of the first Americans, Thomas Fisher, and African American and Joseph Chapman, an Anglo. |
| Francisco Avila begins construction of his adobe home adjacent to the Plaza. |
1819 |
| Pio Pico takes charge of family household in San Diego |
| Grants are given to three retired soldiers to graze cattle on land in what is now Los Angeles County; between 1784 and 1821 only a few such grants were made. |
| Pueblo population is 650. |
1821 |
| Joseph Chapman, now a permanent resident of the pueblo, helps in the construction of the roof of the new Plaza church |
| Mexico wins independence from Spain. |
1822 |
| California becomes a province of independent Mexico. |
| Captain John Hall of the British Navy, examines and reports on Pacific Coast harbors. |
| December 8 The new church on the pueblo plaza is dedicated |
1823 |
| Captain Francisco Maria Ruiz receives the first private land grand in San Diego County |
| December 2 In an attempt to establish influence over European activities in the Americas, the United States declares the Monroe Doctrine. |
|
1824 |
| First Act of Mexican government toward the secularization of the Franciscan missions. |
1825 |
| A major flood changes the course of the Los Angeles River, moving its outlet to the sea from the present location of Marina del Rey to San Pedro. |
| The capital of California is moved from Monterey to to San Diego |
1826 |
| Pueblo council resolves to ban gambling, prostitution and blasphemy in Pueblo of Los Angeles |
| Jedediah Smith and his band of fur trappers are the first party to reach Los Angeles overland from the United States. They spend the night in the Avila Adobe on the plaza. |
| San Pedro designated as a primitive port |
1827 |
| First Mexican school established in Los Angeles. |
| Jedediah Smith returns to Los Angeles. This time he is ordered to leave as an unwanted alien by angry authorities. |
| The first railroad built in America is constructed in Quincy, Massachusetts . |
1828 |
| John Temple and George Rice open an American-style general store on the southern edge of the pueblo. |
| Abel Stearns, an immigrant from Massachusetts, settles in Los Angeles. A successful merchant, he marries Arcadia Bandini, heiress to a large estate, and becomes the largest and most influential landowners in the region. |
1830 |
| Pueblo population is 770, excluding Indians. |
1831 |
| "The Battle of Los Angeles" takes place. Local residents called Californios, in favor of secularization of the missions, defeat Mexican governor Manuel Victoria. |
1832 |
| Guns outlawed in the Pueblo of Los Angeles |
1833 |
| Capital of California returned to Monterey from San Diego |
1834-1836 |
| Secularization of the missions takes place. 8 million acres of church-controlled land is distributed in 500 land grants to influential local families and individuals, including some "foreigners." In the process, thousands of mission Indians are left homeless. |
1834 |
| Luis Vignes plants the first orange orchard in Los Angles. |
| June 4 New civilian government approved in San Diego |
| Juan Maria Asuna chosen as first alcalde (mayor) of San Diego |
| The first American settler in San Diego, Thomas Wrightington of Fall River, Massachusetts arrives |
| May 23 The Mexican Congress raises Los Angeles, now the largest settlement in Alta California, to the region’s first ciudad (city). |
| November Abandoned by the secularization of the missions, a group of 34 ex-San Diego Mission families found their own pueblo, San Dieguito |
1835-36 |
| Richard Henry Dana a student at Harvard takes time from school to sign aboard the brig Pilgrim involved in the hide and tallow trade along the coast of California. He declares San Diego the best place for trading. He also visits Los Angeles, declaring its harbor a miserable mudhole. In 1840 he will publish Two Years Before the Mast describing his travels with criticism of working conditions for American seamen. With Puritanical vigor he described Californios as "thriftless, proud and extravagant, and very much given to game." The women "had but little education and a good deal of beauty." |
1836 |
| The first official census records a population of 2,228 in Los Angeles and its environs, including 603 men, 421 women, 651 children, and 553 Indians. Among the population are "foreigners," including 29 Americans, 4 Englishmen, 3 Portuguese, 2 Africans, and 1each Canadian, Irishman, Italian, German, Scot, Norwegian, and Curacao native |
| Indian chain gangs used for forced labor in Los Angeles. |
| March 6 In what is now Texas, the battle for the Alamo takes place. |
| April 7 The first Vigilance Committee is formed in Los Angeles, a "police force" of local citizens assembled to apply justice as it show fit. The result is in the execution of Gervasio Alipas and Maria del Rosario Villa for the murder of her husband, Domingo Feliz. The two accused were taken from the legal authorities and shot. |
1839 |
| Vincente Lugo builds first two story house on the Plaza |
1840 |
| Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast is published, including a description of his visit to the pueblo of Los Angeles.. |
1841 |
| The Workman-Rowland party, with the first cross continental immigrant wagon train, arrives in California. They settle near present day ----. Many of the group convert to Catholicism, apply for Mexican citizenship, marry into wealthy Californio families, and become influential local citizens. |
| William Wolfskill plants the first local commercial orange groves near Los Angeles |
1842 |
| The "first California Gold Rush." Gold is discovered by Francisco Lopez in Placerita Canyon near the present town of Newhall. Alfred Robinson takes a sample to the Philadelphia Mint but the event has little impact. |
1845 |
| As a result of a confrontation in the Cahuenga Pass between local Californios and troops with the Mexican Governor Micheltorena, Alta California gains independence from Mexico. |
| Pio Pico is elected Governor of California. |
| Los Angeles becomes the new capital of California. |
1846-7 |
| Capitalizing on growing American influence in California, and a weak and divided Mexican government, the United States begins an armed take-over of the state. |
1846 |
| May 13 The United States declares war on Mexico. California is claimed as an American possession. |
| July 29 The USS Cyane sails into San Diego Bay with John C. Fremont, Kit Carson and a battalion of soldiers. They plant the American flag in the Plaza. There is little opposition to the takeover. After Fremont’s departure, local citizens return the Mexican flag to the plaza |
| August 6 Landing party under Lt. Jacob Zeilin, USMC, from the USS Congress, seizes San Pedro |
| August 13 Los Angeles taken by Lt. Archibald Gillespie and 50 marines |
| September Counter revolt in Los Angeles; surrender of Lt. Archibald Gillespie's U.S. garrison. Carlifornia is back in the hands of the Mexicans. |
| October 8 Capt. Mervine fails to retake Los Angeles. |
| November Commodore Robert Stockton arrives in San Diego to resecure the town |
| December 6-7 Under General Stephen Kearny, American troops on their way to California are defeated in Battle of San Pasqual by mounted lancers led by Andreas Pico, brother of Mexican Governor Pio Pico. |
| December 11 200 American reinforcements from San Diego allow Kearney and his men to safely travel to the new U.S. stronghold. |
1847 |
| Semi-monthly mails established between San Francisco and San Diego. |
| Two former fur traders, Richard Freeman and Allen B. Light are early African-American settlers in San Diego. In 1857 their simple adobe eventually becomes the American Hotel |
| First American alcalde (mayor) appointed in Los Angeles. |
| Inventory of Los Angeles Archives made. |
| September United States troops capture Mexico City. |
1848 |
| The first American census in San Diego lists "248 white residents, 248 converted Indians, 1,550 wild Indians, three Negroes and three Sandwich Islanders (Hawaiians)". |
| January James Wilson Marshall discovers gold, launching the California Gold Rush. |
| January 9 Battle of La Mesa. With Commodore Stockton commanding U.S. forces, the United States retakes California. |
| January 10 Los Angeles reoccupied by American troops. |
| February 2 Mexican resistance ends with the Treaty of Guadulupe Hildalgo signed in the Cahuenga Pass, opposite the entrance to present day Universal Studios. Mexico cedes all land north of the Rio Grande River to the United States, more than half its territory. |
| September 6 State convention in Monterey. Six delegates from Southern California attend. A new constitution is adopted. |
| October Bella Union Hotel, for two decades "the finest hotel south of San Francisco" is established in Los Angeles |
| November First auction of lots in Los Angeles held. |
| California is divided into 27 counties. Los Angeles County is established, consisting initially of 4,340 square miles. Later the county is expanded to include Santa Barbara to the north and San Diego to the south for a total of 34,520 square miles |
| As "foreign" immigration increases in Los Angeles during the decade of the 185Os, many Mexican residents and new settlers more north of the Plaza to an area known as "Sonora Town," now near the present Chinatown. |
| The first federal census records a Los Angeles population of 3,530, including 2 Chinese, 344 Indians, 15 blacks. Foreign born total 699. |
| Rampant lawlessness gives Los Angeles the nickname "Los Diablos," the City of Devils rather than City of Angels. In 13 months there are 44 murders, with no convictions. It is a time of great agitation about slavery, the issue that is shaking the nation. |
| Reverend J.W. Grier, a Methodist, conducts Los Angeles’ first formal Protestant services. |
| The city of Los Angeles’ first Anglo mayor, Alpheus P. Hodges, is elected. |
| The total population of the new County of San Diego, including what is now Riverside and San Bernardino Counties is 798. The City claims 650 residents |
| William Heath "Kanaka Bill" Davis lays out a 32 block townsite near the water in San Diego. He is ahead of his time and the site became known as "Davis’ Folly." |
| February 18 The County of Los Angeles established |
| March 27 An Act to Incorporate the City of San Diego passes. Joshua Bean, a former soldier is chosen as the city’s first American mayor |
| April 4 Los Angeles becomes an American city when it is officially incorporated by the new California State Legislature |
1851 |
| The U.S. Land Commission begins to determine legal ownership of vast rancho lands. Coming from a different culture and tradition, most land grant Californios lose their property. The winners are lawyers hired to help them and creditors engaged to help them pay their legal bills. |
| The city’s first newspaper, the bilingual Los Angeles Star, is established. |
| Laws are passed confirming land grants. |
| Los Angeles is divided into six townships. The town of El Monte incorporated; some consider this the earliest beginning of suburbs. |
