The History of Los Angeles
38,000 BC - Age of the oldest La Brea Tar Pit Fossil
8,000 BC - The Chumash people settle the Los Angeles Basin.
300 BC - Tataviam people inhabit present-day San Fernando Valley.
500 AD - Tongva people settle in the Los Angeles Basin.
1542 - Portuguese explorer Juan Cabrillo navigates coast of California. He calls present-day San Pedro Bay “The Bay of Smokes.”
1602 - Sebastian Vizcaino, of Spain, explores the California Coast and meets locals.
1769 - Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola opens up land route to the port of Monterey and establishes the first Spanish settlement in the area. The settlers name the local river Rio de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula (River of Our Lady Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula)—which is where the name LOS ANGELES comes from.
1771 - Junipero Serra establishes the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel, later moved to the present-day city of San Gabriel.
1781 - A group of 11 families made up of 44 Mexicans settle by the LA river. Felipe de Neve, Governor of Spanish California, names the Settlement El Pueblo Sobre el Rio de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles del Rio de Porciuncula.
1797 - Father Fermin Lasuen founds Mission San Fernando, named for King Ferdinand of Spain. It later becomes home to the largest adobe structure in California, 30,000 grape vines and 21,000 head of livestock.
1805 - The first American trading ship arrives at San Pedro Bay, south of the Pueblo.
1821 - Mexico declares independence from Spain.
1841 - History of LA’s first census shows a population of 141.
1842 - California’s first discovery of gold is made at Placerita Canyon, near Mission San Fernando, prompting LA’s first population boom.
1846 - Pio Pico is sworn in as governor of California, in Los Angeles. He would be the last Mexican governor of California. The name “Pico” is still all over LA.
1847 - Battle of Rio San Gabriel. The United States takes control of Los Angeles. The Treaty of Cahuenga is signed in the pass between Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.
1848 - Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico formally cedes California to the United States, and all residents are made U.S. citizens.
1849 - The California Gold Rush. Settlers flood the state, creating great demand for beef from the Los Angeles-area ranchos.
1850 - Los Angeles is incorporated as a municipality, and California becomes the 30th state in the union.
1852 - The Gilmore Adobe is built at the site of the Original Farmers Market (it’s still there!). The Gilmore oil company would pave roads, sell gas, and help create L.A.’s notorious car culture.
1854 - The first Jewish services in LA history are held.
1855 - Los Angeles gets its first schoolhouse.
1865 - The Civil War ends. African Americans begin heading to Los Angeles in significant numbers.
1865 - Los Angeles’ first college, St. Vincent’s (now Loyola Marymount University), is established. Today, LA county has more than 100 colleges and Universities.
1866 - Los Angeles Town Square is established—later to be named Pershing Square.
1868 - The arrival of streetlights.
1869 - Southern California’s first railroad is constructed, connecting DTLA with San Pedro Bay (21 miles away).
1870 - Whites outnumber Hispanics and Native Americans for the first time in Los Angeles.
1871 - The first rail link connects Los Angeles and San Francisco.
1871 - Isaac Newton Van Nuys buys 60,000 acres of land in the Southern San Fernando Valley.
1872 - The Los Angeles Library Association is established. Today, the LAPL system spans 73 libraries with a collection of 7.1 million volumes.
1872 - The first African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church is established.
1872 - Ventura County is established, ceded from a section of northwest Los Angeles County.
1873 - L.A.’s first synagogue is built.
1873 - L.A.’s first trolley line in the city opens.
1877 - Refrigerated boxcar technology makes California oranges a hit in St. Louis. California agriculture overtakes ranching as mainstay of local economy.
1878 - Los Angeles County Bar Association is established.
1880’s - Citrus, wine grapes, and other fruits and vegetables are grown in the Los Angeles area. Present-day Beverly Hills is largely bean fields, present-day Hollywood is fig orchards.
1880’s - Westlake park is built (later named McArthur Park, for the WW2 General).
1880 - Founding of the University of Southern California. Its sports teams are known as the Methodists until 1912, when a columnist wrote that they “fought like Trojans.” The name sticks.
1880 - The first Chinatown is established, centered on Alameda and Macy streets (now Cesar Chavez Avenue). Today the area is the site of Union Station.
1881 - The Los Angeles Times debuts as the Los Angeles Daily Times. It would go on to become one of the most distinguished daily newspapers in the United States, winning 45 Pulitzer Prizes since 1942.
1881 - The Southern Pacific Railroad links Los Angeles with eastern United States for the first time.
1881 - Los Angeles has its first recorded snowfall.
1883 - The Santa Fe Railroad opens a second line linking Los Angeles with the rest of the United States.
1886 - Harvey Henderson Wilcox purchases 160 acres of land west of the Cahuenga Pass for a planned residential community. He names it Hollywood.
1886 - The price of a train ticket between Kansas City and Los Angeles falls to a dollar, and the population booms again.
1889 - USC and St. Vincent’s play the first college football game in Los Angeles.
1890 - LA population reaches 50,000
1890 - The official flag of LA is designed.
1892 - Edward Doheny discovers oil at “Greasy Gulch,” near Westlake park. Soon oil is discovered all over the Los Angeles area.
1893 - LA gold-mining millionaire Lewis L. Bradbury builds the Bradbury Building in DTLA.
1896 - Colonel J. Griffith donates nearly five square miles of land near his ranch to the people of Los Angeles. Today, Griffith Park spans 4,210 acres of natural chapparal-covered terrain and landscaped parkland between Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. It’s the largest urban park in the United States.
1897 - 500 oil wells are operating within Los Angeles. California is the third-largest oil producing state in America.