| Biddy Mason arrives in Los Angeles as an African American slave. She gains her freedom, accumulates a small fortune, establishes a church and successfully invests in real estate |
| In a armed revolt against Anglo attempts to collect taxes from Cupeno Indians living in the back country of San Diego County, Chief Antonio Garra leads scattered attacks on white settlers. He is captured and executed on January 10, 1852 |
| John Judson Ames begins publication of the weekly San Diego Herald newspaper. Humorist, social activist Lt. George Horatio Derby later serves as editor |
| March Mormons from Salt Lake City settle the city of San Bernardino, but the later abandon the site. |
1852 |
| One of the legendary sports events of early California takes place. A famous horse race between Pio Pico's "Sarco" and Jose Sepulveda's "Black Swan". The stakes-- $25,000 in gold. "Black Swan" wins. |
| An American public school system is established in Los Angeles. |
| The wife of noted judge Benjamin D. Hayes, writes her sister "Back East," giving her "civilized" relatives a glimpse of life in Los Angeles when she describes her "primitive" home near the Plaza with its adobe walls and mud floor. |
| Phineas Banning, an immigrant from Wilmington, Delaware, forms a wagon and freighting partnership with David Alexander, and begins carrying goods to and from the mudflat landing at San Pedro. |
| Peter Biggs, an African-American, establishes the first barbershop in Los Angeles. With a brief monopoly, he charges 50 cents for a shave and 75 cents for a haircut. |
| The first Anglo style bricks are made in Los Angeles county by Jesse D. Hunter. |
1853 |
| In response to continuing violent crime, a Vigilante Committee called the Los Angeles Rangers is formed in the El Dorado Saloon to take law into their own hands. During the next two years the Rangers will summarily execute 22 men. |
| Harris Newmark, and emigrant from Prussia, arrives in Los Angeles. In 1915 he will publish a definitive historical biography of life in Los Angeles |
1854 |
| On his third visit Admiral Perry is well received by the Japanese, opening relations with the United States. In time, California, and especially the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, will become America’s major gateway to Asia. |
| First Protestant church is opened in the former El Dorado Saloon on the site of the future Merced Theater. |
| The Hebrew Benevolent Society is established. |
| First Jewish services are conducted by Rabbi A.W. Edelman. |
1855 |
| On Wine (now Olvera) Street construction begins on the Pelanconi House, the oldest fired brick structure in the city. American-style bricks will soon replace traditional adobe as building materials. The home is finished in 1857. |
| The first two schoolhouses opens one at Spring and Second streets, the other on Bath street. |
| The first Spanish language weekly newspaper El Clamor Publico, is published. |
| Los Angeles Mayor Stephen Foster, a graduate of Yale, temporarily resigns his post to take part in a lynching. |
| The Franklin Hotel, the first three-story building in San Diego is constructed by Maurice and Lewis Franklin, Jewish merchants from Liverpool, England |
| July 11 An earthquake seriously damages much of the Pueblo of Los Angeles |
1856 |
| Sisters of Charity arrive in Los Angeles and open the first American hospital on upper Main Street. |
| In reponse to increased crime and threats against the city by bandit gangs, Vigilance Committees are established in Los Angeles and San Gabriel. |
| Los Angeles' title to four square leagues of land, derived under Spanish laws governing pueblos, is confirmed by the United States Land Commission. |
| Ice Cream is introduced to Los Angeles |
| The Thomas Whaley House is built in San Diego’s Old Town |
1857 |
| After the murder of Los Angeles Sheriff Barton there are numerous lynching by Vigilance Commitee members. |
| Fears of a "Mormon Invasion" spread in Los Angeles. |
| A major earthquake, centered near Ft. Tejon north of Los Angeles, inflicts heavy damage in Southern California From Ventura to Los Angeles buildings collapse and men on horseback are knocked off their mounts. |
| Wells Fargo opens an office in Los Angeles. |
| A brick reservoir is built in the Los Angeles Plaza; an early effort to increase water supply, previously dependent on a open ditch (La Zanja Madre – Mother Ditch) linking the city to the nearby Los Angeles River. |
| The first franchise for a Los Angeles water company is granted. |
| Oysters and ice sold in Los Angeles for the first time. |
| City of Anaheim is started by a colony of Germans from San Francisco. They buy 1,165 acres of land from Rancho San Juan Cajon de Santa Ana. |
| James Birch opens a stage line, nicknamed the "Jackass Mail Line," between San Diego and San Antonio, Texas |
1858 |
| Phineas Banning begins developing a port at the new town of Wilmington, near San Pedro. |
| Camels are used by U.S. Army to carry cargo across the Southwest deserts. The experiment is a failure. |
| Los Angeles’ first library association opens a reading room at Court and Spring streets. |
| The Masonic Temple near the Los Angeles Plaza is built. |
| Henry Hancock makes a survey of the four square leagues originally determined as the area of Los Angeles and confirms the figure. |
| September 16 The Butterfield Overland Mail Company established a stagecoach link between Los Angeles and St. Louis and cities on the American east coast. |
1859 |
| A separatist movement is launched, demanding the separation of northern and southern California. The out break of the Civil War ends activities, but the idea often resurfaces, even into the 20th Century. |
| Los Angeles’ first organized charity, the Ladies Sewing Society, is founded |
| Sheep raising becomes important to the Los Angeles County economy. |
| Evidence of oil is found on Los Angeles property owned by Capt. Henry Hancock |
| Phineas Banning founds Wilmington, near San Pedro. It is named for his original Delaware home town. |
| The population of Los Angeles totals 4,399, of which 400 are French. Total county population is 11,333. |
| Whaling activities take place of the coast of San Pedro. |
| Bull and bear fights are outlawed in Los Angeles |
| The city's first baseball team is formed. |
| In the Presidential elections, pro-slavery citizens of Los Angeles vote overwhelmingly for Stephen Douglas Abraham Lincoln’s opponent. Lincoln receives 356 votes; the Douglas ticket gets 1,700. Lincoln carries the state of California |
| October 8 Telegraph service links Los Angeles via San Francisco to the rest of the nation. |
1861 |
| Massive floods virtually eliminate land access around Los Angeles. Estimated 50 inches of rainfall. Thousands of cattle die and acres of crops are destroyed. The Plaza Church is severely damaged and will have to be rebuilt. |
| The Chinese population of Los Angeles is recorded as twenty-one men and eight women. |
| April 12 With the Confederate attack on Ft. Sumter, the Civil War begins. |
1862-1863 |
| A long drought begins in Southern California. 80 percent of the areas cattle die, destroying the region’s hides and beef based economy. Agriculture will emerge and California will become America’s most productive agricultural state. |
| Los Angeles sends 163 recruits to fight for the Union cause. Drum Barracks are built in Wilmington and the harbor to house Union troops. And some say, keep an eye on the many Los Angeles residents with Confederate sympathies. |
| A devastating smallpox epidemic kills half of the dwindling Los Angeles Indian population. By 1864 Indians are starving in great numbers as a result of illness and dwindling food supplies for the poor. |
| September 22 President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. |
1863 |
| Carrying Civil War supplies, Camels are used to link Tucson, Arizona with Wilmington's Drum Barracks. |
| In one of the great disasters in early Los Angeles history, the steamer Ada Hancock blows up in San Pedro harbor. |
1865 |
| I.W. Hellman, a Jewish immigrant, founds an informal "bank" in Los Angeles. It’s safe is housed in his drygoods store, where he loans money with interest. Hellman’s small beginnings with evolve into the Merchants and Farmer’s Bank and later Security Bank. |
| Southern California’s first institution of higher learning, Saint Vincent's College, is founded in the Lugo House on the Plaza. Two years later it moves to Sixth and Broadway. Today, it is known as Loyola-Marymount University at Playa del Rey |
| April 9 General Lee surrenders to General Grant at Appomattox Court House, ending the Civil War. |
| April 14 President Lincoln is assassinated at Ford’s Theater in Washington DC |
1867 |
| French immigrant Prudent Beaudry buys what is now Bunker Hill area for $51 and begins developing an elegant residential neighborhood. |
| The Los Angeles City Gas Company lights principal city intersections. |
| Floods and fires devastate Los Angeles and environs. |
| April 15 San Diego pioneer Alonzo Erastus Horton arrives in the City. He acquires 960 acres for $265 and eventually establishes a "New Town." shifting the center of the city away from the Mexican "Old Town" district |
1868 |
| Phineas Banning breaks ground for the first railroad in Los Angles, a link between the city and the port at Wilmington. |
| Los Angeles’ first artesian well is sunk near the present city of Compton, providing local farmers with a more dependable water supply, expanding agriculture in the area. But the underground reservoirs are soon depleted. |
| Los Angeles Water Company incorporated. Water system begins to use iron pipes. |
| Los Angeles Masonic Hall, near the Plaza is dedicated. |
| October 10 The San Diego Union begins publication |
1869 |
| The city of Compton is founded, the first temperance community in Southern California. |
| John Downey and J.A. Hayward found Los Angeles’ first "official" bank. |
| A boom in raising silkworms leads to rampant speculation with silkworm eggs selling for as high as $12 an ounce. In the end, 100 million unsold silkworm eggs were left on the market |
| Los Angeles’ first volunteer fire company is organized. |
| Hacks and Omnibuses appeared on the streets. |
| The first bicycle is seen in Los Angeles |
| California’s last Mexican Governor, Pio Pico begins construction of the city’s most elegant hotel, the Pico House. |
| May 10 Completion of first transcontinental railway., |
1868 |
| October 26 The city's population is 5,728. |
| The Los Angeles Vigilance Committee executes its last murderer. |
| The buildings on Los Angeles are given street numbers. |
| The City of New York celebrates the opening of its new subway. |
| Los Angeles County is producing one sixth of America’s wine. Orange trees sell for $10 each |
| Population of San Diego is 3,000. The town has 915 occupied houses and 69 business buildings. |
| Telegraphic communication between Los Angeles and San Diego is established. |
| Discovery of gold in San Diego’s back country by rancher and former slave Fred Coleman starts a minor gold rush |
| January San Diego’s Chamber of Commerce is formed. Under the leadership of Alonzo Horton, the Chamber’s first Treasurer, they set aside 1,400 acres of Spanish land grant land for a public park. By 1890 83 percent of the open space had been sold to private interests |
| June The Bank of San Diego opens |
| October 10 In the new heart of San Diego the lavish 100-room Horton House Hotel opens. It was compared with the Grand Hotel in Paris, the Astor in New York, the Cosmopolitan in San Francisco and the Pico House in Los Angeles |
1871 |
| Los Angeles County is producing a million and half pounds of wool yearly. |
| The Merced, Los Angeles' first theater, opens. |
| Fire Station #1 opens in Los Angeles |
| Warning notices to "undesirables" are issued in Los Angeles by the local Ku Klux Klan. |
| October 24 In the Calle de los Negros, an Anglo mob kills Chinese men and boys and pillages local shops. The Chinese Massacre makes national headlines, the first for Los Angeles. |
1872 |
| Bending to threats from the powerful Southern Pacific Railroad that could leave Los Angeles isolated, a large subsidy is approved that insure that the railroad will pass through the city, linking it to San Francisco and eventually the rest of the United States. San Diego loses the battle to become a western terminus |
| Imports from Australia ruin the booming local wool market |
| The San Diego Water Company is organized |
| June The San Diego Courthouse opens |
1873 |
| Congregation B’nai B’rth, builds Los Angeles’ first synagogue on Broadway, between Second and Third Streets. |
| Los Angeles High School is built on Pound Cake Hill at Temple and Broadway. |
| Robert M. Widney introduces horse-drawn streetcars, the Spring and Sixth Street line, Los Angeles' first transit system. |
| In Riverside, Eliza and Luther Tibbetts receive the first navel orange trees from Brazil. Within the next 15 years, more than a million navel orange trees will be planted in the area. |
| In response to a shortage of local trees, 100,000 eucalyptus are planted from seeds imported from Australia. |
| Chinese residents, drawn to the area by railroad construction, move to the Third Street area of San Diego and establish a Chinatown |
1874 |
| The last of the legendary Southern California banditos, Tiburcio Vasquez, is captured near what is today the corner of Santa Monica and Kings Road in West Hollywood. He is hanged the following year in San Jose. |
| Spring and Sixth Street Horse Railroad completed in downtown Los Angeles. |
1875 |
| With the construction of the Los Angeles and Independent Railroad, connecting the harbor of Santa Monica to the city of Los Angeles, R.S. Baker and Senator John P. Jones of Nevada lays the city of Santa Monica. When the Southern Pacific puts the local railroad out of business, Santa Monica becomes successful as a beach resort. |
| First groves of imported eucalyptus trees planted in Los Angeles. |
| January 27 The city of Pasadena is founded by the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association--successor to the area’s original settlers, the Indiana Colony. |
1876 |
| In Los Angeles, Saint Vibiana's Cathedral at Second and South Main is dedicated. |
| Spurred by the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad, Isaac Lankershim and his son-in-law I.N.Van Nuys begin large-scale grain production in the San Fernando Valley. |
| A.B. Chapman receives a shipment of Valencia oranges from the Azores, a summer ripening crop that complemented winter-ripening navel orange trees. |
| Crude oil is drilled near the town of Newhall. |
| February 14 Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone. |
| September 5 The first Southern Pacific train leaves Los Angeles for San Francisco. |
1877 |
| William Mulholland, soon to become the head of the city’s water department and Chief Engineer of the aqueduct system that would bring water to the city from the Owens Valley, arrives in Los Angeles. His first job is as a laborer, working on the ditch that supplies water to the city from the Los Angeles River. |
| Calle de los Negros is renamed Los Angeles Street. |
| Caroline M. Severence opens the city's first kindergarten. |
| The first shipment of oranges leaves Los Angeles by boxcar. |
| Los Angeles’ first weather bureau is established |
| African American pioneers Albert and Margaret Robinson build the Robinson Hotel in Julian, east of San Diego. Today, renamed the Julian Hotel, it is the oldest continuously operated hotel in Southern California |
| Thomas Edison takes out a patent on an invention he calls the phonograph. |
1879 |
| October 21 Thomas Edison produces the first practical incandescent electric light |
| The Methodist Episcopal Church founds the University of Southern Ca1ifornia. |
| The Los Angeles Athletic Club is founded with forty-one members |
| In Los Angeles, the first cement and asphalt is laid on Main Street north of First. |
| The first San Diego County Fair is held in National City |
1881 |
| One hundred years old, Los Angeles has a population of 11,000. |
| The Los Angeles Times begins publication. The next year, Harrison Gray Otis, one of the most influential, and controversial, men in the early history of Los Angeles, becomes editor and part owner. |
| The Southern Branch of the State Normal School, the predecessor of UCLA, takes over an old orange grove at Fifth and Grand Streets. In 1926 it will be torn down to make way for the city’s new Public Library. |
| April 18 The San Diego Gas and Electric Company is incorporated |
| June 14 The first office telephones are installed in San Diego |
1882 |
| The Chinese Exclusion Act limits immigration from China in response to widespread anti-Chinese sentiment. A mob sets fire to a Chinese laundry in Pasadena. |
| In San Diego the Russ School opens. It later grows into San ego High School |
| In San Diego George Marston helps organize a public library and YMCA |
| April 15 Los Angeles gets its first telephones, and the city’s first phone directory is issued shortly afterward |
| September 4 In New York City, Thomas Edison establishes the first commercial electrical light system. |
| December 31 Los Angeles becomes one of the first American cities to use to illuminate streets with electricity when it installs a 150-foot tall electric streetlight. |
1883 |
| The Historical Society of Southern California is founded. |
| Southern Pacific Railroad opens a southern route to the east via New Orleans |
| J.W. Robinson establishes a dry good store at Spring and Temple. It will become Robinson’s Department Store |
| Phillipe Garnier. Builds the Garnier Block near the plaza with a hotel and stores. |
| Author of the novel "Ramona," Helen Hunt Jackson arrives in San Diego as part of her travels in Southern California |
1884 |
| Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel "Ramona" is published. It will have an important impact on the image of Southern California and encourage tourism |
| A firehouse on the Los Angeles Plaza opens. It becomes home for the city's first paid fire department. |
| November 21 The first train from the East along the new California Southern and Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad arrives in San Diego, signaling the beginning of the Southern California "Boom of the 80s" |
1885 |
| An ostrich farm is established in what is now Glendale area. It soon becomes a major tourist attraction, spawning imitators. The Cawston Ostrich Farm between Los Angeles and Pasadena becomes the best known. |
1885 |
| November 29 The Santa Fe Railroad reaches Los Angeles, sparking the real estate boom of 1886-88, which begins Los Angeles' urban sprawl. |
| In Los Angeles, Wilshire Blvd is dedicated |
1886 |
| The first train loaded exclusively with oranges for eastern markets leaves Los Angeles via Southern Pacific. |
| The city of Monrovia is laid out by William N. Monroe on land purchased from Lucky Baldwin. |
| The Raymond Hotel a grand hotel catering to wealthy eastern tourists opens in Pasadena. |
1887 |
| The Sepulveda House on the old plaza is built by Dona Eloisa Martinez de Sepulveda. Designed in a Victorian Eastlake style it is a combination lodging house and business structure. |
| A great land boom increases the value of Los Angeles real estate by five hundred percent. |
| The Southern Pacific Railway brings 120,000 visitors to Los Angeles |
| Harvey Wilcox, Kansas prohibitionist, lays out the new town of Hollywood |
| First electric streetcars appear in Los Angeles |
| Orange County created from southern portion of Los Angeles County |
| On a cruise from Hawaii, John Dietrich Spreckles "discovers" San Diego Harbor and launches a California family dynasty. |
1888 |
| The Southern California real estate boom collapses |
| Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce is organized. |
| The Catalina Island town of Avalon laid out. |
| Edward Bellamy's utopian novel "Looking Backward" is published. It has great influence on futurist thinking in America |
| San Diego resident Clara Shortridge Foltz becomes the first woman admitted to practice law in the State of California |
| February 14 Lavish Hotel Del Coronado opens in San Diego |
1889 |
| A new Los Angeles City Hall is built on Broadway |
| First Los Angeles city charter is put in place |
| Founding of San Diego Savings Bank |
| Wealthy singer and spiritualist Benjamin Henry Jesse Francis Shepard builds his Villa Montezuma in San Diego |
| January 1 First Tournament of Roses parade in Pasadena. |
| The city's population reaches 50,395, including 40 Japanese. |
| At the Los Angeles Plaza the Garnier Block is built to house Chinese workers. |
| The official flag of the City of Los Angeles is designed |
| John D. Spreckles purchases the San Diego Union |
| June 7 Cable cars come to San Diego |
1891-1892 |
| The long wharf at "Port Los Angeles" built north of Santa Monica . |
1891 |
| The Pacific Electric Railway is formed by Henry E. Huntington and I. W. Hellman. |
| Frederick Rindge buys Rancho Topanga Malibu Sequit, area that contains present city of Malibu |
| January 1 In New York Ellis Island is opened to accept all immigrants to America. |
| August 24 Thomas Edison submits a patent for a motion picture camera, the kinetegraph |
1892 |
| Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. comes to San Diego and builds the U.S. Grant Hotel |
| San Diego celebrates the 350th Anniversary of the Cabrillo Expedition. It becomes an annual event. |
| November 4 Discovery of oil in Los Angeles by Edward L. Doheny and Charles A. Canfield near Second Street and Glendale Boulevard, the city's first oil well. |
1893 |
| Frederick Jackson Turner gives a lecture entitled "The Significance of the Frontier in American History," arguing that the West is essential to understanding the differences between America and Europe |
| The impact of a national financial panic hits Los Angeles |
| The Bradbury Building opens in downtown Los Angeles |
| April Henry Ford displays his first gasoline engine. He completes his first car in 1896 |
| July 4 First passengers go up Mt. Lowe railway, created by Thaddeus Lowe, taking tourists to the top of the San Gabriel Mountains with commanding views of Pasadena and the Los Angeles area |
1894 |
| The Ebell Club is founded in Los Angeles |
| Author, editor and activist Charles Lummis founds the Landmarks Club, dedicated to preserving the Spanish Missions |
| March 17 Chinese Exclusion Treaty between China and the United States, excludes immigration of Chinese laborers. |
| April In an attempt to rekindle tourism during an economic depression, the first "Fiesta de Los Angeles" is held. It becomes an annual event. |
1895 |
| The Los Angeles and Pasadena Electric Railway opens. |
| Fossils discovered by William Denton at the La Brea Tar Pits. |
| June 11 The first U.S. patent for a gasoline powered automobile granted to inventor Charles E. Duryea |
| December 21 Gaylord Wilshire, a socialist who had made a fortune selling a "magnetic belt" said to improve health, opens his Wilshire Subdivision west of downtown Los Angeles. It includes a broad thoroughfare called Wilshire Blvd. |
1896 |
| Nickelodeons, coin operated "peep show" movie machines, are the rage |
| The United States Congress appropriates $3.9 million to build man-made harbor at San Pedro. |
| Griffith J. Griffith gives Griffith Park to city. It becomes the largest municipal park in the United States. |
An attempt to establish a San Diego branch of the University of Southern California fails |
| April 23 The first projected motion picture images shown in a public theater in New York |
1897 |
| First known automobile in Los Angeles is built by S.D Sturgis |
| Last of horse-drawn trolleys disappears from the streets of Los Angeles |
| California is the third largest oil producing state in America |
| The first golf course opens in Los Angeles on a vacant lot |
1898 |
| "Free Harbor" fight. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce vs. Huntington and the Southern Pacific. The Chamber will win and Los Angeles will have a "free" harbor, independent of the influence of the Southern Pacific Railroad. |
| Homer Laughlin Building is Los Angeles’ first steel structure |
| February 15 The Battleship Maine blows up in Havana harbor, leading to the Spanish American War. |
| December 10 The Spanish-American War is officially over with the signing of a Peace Treaty in Paris. |
1899 |
| April 26 and 27 "Free Harbor Jubilee." Work begins at San Pedro on the construction of the Los Angeles Harbor. |
| The city of Los Angeles’ population is 102,479. |
| Wood plank elevated bicycle tollway is built, connecting downtown Los Angeles with Pasadena |
| Southern California Automobile Club organized. |
| Carrier pigeons are used to communicate between Los Angeles and Catalina Island |
1901 |
| Angel’s Flight opens. |
| Excavations begin at La Brea Tar Pits |
1902 |
| The city of Los Angeles begins to operate its own water company. |
| First Rose Bowl game. Michigan defeats Stanford 49-0. |
| Henry Huntington's Pacific Electric Railway started. |
| Construction begins on Riverside Mission Inn |
| Long Beach Pike, Southern California’s first seaside amusement attraction opens. |
1903 |
| Los Angeles Examiner is founded by William Randolph Hearst. |
| Annual value of orange crop exceeds that of god produced. |
| City of Hollywood incorporates. It is a crime to herd more than 2,000 sheep through the city streets. |
| Southwest Museum founded. |
| Los Angeles emerges as a center of anti-unionism |
| Los Angeles adopts initiative, referendum and recall measures as part of city government |
| August 1 52 days after leaving San Francisco, a Packard car arrives in New York, completing the first transcontinental automobile trip. |
| December 17 A "flying machine" created by Orville and Wilbur Wright makes the first powered flight at Kittyhawk, North Carolina |
1904 |
| Plaza substation built to transform power for Los Angeles Railway Co. |
| Abbot Kinney founds town of Venice. |
| Los Angeles records its first auto theft. |
1905 |
| The Colorado River canal bursts, creating the Salton Sea. |
| The Japanese and Korean Exclusion League is organized on the West Coast, fueling anti-Asian feeling. Hearst papers call Asian influence and immigration "the Yellow Peril". |
| September Voters in Los Angeles approve bonds for the construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, bringing water from Northern California to the South. |
1906 |
| Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" published, challenging status quo concerning conditions in America’s. Sinclair will later run for Governor of California |
| The Alexandria Hotel, the city of Los Angeles’ most lavish, opens. |
| The City of Beverly Hills is founded |
| First film is shot in Los Angeles (Santa Monica, to be exact) --exterior scenes for a Chicago-based production of "The Count of Monte Cristo". |
| California Fruit Growers Exchange begins marketing Southern California oranges on trains headed east. They advertise "Oranges for Health – California for Wealth." |
| A "shoestring" of land is annexed to Los Angeles, connecting the city to the harbor at San Pedro |
| April 18 The Great San Francisco Earthquake. |
| December 24 First radio broadcast of voice and music by Reginald A. Fessenden, a private experimenter in Branch Rock, Massachusetts |
1907 |
| Surfing is introduced at Redondo Beach |
1908 |
| The first lot on Balboa Island sells for $700. |
| First traffic regulations are established in Los Angeles |
| California Bungalows become popular style of housing |
| During a worldwide cruise, the American naval armada called "The Great White Fleet" stops at Los Angeles |
| "The Power of the Sultan" is the first motion picture to be shot entirely in Los Angeles |
| The Greene brothers complete the Gamble House in Pasadena. perhaps the greatest example of craftsman architecture. |
1909 |
| San Pedro Harbor becomes Los Angeles Harbor through the annexation of San Pedro and Wilmington--following the Shoestring Annexation of 1906, which gave Los Angeles a long reach to the sea. |
| Construction begins on a pier at Santa Monica |
| Construction begins on Los Angeles Aqueduct, carrying water from Owens Valley in northern California to Los Angeles |
| Henry Ford produces 19,051 "Model Ts" |
| The first airplane assembled in Southern California is completed in Santa Ana |
| First modern factory is built in Los Angeles’ downtown garment district |
| NAACP founded |
| The population of Los Angeles is 310,198. |
| A breakwater completed at San Pedro, a major step in the creation of Los Angeles’ mostly man-made port |
| The Pacific Electric Railway Company becomes the world’s largest interurban railway system. |
| Hollywood is annexed to Los Angeles. In the years immediately following the small rural suburb becomes the world center for making motion pictures. |
| Southern half of San Fernando Valley, area closest to Cahuenga Pass, is opened for subdivision. Called Tract 1000. |
| A General Strike takes place in Los Angeles |
| As part of a widespread reform movement, Hiram Johnson is elected Governor, campaigning against the corrupting influence of the Southern Pacific Railroad in the State. |
| Movie pioneers D.W. Griffith and Mary Pickford arrive in Los Angeles |
| January 10-20 First air meet in the United States is held at Dominguez Ranch, near present site of Cal State Dominguez Hills |
| October 1 The Los Angeles Times is bombed in the midst of a bitter labor dispute. 21 die. In a controversial trial, brother labor leaders James B. and John J. McNamara are convicted. |
1911 |
| A party in open automobiles, led by John Guy Monihan successfully drive across the United States from Atlantic City to Los Angeles. |
| Frederick Law Olmstead, designer of New York’s Central Park, plans the model city of Torrance. |
| Manhattan Beach closes its Strand to African-Americans |
| The State Flag of California is adopted |
1912 |
| Extensive restoration of Plaza Church. |
| Firm beginning of motion picture production in Los Angeles. |
| Earle C. Anthony opens the first Los Angeles gas station. Gas costs between 10-12 cents a gallon |
| Filmmaker Mack Sennett creates the "Keystone Kops," |
| Presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt speaks at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles |
| Anarchist and women’s rights advocate Emma Goldman is beaten and run out of Los Angeles. She finds refuge in Los Angeles, lecturing on free love, Ibsen and Nietzsche. |
1913 |
| The Los Angeles County Museum opens in Exposition Park |
| The California Alien Land Act prohibits Japanese farmers from owning land |
| Future President Richard Nixon is born in Yorba Linda |
| July 10 Record high temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit recorded in Death Valley |
| October 10 The Panama Canal opens, shortening the distance between the East and West Coasts. |
| November 5 Los Angeles Aqueduct opens, a 235-mile long water supply system, bringing water from Owens Valley to the City. With construction supervised by William Mulholland, it was funded by an initial bond issue of an initial investment of $23 million in 1905. Water needs for the growing city were augmented in 1941 from the Colorado River; later from Northern California via the Ca1ifornia Canal. |
1914 |
| Longest, highest and only solid concrete municipal pier in the United States opens in Huntington Beach. |
| Main oil fields in Ventura produce 90,000 barrels per day |
| Job Harriman, after losing a hotly contested election for Los Angeles mayor, founds a Socialist utopian community in the Antelope Valley |
| First vessel reaches Los Angeles Harbor via the newly opened Panama Canal. |
| The Southwest Museum opens. |
| Edgar Rice Burroughs creates "Tarzan of the Apes". Later, when Burroughs is a resident of the San Fernando Valley, a town, Tarzana, is named in honor of his scantily-clad hero. |
| July 4 Director D.W. Griffith begins shooting his controversial epic film "The Birth of a Nation" in North Hollywood |
1915 |
| With 55,000 private cars, Los Angeles leads the nation in automobile ownership. |
| By a vote of 681 to 25 the residents of the San Fernando Valley decide to become part of the City of Los Angeles |
| The Panama-California Exposition is held in San Diego |
| January 25 First intercontinental telephone service estab1ished between New York and San Francisco. |
1916 |
| Watts elects Frederick Roberts, the state’s first African American assemblymen. He pushes for antidiscrimination legislation. |
| Football becomes part of Pasadena Tournament of Roses |
1917 |
| The Pasadena Playhouse opens. |
| Forest Lawn is established in Glendale. |
| The first wooden ship is completed at Los Angeles Harbor. The Southwestern Shipbuilding Company Terminal Island has a contract for twenty-three 8,000 ton ships form the Emergency Fleet Corporation. It can build a ship in seventy-seven days |
| April 4 The United States enters World War I. |
1918 |
| 2,986 residents of Los Angeles die in a worldwide Spanish flu epidemic. |
| The California Date Association establishes it first packing plant at Indio |
| Los Angeles’ Central Park is renamed in honor of World War I General John Pershing |
| Otis School of Art and Design, Los Angeles’ first art college opens |
| The death of a starlet during a San Francisco Party leads to indictment of film comedian Fatty Arbuckle for murder. A watchdog agency, the Hays Office, is set up to control movie morals. Arbuckle is eventually acquitted, but his career is over. |
| November 11 Armistice Day marking the end of World War I is celebrated |
1919 |
| Hollywood’s Musso & Frank Grill opens. |
| The Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery is founded. It opens to the public in 1928. |
| UCLA is established as the southern branch of the University of California. |
| The first Forest Service Aerial Patrol is established in Riverside |
| Los Angeles Philharmonic plays its first concert |
| California Railroad Commission announces that the auto population of Los Angeles County as reached the "saturation point" of about 100,000 vehicles |
| June 29 Prohibition Amendment made law in the United States |
| Population of Southern California exceed that of Northern California |
| 100,000 automobiles are registered in Los Angeles |
| Los Angeles first parking ban goes into effect |
| Donald Douglas opens an aircraft plant that will evolve into a major Southern California aerospace company. |
| An Italian immigrant, Simon Rodia begins to build what will become the Watts Towers. |
| The Hollywood Bowl holds its first sunrise Easter service and later "Symphonies Under the Stars" concerts are held. |
| In the hills above Hollywood, the first "Pilgrimage Play" is performed. An illuminated cross on the hill still marks the spot. The theater is now the John Anson Ford Theater |
| June 23 Royal Dutch Shell brings in the first well on signal hill in Southern Los Angeles County. Over time, it will prove to be the most productive oil field in the United States. |
1921 |
| Oil is found on Los Angeles’ Signal Hill |
1922 |
| Movie director William Desmond Taylor is murdered in his house near Westlake Park. The unsolved crime is one of the most sensational of the era |
| Los Angeles’ first commercial radio stations, KFI, KHJ and KNX go on the air. |
| The Rose Bowl is completed. |
| A company owned by J. Paul Getty and his father, George begin pumping oil in Long Beach |
| Los Angeles becomes home of the U.S. Pacific Fleet |
| Wilshire Blvd. becomes a six lane thoroughfare called "The Miracle Mile," but Gaylord Wilshire no longer controls it |
| April 15 Beginning of Teapot Dome scandal, involving Los Angeles oilman, Edward Doheny. |
1923 |
| The Biltmore Hotel opens |
| Memorial Coliseum at Exposition Park opens. |
| The Hollywoodland Sign, advertising an upscale hillside housing development, is erected. Later, the "land" will be removed and the sign will become one of the most well-known landmarks in the world |
| Los Angeles is the largest oil terminal in the United States |
| January 1 Sister Aimee Semple McPherson's Angelus Temple of the Four Square Gospel is dedicated in Echo Park |
1924 |
| The Los Angeles City Planning Commission approves 40 new subdivisions a week |
| 50 die in an explosion aboard the USS Mississippi in the Port of Los Angeles |
| Humorist Will Rogers builds a home in Pacific Palisades. Movie stars and other celebrities visit and play Polo. He later becomes honorary Mayor of Beverly Hills |
| Douglas airplanes begin around-the-world trip from Santa Monica |
| During another real estate boom, one hundred and fifty miles of new streets are added to Los Angeles. The City is home to 43,000 real estate agents. |
1925 |
| The Mulholland Highway, along the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains, is formally opened. |
| Los Angeles gets a new City Charter |
| The Fine Arts Society of San Diego is established |
1926 |
| The cast of Eugene O'Neill's "Desire Under the Elms" is arrested and charged with presenting an obscene play. |
| The downtown Los Angeles Public Library at 630 West Fifth Street is dedicated. |
| Pico Blvd is paved. The largest such project to date. The cost is more than $1 million |
| Christine Sterling starts a campaign to save the city's historic area around the Plaza. |
| Santa Monica buys Clover Field and establishes a new municipal airport |
| NBC becomes the first nationwide radio network. |
1927 |
| Ground breaking is held for the first building at the Westwood campus of the University of California at Los Angeles |
| At the Biltmore Hotel the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences holds its first gathering |
| Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. opens |
| Warner Brothers releases "The Jazz Singer," starring Al Jolson, a partly silent, partly sound film that marks the beginning of the era of the "Talking Picture." |
| Gaylord Wilshire dies in New York, facing lawsuits over medical claims for products he has been marketing |
| Los Angeles is America’s second largest rubber manufacturing center |
| May 27 Charles Lindbergh takes off to attempt a solo flight across the Atlantic. 33 ½ hours later in lands in Paris France and becomes literally an overnight international celebrity |
1928 |
| The St. Francis Dam collapses. More than 400 die in the resulting flood. City Engineer William Mulholland takes responsibility for the disaster and retires in disgrace |
| A new Los Angeles City Hall is completed at 200 North Spring Street. |
| At Union Air Terminal in Burbank. daily airline flights began between Los Angeles and San Francisco begin |
| The Avila Adobe on the Plaza, built in 1818 is condemned. Citizens rally and save it. |
| At the first Academy Award Ceremony. "Wings" wins as best film. |
| Not long after Charles Lindbergh’s flight, Walt Disney releases the first Mickey Mouse movie, "Plane Crazy" |
1929 |
| The first experimental American "garden community," Radburn, New Jersey founded. A forerunner of the idealized residential suburbs Los Angeles would sprawl into. |
| Bullock’s Wilshire Department Store opens. At the time the venture is considered risky because it is outside the traditional city center |
| The Art Deco Catalina Casino is built in Avalon |
| Legendary lawman Wyatt Earp dies at his Los Angeles home. In his later years he’d served as a consultant to movie makers |
| E.L. Doheny, whose father was involved in the Teapot Dome Scandal, is murdered by his male secretary |
| Roosevelt Highway, later called Pacific Coast Highway opens |
| UCLA moves to Westwood |
| Los Angeles’ oldest Jewish congregation, B’nai Brith relocates to a new synagogue on Wilshire Blvd. |
| October 24 The New York Stock Market crashes, only a few days before the Los Angeles Stock Exchange is inaugurated |
| The City's population is 1,238,048. County population is 2,208,492. Los Angeles if the fifth largest city in America |
| Restored as a Mexican-style marketplace, Olvera Street opens to the public. |
| Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur directs engineers to start construction on the Boulder Dam, the first link in the Colorado River Project to bring water and electricity to Los Angeles. |
| A Congressional Committee finds Los Angeles has "an unhealthy balance of economic power and position dominated by the attitudes of industrial autocracy." |
1931 |
| Los Angeles celebrates its 150th birthday. |
| The art deco Wiltern Theater opens at the corner of Wilshire and Western |
| The Wickersham Commission finds police brutality and large-scale anti-Union activities in Los Angeles in disregard of constitutional rights |
| The first experimental television broadcasts are made in Los Angeles |
| The first Clifton’s Cafeteria opens, part of a fad for fast and inexpensive food. Clifton’s establishes a "pay what you can" policy which appeals to depression clientele. |
| 12,600 Mexican are repatriated from Los Angeles |
1932 |
| The Tenth Olympiad opens in the Los Angeles Coliseum. 37 nations and 1,408 athletes compete. |
| Eugene Biscailuz is elected sheriff of Los Angeles. He will serve for twenty-six years |
| Sequeiros mural painted in the Los Angeles Plaza area. It is later whitewashed as revolutionary. |
| Social activist Louis Adamic reports 15,000 arrests based on false vagrancy charges, part of what would be known as "The Bum Blockade" to limit immigration to California from other states during the Depression. |
| January 15 Two inches of snow fall on Los Angeles |
| November 8 In the midst of a national economic depression, Franklin Roosevelt is elected President |
1933 |
| A 6.3-magnitude earthquake hits Long Beach. There are 115 deaths and $45 million in damage. |
| The first movie ever broadcast over television is shown on a New York experimental station W6XAO-TV. It is "The Crooked Mile". |
| Los Angeles General Hospital opens. It is the largest hospital under one roof in the world. |
| Victims of the "Dust Bowl" drought in the Southwest begin migrating to California. Many from Oklahoma are called "Okies," and will be the inspiration for John Steinbeck’s novel "Grapes of Wrath." |
| December 5 Prohibition repealed |
1934 |
| Los Angeles’ first drive-in movie opens |
| To make way for the new Union Station, the City’s old Chinatown adjacent to the Plaza is condemned. 3,000 Chinese are forced to move. |
| The Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax opens. |
| 8,000 lettuce pickers strike in the Imperial Valley |
| Santa Anita Park racetrack opens. |
| The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library is given to UCLA. |
| Author/Reformer Upton Sinclair loses race for governor of California |
| San Pedro dock strike. |
| January 1 Dr. Edward Townsend announces his "Townsend Plan," an Old Age Revolving Pensions program. |
1935 |
| (Hoover) Boulder Dam is completed on the Colorado River, providing electric power to the Southwest |
| The Griffith Observatory and Planetarium is dedicated on a hilltop overlooking Los Angeles |
1936 |
| CBS builds a west coast radio production headquarters on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood |
| Power from Boulder Dam, under construction since 1931, reaches Los Angeles. The City commemorates the event with a nighttime celebration, illuminated by electric light |
1937 |
| City purchases Mines Field for a municipal airport, now known as Los Angeles International Airport. |
| Toluca Lake resident, Amelia Earhart disappears during an attempt to fly across the Pacific Ocean |
| Howard Hughes sets a transcontinental aircraft record. |
| May 6 First coast-to-coast radio broadcast |
1938 |
| Faced with charges of corruption, Los Angeles Mayor Frank Shaw is recalled from office. A reform administration under former judge Fletcher Bowron is elected. |
| In 5 days 31 inches of rain fall on the Los Angeles area, causing 100 deaths and $65 million in damages |
| Mayor Bowron abolishes the LAPD "Red Squad," police unit dedicated to anti-Communist activities |
| President Roosevelt boosts Southern California’s aircraft industry with contracts for 60,000 new planes |
1939 |
| John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" is published. |
| Local aircraft industry employment is 20,000 |
| The first semi-commercial television begins operations. |
| Los Angeles is second only to Detroit as a center of automobile assembly plants |
| Los Angeles County is nation’s fourth largest manufacturing center for furniture and women’s apparel and second in tires. |
| 92 Southern California film companies spend $140 million on movie production |
| Running with a slogan "End Poverty in California," author Utpon Sinclair is defeated in a bid for election as Governor of California. Corporate interests use staged newsreels to influence anti-Sinclair sentiment, showing the state overrun by "undesirables." |
| May 3 Los Angeles’ Union Station opens on land that was one the city's Chinatown. |
| City population is 1,504,277; county is 2,785,643. Los Angeles is now the fifth largest city in the United States. Mexican Americas are the largest minority. Japanese-Americans account for 2 percent of the population |
| Los Angeles harbor is nation’s largest commercial fishing port |
| Workers strike at North American Aviation |
| The 85-mile-long All-American Canal is completed, bringing water to the Imperial Valley. |
|
December The Arroyo Seco Parkway opens, modeled after "parkways" built in the east, it is Los Angeles’ first "freeway;" today more commonly known as the Pasadena Freeway. |
1941-45 |
| The modern industrial phase of Los Angeles’ history begins as a part of World War II activities. The City becomes the industrial capital of the State. With industrialization come more people, more automobiles. Smog is first admitted to exist in 1943; vast freeways develop and there is an expansion of air travel. |
1941 |
| At a cost of $200 million, the Colorado River Aqueduct is completed, bringing more water to Southern California |
| Albert Einstein teaches at Cal Tech |
| Los Angeles draws up a revised new plan for a Civic Center |
| George Patton, raised in Pasadena, trains U.S. troops in Indio, California. He will later become a colorful and controversial General in the European Theater of World War II. |
| December 7 Japanese launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The United States enters World War II. |
1942 |
| The Los Angeles Times wins its first Pulitzer Prize. |
| Mexican "braceros" arrive in Southern California to pick crops. They replace many Japanese-Americans who had been sent to internment camps. |
| Los Angeles’ Westlake Park at Wilshire and Alvarado is renamed MacArthur Park in honor of General Douglas MacArthur |
| Los Angeles police arrest twenty-three Chicanos in response to the murder of a Jose Diaz. Seventeen are convicted, but all the convictions are later overturned for lack of evidence |
| February 19 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order number 9066 ordering the internment of Japanese citizens. 35,000 Japanese-American citizens of Los Angles are sent to internment camps |
| February 26 "The Battle of Los Angeles," a false alarm of a Japanese attack, causes city-wide scare, including anti aircraft fire into the night sky |
1943 |
| Local aircraft plant employment reaches 243,000 |
| Official acknowledgement of what is called "smog," a contraction of the words "smoke" and "fog." |
| June 5-8 "Zoot Suit" riots break out directed primarily at Mexican-American youths in Los Angeles. 44 injured Mexican-Americans are arrested. Police do little to stops attacks by white servicemen. |
1944 |
| Northrup Aircraft’s secret Mx-324 "Rocket Wing" is the nation’s first rocket plane |
| San Bernardino Freeway opens |
| The local garment industry employs 35,000 workers |
1945 |
| Distinguished refugees from the war in Europe come to Los Angeles. They include Thomas Mann, Bertold Brecht, Lion Feuchtwanger, Franz Werfel and Max Reinhardt. They join others in the European intellectual and artist community including Igor Stravinsky, Aldous Huxley, Jascha Heifetz and Artur Rubenstein. |
| Aircraft contracts in Southern California top $7 billion |
| Between 1942 and 1945, 200,000 African Americans migrate to Los Angeles |
| First Japanese-Americans released from detention camps |
| May Germany surrenders, ending the war in Europe. |
| August 6 The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. |
| September 2 The Japanese surrender to Allied Forces, ending the war in the Pacific. Auto Club phone lines are jammed with customers asking when gas rationing will end |
1946 |
| The Rand Corporation is founded. |
| The Cleveland Rams move to Los Angeles. |
| KTLA, owned by Paramount Studios, becomes the first licensed commercial television station in Los Angeles |
| City’s first comprehensive zoning ordinance passed |
1947 |
| Howard Hughes flies his Spruce Goose, the largest wooden aircraft ever built, for a flight of only a few thousand yards. |
| The State legislature passes a bill allowing the County of Los Angeles to set up an air pollution control district. |
| The Los Angeles State and County Arboretum opens in Arcadia |
| Whittier native Richard Nixon defeats Jerry Voorhis for Congress |
| Mobster Bugsy Siegel, credited for establishing Las Vegas as a gambling and entertainment center, is gunned down in the Los Angeles home of his girlfriend |
| The mutilated body of a young woman is found in an empty Los Angeles lot. Her unsolved murder is dubbed "The Black Dahlia" case |
| California State University, Los Angeles opens with 136 students |
| October After refusing to testify about their political affiliations at hearings in Washington, D.C., the "purge" of the Hollywood Ten, writers accused of being Communists, begins. |
| October 14 Colonel Chuck Yaeger breaks the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 rocket plane |
1948 |
| The Hollywood Freeway opens. |
| The Hells Angels motorcycle gang forms in Fontana |
| Employment in Los Angeles exceeds wartime levels |
| 650,000 automobiles are assembled in Los Angeles auto plants |
| The U.S. Supreme Court outlaws restrictive covenants which had been used in Los Angeles to limit where minorities could rent or own homes |
| Los Angeles Airport expands from 860 to 2,518 acres |
| Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) founded to improve blighted areas in Los Angeles |
| UCLA begins $38 million expansion program |
1949 |
| In San Marino 3 year-old Kathy Fiscus falls into an open water pipe. KTLA’s live round the clock television coverage of desperate efforts to save her is a landmark in the history of television and an indication of the compelling power of the new medium. The little girl dies before she can be rescued. |
| The nation’s first four-level freeway interchange opens in downtown Los Angeles |
| Ed Roybal is elected to the Los Angeles City Council, the first Mexican-American to serve in 68 years. |
| Los Angeles city's population totals 1,970,358; county's is 4,151,687. The city has 453.52 square miles within its municipal area. |
| In the midst of growing anti-Communist sentiment, UCLA faculty members are required to sign loyalty oaths to the government of the United States |
| Los Angeles City population is 1,970,358. County population is 4,151,687 |
| The suburb of Lakewood opens. With 17,000 homes it is the nation’s largest single-ownership real estate development. A forerunner of post-war suburbs to come. |
| July 1 On an international "peacekeeping" mission, American forces arrive in Korea. The Korean War begins. |
1951 |
| "Golden Aerial Day" is celebrated in Los Angeles, the installation of a trans-continental microwave system, which, among other things, will allow television sets in Los Angeles and New York to be tuned to the same program. |
| Los Angeles Rams win the NFL Championship. |
| California establishes the Metropolitan Transportation Authority |
1952 |
| NBC opens studios in Burbank in addition to radio facilities at the corner of Sunset and Vine. |
| The Hollywood Freeway completed. |
| Underground garage built beneath Pershing Square. |
| Actor Ronald Reagan marries actress Nancy Davis at the Little Brown Church in Studio City |
| FBI and IRS harassment forces Charlie Chaplin to leave the country. |
| September 23 From the El Capitan Theater on Hollywood Blvd, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Richard Nixon broadcasts his "Checkers" speech in response to accusations of the use of an improper "slush fund" set up by wealthy supporters. Afterward, presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower agrees to keep him on the ticket. |
1953 |
| The driest year on record to date, with 4.08 inches or rainfall. |
| The first McDonald’s in Los Angeles County opens in Downey at Lakewood Blvd and Florence |
| The state, county, and city agreed to acquire in the state's name the Plaza and surrounding areas and to establish a state historic park, El Pueblo de Los Angeles. |
| The Fowler Museum opens in Los Angeles |
| Los Angeles plants start work on ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles), boosting number of aerospace jobs in the county |
| July 27 Armistice ending the Korean War is declared. |
1954 |
| Smog is so bad that all air traffic at Burbank Airport had to be stopped several times during the year. |
| The J. Paul Getty Museum opens; in 1974 the museum in Malibu opens. |
| Capitol Records tower in Hollywood opens. |
| May 17 In Brown vs. The Board of Education, the Supreme Court declares segregated schools unconstitutional. |
| September 13 Los Angeles has its worst "smog attack" to date |
1955 |
| Disneyland opens in Anaheim. |
| West Covina is the fastest growing community in America |
| The movie "Blackboard Jungle" is released. Its theme song, "Rock Around the Clock," is one of the earliest rock 'n' roll hits. |
1956 |
| Signal Hill, once one of Southern California’s great oil fields, is declared depleted |
| Glendale’s Brand Library opens |
| In a area legendary for its anti-union policies, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO) is established |
1957 |
| The burning of garbage within city limits is outlawed. Backyard incinerators are banned. |
| Jack Kerouac 's On the Road is published. |
1958 |
| Lured by free land in Chavez Ravine, a predominately Mexican-American community, the Brooklyn Dodgers come to Los Angeles. Plans for a low income housing project are cancelled to build Dodger Stadium. |
| April 18 The Los Angeles Dodgers play their first major league game. |
1959 |
| Playing in the Coliseum, built for the 1932 Olympics, the Los Angeles Dodgers win the World Series. |
| Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena opens in Exposition Park |
| Redevelopment in the downtown Bunker Hill area is approved. |
| The city's population is 2,479,015; the county's 6,038,771. In ten years Los Angeles has grown by a million persons |
| The Lakers move from Minneapolis to Los Angeles. |
| The Democratic National Convention, held in the new Los Angeles Sports Arena, nominates John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. |
| Cesar Chavez organizes migrant farm workers and creates the United Farm Workers of America. |
1961 |
| The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is founded |
| Sam Yorty is elected mayor of Los Angeles |
|
November 6 A major fire in Bel Air destroys nearly 500 homes. Los Angeles worst fire to date. |
1962 |
| Richard Nixon, defeated for the presidency by John Kennedy, runs for Governor in California. Defeated by Pat Brown, he tells the press that "they won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore." |
| Marina del Rey is dedicated; the world’s largest man-made small-craft harbor |
| The City creates a Cultural Heritage Board to help preserve of important and historic buildings. |
| Ports o’ Call Village opens in San Pedro |
| Dodger Stadium officially opens |
| August 5 Actress Marilyn Monroe is found dead from a drug overdose. |
1963 |
| The Baldwin Hills dams bursts, killing five people. |
| The last Pacific Electric "Red Cars" is retired from service. |
| The Los Angeles Dodgers sweep the New York Yankees in the World Series 4-0. |
| Gilbert Lindsay is the first African American to be elected to the Los Angeles City Council |
| November 22 President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas. |
1964 |
| Universal Studio Tours open |
| The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and Ahmanson Theater at the Los Angeles Music Center open, due to a great extent to the efforts of Dorothy Buffum Chandler, wife of Norman Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times. |
| August 2 The alleged Tonkin Bay incident gives the United States an excuse to press its on-going war in Vietnam. |
| December 4 Beginning of "Free Speech" protests at the University of Ca1ifornia at Berkeley. Student activism spreads to other campuses. |
1965 |
| The Los Angeles County Museum of Art opens |
|
February 22 Malcom X assassinated in New York City |
| July 17 Simon Rodia, builder of the Watts Towers, dies. |
| August 11-16 Rioting break out in Watts. 34 people die and 1,000 wounded. Damages are set at $40 million. |
1966 |
| A new Los Angeles Zoo opens in Griffith Park |
| Ronald Reagan is elected Governor of California |
1967 |
| The British oceanliner, Queen Mary, is permanently docked as a tourist attraction in Long Beach. |
| The Los Angeles Free Clinic opens |
| The Forum sports arena is built in Inglewood. |
| The Mark Taper Forum theater at the Music Center opens |
| The Los Angeles Kings hockey team is formed |
| Seventy percent of Southern California’s aerospace personnel are employed by Lockheed in the San Fernando Valley |
| The "Hippie" movement in San Francisco.is discovered by the national press |
1968 |
| USC football star O.J. Simpson wins the Heisman Trophy |
| April 4 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. |
| June 5 Robert F. Kennedy assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. |
1969 |
| Angels Flight, the funicular railway linking Bunker Hill to Broadway closes |
| Four million gallons of oil spill from an Unocal Oil Company well into the Santa Barbara Channel, killing birds and sea life. The disaster sparks a new environmental movement |
| January-March The heaviest rainfall in 100 years hits Southern California. More than 100 die, 10,000 homes are lost. Damage estimates exceed $60 million |
| January 20 Richard Nixon is sworn in as President of the United States |
| July 20 Neil Armstrong, commander of the Apollo II spacecraft, becomes the first man to walk on the moon. |
| August 15-18 The Woodstock Music and Art Fair takes place at a Catskills New York farm |
| August 9 "The Manson Family" murders Sharon Tate and friends. Charles Manson and his followers are convicted in 1970. |
| The population of the city of Los Angeles is 2,811,801; the county’s is 7,055,800. |
| 250 acres of Southern California land is urbanized each day |
| Lion Country Safari animal park opens in Irvine |
| The Crips Gang, based in Los Angeles, forms |
| Rioting erupts in predominately Chicano East Los Angeles. |
1971 |
| The Los Angeles Convention Center opens. |
| The 6.4 magnitude Sylmar earthquake strikes, centered in north San Fernando Valley. 58 die. Included in $511 million in damage, the City’s oldest structure, the Avila Adobe on Olvera Street. It will be reconstructed. |
| The Los Angeles Police Department develops the nation’s first Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) Team |
1972 |
| Pepperdine University opens its Malibu campus |
| The Los Angeles Lakers win their first national championship |
1973 |
| Los Angeles’ Koreatown is founded |
| The USC vs. Ohio State Rose Bowl game draws the largest crowd ever for a college football game, 106,689 |
| May 24 Tom Bradley defeats Sam Yorty to be elected the first African American mayor of Los Angeles |
| September 26 The Saber Toothed Tiger, whose remains were often found in the La Brea Tar pits, is named California State Fossil |
1974 |
| The J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu opens |
| As part of a search for kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst, Los Angeles SWAT squads attach a Symbionese Liberation Army safe house in Los Angeles. During a two hour gun battle 6 SLA members are killed and the house is burned to the ground. Patty Hearst was not there at the time. |
| August 8 As a result of investigations of the break in at Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate Apartment complex, and evidence of a cover-up, President Nixon resigns. |
1975 |
| The Norton Simon Museum opens in Pasadena; formerly the Pasadena Museum of Modern Art. |
| Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House in Hollywood is restored |
| The South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) is formed |
| The county of Los Angeles has forty-four square miles of parking space |
| California’s first Mediterranean fruit fly, or medfly, is found in Marina del Rey, a threat to the area’s agriculture. |
1976 |
| The United States celebrates its Bicentennial |
| In Los Angeles, in honor of the American Bicentennial, the Republic of Korea gives the city a "friendship bell." It is installed in San Pedro |
| Spring rains end the "worst drought in 72 years." |
| Los Angeles International Airport handles 1,000 jets a day and is considered "obsolete." |
1977 |
| Tommy Lasorda is named manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers |
| The George C. Page Museum next to the La Brea Tar Pits opened. |
| Proposition 13 freezes property taxes |
1978 |
| Arrests are made in the "Hillside Strangler," murders of nine women |
| Pasadena holds its first Doo Dah Parade, a parody of the annual Rose Bowl Parade |
| Daryl Gates become Los Angeles’ Chief of Police |
1979 |
| The Long Beach Pike amusement park closes |
| June Magic Johnson drafted by the Lakers |
| Jerry Buss buys the Lakers, Kings and Forum |
| July Santa Monica Police stage a 20-day sick-out. Crime in the area rises 32 percent |
| November Lee Marvin "palimony" court case brings attention to cohabitation rights between unmarried couples |
| Los Angeles’ population totaled 2,966,765; the county's |
| 7,477,657. Los Angeles is a city with no single majority. |
| African Americans, Asians and Latinos total 52% of the city's population. |
| East Mojave National Scenic Area becomes the first National Scenic Area |
| April Bankruptcy filings rise 60 percent in Los Angeles |
| July-October Simultaneous strikes by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) bring entertainment business to a virtual halt |
| November 4 Ronald Reagan, former motion picture actor and two-term Governor of California, is elected President of the United States. |
| December Auto smog inspection bill passes Congress |
1981 |
| Pitcher Fernando Valenzuela begins his rookie season with the Dodgers |
| The first Space Shuttle flight lands at Edwards Air Force Base |
| The first diagnosed case of AIDS appears in Los Angeles |
| Tom Bradley is elected to his third term as mayor of Los Angeles |
|
January 21 Former actor and two-term California Governor Ronald Reagan inaugurated as President of the United States. Shortly afterward 52 American hostages in Iran released |
| September 4 The Los Angeles bicentennial year officially closes with the dedication of a plaque to be placed in the Plaza honoring the 44 pobladores who founded the Pueblo two hundred years ago. |
1982 |
| Wolfgang Puck’s fashionable Spago Restaurant opens |
| UCLA moves its home football games from the Coliseum to the Rose Bowl |
| 423.000 dogs are estimated to live in Los Angeles |
| Sherman Block is elected Los Angeles County Sheriff |
|
March 5 Actor/Comedian John Belushi dies of a drug overdose in the Chateau Marmont Hotel |
| June First diagnosed case of AIDS in Los Angeles county |
| July City experience infestation by Mediterranean Fruit Fly |
| October Mayor Tom Bradley launches $750 million construction program to expand Los Angeles International Airport |
1982 |
| June Sherman Bloch is elected Los Angeles County Sheriff |
| July Unemployment in Los Angeles reaches 9.8 percent, the highest level since 1941 |
| August Oakland Raiders move to Los Angeles |
| October Former singing cowboy and successful businessman Gene Autry buys controlling interest in the Los Angeles Angels baseball team |
| November Tom Bradley loses to George Deukmejian in California gubernatorial election |
1983 |
| A storm destroys the end of Santa Monica Pier |
| Weingart Center opens on Los Angeles skid row |
| D.A.R.E anti-drug program initiated in Los Angeles Unified School District |
| Temporary Contemporary Museum opens in downtown Los Angeles |
| A court decision orders protection of Mono Lake which had been slowly depleted by demands for water in Southern California |
| April UCLA quarterly economic forecast says recession has ended |
| Walt Disney Productions launches both the Disney cable channel and Tokyo Disneyland |
| October Getty Trust announces it will build a $100 million art and cultural center in Brentwood. The Getty Center will eventually cost $1 billion |
1984 |
| Los Angeles displaces Chicago as America’s second largest city. |
| The twenty-third Olympic Games open in Los Angeles |
| An Aerospace Museum opens in Exposition Park in Los Angeles |
| West Hollywood becomes an independent city |
| Los Angeles Raiders win the Super Bowl |
| James Huberty kills 21 adults and children at a San Ysidro McDonald’s, the deadliest single mass murder in U.S. to date |
| February The gross national product of Los Angeles reaches $166 billion, qualifying it as a viable country unto itself |
| October Disney stock tumbles as a new leadership team, Michael Eisner and Frank Wells are hired to manage the company |
1985 |
| Tom Bradley is elected to a fourth term as Los Angeles’ mayor |
| It is estimated that there are 400 gangs with 45,000 members in the County of Los Angeles |
| Eight East Los Angeles residents chase and subdue Richard Ramirez, later convicted as the "Night Stalker" murderer |
| In Santa Monica, the Heal the Bay organization is formed |
| The Los Angeles Music Center Opera is founded |
| Roger Mahoney is named archbishop of Los Angeles |
| Actor Rock Hudson dies of AIDS |
| January Occidental Petroleum wins battle for right to drill for oil off the coast of the Pacific Palisades after making large contributions to many Los Angeles City Council members |
| February Bank failures increase. 11 institutions fail in the first two month of the year |
1986 |
| Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) opens in Los Angeles |
| March The first Los Angeles Marathon takes place |
| April 29 One of the worst library fires in American history destroys or damages some 800,000 books at the main branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. The loss is estimated at $22 million. The fire was set by an arsonist who was never brought to justice. |
| May Los Angeles City Council approves expenditures of $922 million during the next 30 years for redevelopment of Hollywood |
| September Court approves new Los Angeles redistricting plan which increases Latino and African American representation |
| November Tom Bradley loses second election to George Deukmejian in race for California Governor. |
1987 |
| There are declines in the Southern California aerospace industry, a major foundation of the region’s economy |
| Agricultural acreage shrinks from 318,000 in 1942 to 32,000 |
| Marineland in Palos Verdes closes |
| Los Angeles is the leading West Coast port, handling $14.2 billion worth of cargo |
| February Legendary Hollywood drugstore, Schwab’s, is torn down |
| September Pope John Paul II speaks in the Los Angeles Coliseum |
| October 1 An earthquake, centered in Whittier, registers 5.9 on the Richter scale, the most powerful in the Los Angeles area since 1971. 8 people die and more than 100 are injured. Damage is set at $358 million |
1988 |
| The United States Environmental Protection Agency imposes strict pollution standards on Los Angeles County |
| The Dodgers defeat the Oakland A’s to win the World Series |
| The Lakers win their sixth world championship |
| The Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage opens in Griffith Park |
| January Lockheed announces plans to sell its property in Burbank |
| April Ten of Los Angeles 71 Savings and Loans are in serious condition |
| Home prices soar but fewer and fewer people can afford them |
| September "Junk Bond" king Michael Milken is charged with fraud and security violations |
1989 |
| Regulators seize Lincoln Savings and Loan and accuse Charles H. Keating of fraud. |
| The Pan Pacific Auditorium, a Los Angeles architectural landmark, burns to the ground |
| The 73-story Library Tower opens in downtown Los Angeles. Costing $350 million, it is the tallest building in the Western United States |
| April Tom Bradley is elected for an unprecedented fifth term as mayor of Los Angeles |
| October Downtown Los Angeles has more new office space in construction than at any other time in history |
| November After 118 years, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner ceases publication |
| Almost $3 billion in defense spending cuts make serious dents in the Southern California economy; major layoffs in the aerospace industry result |
1991 |
| Former Los Angeles City Councilperson Gloria Molina is elected as the first woman and first Latina to the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors |
| California Institute of Technology in Pasadena celebrates its centennial |
| Artist Cristo erects 1,700 yellow umbrellas in Ft. Tejon Pass |
| The MTA Blue Line between Los Angeles and Long Beach opens, marking the return of interurban rail transit in Los Angeles |
| The year is declared to have the cleanest air since measurements began by the AQMD |
| Los Angeles Laker star Magic Johnson announces that he has the HIV virus and will retire from basketball |
| An eyewitness videotapes Los Angeles Police officers beating Rodney King. Shown around the world, the tape causes uproar about police brutality against African Americans and others. |
| March For the first time, Los Angeles surpasses New York as the top U.S. realty market for Japanese investors |
1992 |
| Police Chief Daryl Gates is replaced by Willie Williams, Los Angeles’ first African American Police Chief |
| Bullock’s Wilshire Department Store closes. It will later become home for Southwest Law School. |
| The Christopher Commission, formed to investigate Rodney King case, issues its report, recommending an overhaul of the Los Angeles Police Department |
| Bank of America absorbs Security Pacific Bank |
| Major layoffs in Southern California’s aerospace industry |
| April 29 A Simi Valley jury acquits Los Angeles police officers accused of using excessive force during the arrest of Rodney King. That night rioting breaks out across the City. It ends on May 5 after 55 deaths, 2,300 injuries, 623 fires and $785 million in damages |
|
May 1, 1992 Looting and fires break out after acquittal of police officers accused in the beating of Rodney King. Reports of 25 dead, 572 injured and 1,000 fires. |
| August General Motors closes its facilities in Van Nuys, the last remaining Southern California automobile assembly plant |
| November Bill Clinton elected President of the United States |
| December Disney Chairman Michael Eisner cashes in $197.5 million in stock options, believed to be the most money ever paid a corporate executive in a single day |
1993 |
| The 17.3 mile Century Freeway opens |
| The Red Line subway between Union Station and Pershing Square opens |
| Freeway and highway shooting incidents reach high of 18 cases |
| May Universal Studios "City Walk" opens |
| June Richard Riordan is elected mayor of Los Angeles, defeating former City Councilman Mike Woo |
| October Wildfires burn 152,000 acres of Los Angeles County. Two die, 720 buildings are damages with an a loss of $950 million |
| November Congress approves the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) enhancing Los Angeles’ prospects for becoming a more dominate Pacific Rim trade center |
1994 |
| Brooklyn Avenue in Boyle Heights, primarily a Jewish neighborhood in the early part of the 20th Century, is renamed Cesar Chavez Avenue, an indication that the area is now predominately Latino. |
| January
18 A 6.8 magnitude earthquake centered in Northridge causes 61 deaths and $20 billion in damage. |
| June
18 O.J. Simpson is arrested on suspicion murdering his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her acquaintance Ron Goldman |
| July The World Cup of Soccer is held in the Rose Bowl. Brazil defeats Italy in the final game |
| October Stephen Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg form a new multimedia company called DreamWorks |
| November Peterson Automotive Museum opens on Wilshire Blvd. It joins the County Museum of Art, Craft and Folk Art Museum and Museum of Miniatures in an area is known as "Museum Row." |
| December After a number of failed investments, Orange County is forced to declare bankruptcy |
1995 |
| 60 Thai nationals are freed after being held as slave labor in an El Monte garment factory |
| After one of the most watched trials in history, former USC football star O.J. Simpson is found innocent in the murder of his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her acquaintance Ron Goldman |
| The Los Angeles Rams move to St. Louis |
| The Regents of the University of California vote to end affirmative action admissions policies |
| The Port of Long Beach is the nation’s largest container facility |
| April Chasen’s restaurant, long a gathering place for movie stars and other celebrities, closes |
| UCLA defeats the University of Arkansas to win its first national basketball championship in twenty years. During the 1960s, under Coach John Wooden, the team dominated national competition |
| July Walt Disney buys Capital Cities/ABC for $19 billion |
| August The Los Angeles Raiders return to Oakland |
|
October 3 O.J. Simpson declared not guilty in the murder trial of his ex-wife Nichole Brown |
| Time-Warner acquires Turner Broadcasting for $7.5 billion |
1996 |
| The Los Angeles Convention Center hosts the traveling Smithsonian exhibit, "America's Treasures," averaging 10,000 visitors per day. |
| Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahoney orders demolition of the 1871 St. Vibianas Cathedral, damaged in the 1994 earthquake. A coalition of preservationists get a restraining order. Mahoney says he wants to build a new Cathedral, replacing the old one. A compromise results in an end to the demolition of St. Vibiana’s and acceptances of plans to build a new Cathedral on a site adjacent to the Music Center |
| Angels Flight reopens |
| January Wells Fargo buys First Interstate Bank |
| April $75 million Skirball Cultural Center and Museum opens in Sherman Oaks |
1997 |
| The Los Angeles Convention Center completes Kentia Hall, expanding exhibit space to 870,000 square feet, making the Center one of the ten largest in North America. |
| The bodies of 39 men and women who were associated with the Heaven’s Gate cult are found in a Rancho Santa Fe house |
| Police Chief Willie Williams, chosen to succeed Daryl Gates, agrees to relinquish his job with a $375,000 severance package |
| Los Angeles experiences a record 219-day-long period without rain |
| The Long Beach Naval Shipyard closes. Preservationist and others oppose the decision to sell the property to Chinese shipping interests |
|
March 1 Police in North Hollywood shootout with bank robbers wielding AK47s. 2 suspects slain; 10 officers wounded. |
| December The Getty Center in the hills above Bel Air opens |
1998 |
| January Construction begins on Staples Center, a new sports arena downtown Los Angeles |
| March Rupert Murdock buys the Los Angeles Dodgers from Peter O’Malley, son of the owner who first brought the team to the City from Brooklyn |
| June A new $100 million aquarium in Long Beach opens |
| November Los Angeles voters pass ballot measure that precludes use of transit sales tax to fund further subway construction. |
|
1999 |
|
August 11 In Granada Hills, a gunman opens fire in a Jewish day camp. 5 children are wounded |
|
2002 |
|
November Secession of San Fernando Valley and San Pedro defeated in referendum election. |