1897 - A nine mile wooden cycleway called the California Cycleway is built connecting Downtown Los Angeles with Pasadena along the riverbed the Arroyo Seco. The cycleway eventually falls, but the right of way remains.
1897 - The first automobile takes to the streets of Los Angeles.
1898 - LA gets a symphony orchestra, the fifth in the nation.
1899 - Hollywood Cemetery, now known as Hollywood Forever, is founded on 100 acres.
1899 - First breakwater constructed at the Port of Los Angeles, on San Pedro Bay
1900 - LA population reaches 102,479, which ranks 36th in the nation.
1900 - Early Japanese immigrants arrive in Los Angeles.
1901 - Angels flight opens up Bunker Hill in DTLA.
1902 - The first Rose Bowl game is played. Michigan defeats Stanford.
1903 - The Los Angeles Examiner (later the Los Angeles Examiner-Herald) is founded by William Randolph Hearst.
1905 - Tobacco magnate turned real estate developer Abbot Kinney carves out canals near the beach, naming the district the Venice of California. Six of those canals still exist.
1906 - The first fossils are excavated from the La Brea Tar Pits.
1907 - The Southwest Museum of the American Indian opens. Today it has one of the most important collections of Native American art and artifacts in the United States, spanning 2,000 years.
1908 - Philippe The Original opens near Chinatown. Along with Coles (also in DTLA), they claim to have invented the French Dip roast beef sandwich.
1909 - LA becomes the first large city in the nation to adopt zoning laws to distinguish between commercial and residential properties.
1910 - LA population is 319,198—17th in the nation.
1910 - D.W. Griffith becomes the first director to shoot film in Los Angeles. His acting company includes Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, and Mary Pickford.
1910 - Los Angeles holds the first International Air Meet to display early airplanes.
1910 - Hollywood joins the municipality of Los Angeles, partially, to have access to Los Angeles’ water rights.
1911 - The first Hollywood production company, Nestor Film Company, opens in an abandoned tavern. Soon, neighbors erect signs reading, “No dogs, no actors.”
1912 - The area around First Street and Central Avenue becomes the gateway to a famous African-American corridor along Central Avenue, which swells in population in the 1920’s.
1912 - Los Angeles gets its first gas station
1913 - Cecil B. de Mille shoots the first Hollywood movie, Squaw Man, in a studio converted from an old barn.
1913 - The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County opens. It remains the largest museum of its kind in the western United States.
1913 - The Los Angeles Aqueduct is completed, carrying water form Owens Valley (about 230 miles north). At the opening, engineer William Mulholland proclaims, “There it is. Take it.”
1913 - Georgia “Tiny” Broadwick becomes first woman to parachute from an airplane over Griffith Park.
1914 - Beverly Hills is incorporated as an independent city.
1915 - Large parts of the San Fernando Valley are annexed to the city of Los Angeles.
1915 - Carl Laemmle opens Universal Film Manufacturing Company near the Cahuenga Pass. He charges the public 25 cents to watch films being shot.
1915 - D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation seems to justify racial segregation and glorify the Ku Klux Klan.
1915 - Direct steamship service begins between Los Angeles and Japan.
1915 - There are 55,000 cars on the streets of Los Angeles.
1916 - The Jesse L. Lasky Company merges with Adolph Zuokor’s Famous Players to distribute films under Paramount Pictures.
1917 - Grand Central Market opens in downtown LA.
1917 - Frank Lloyd Wright, known as “the greatest American architect of all time,” designs the Hollyhock House for heiress Aline Barnsdall in what is now Barsdall Art Park in East Holllywood. It’s now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
1917 - The first Forest Lawn Cemetery opens.
1918 - Brothers Sam, Jack, Harry, and Albert Warner, immigrants from Poland via Pennsylvania, open Warner Bros Studios on Sunset Boulevard. Warner Bros is now one of the world’s most famous movie studios.
1919 - Musso & Frank Grill opens in Hollywood and becomes a Hollywood celebrity hangout. It still stands.
1919 - The L.A. Philharmonic is founded and financed by William Andrews Clark, Jr., a copper baron, arts enthusiast, and part-time violinist.
1919 - UCLA is founded.
1919 - United Artists is founded by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith
1919 - The Huntington Library, Art Collections, & Botanical Gardens opens in San Marino.
1920 - A wooden, outdoor ampitheatre is built. It’s now known as the Ford Theatre.
1920 - 80% of the world’s films are shot in California.
1921 - Welder Simon Rodia from Italy begins work on the Watts Towers.
1921 - Amelia Earhart begins her career with flying lessons in Los Angeles.
1922 - L.A.’s first radio stations—KFI, KHJ, and KNX—debut.
1922 - The first concerts are held at the Hollywood Bowl ampitheatre.
1922 - Restaraunt Tam O’Shanter opens. The same group would fo on to found Lawr'y’s The Prime Rib.
1922 - The Rose Bowl is built in Pasadena, known as one of the World’s Greatest College Football Stadiums.
1922 - The first LA County Fair is held in Pomona.
1923 - The LA Memorial Coliseum opens in Exposition Park. It’s one of the world’s greatest stadiums.
1923 - The LA Bitmore Hotel opens across from Pershing Square in DTLA. It’s now known as the Millenium Biltmore.
1923 - The Hollywood sign is created as an advertisement for a local real estate development called “Hollywoodland.”
1923 - The California Institute of Technology wins a Nobel prize.
1923 - The Angelus Temple is opened in Echo Park.
1923 - A young cartoonist named Walt Disney arrives in LA with $40 in his pocket.
1923 - Bel-Air becomes a community in the Santa Monica foothills.
1924 - The Mulholland Highway (now known as Mulholland Drive) opens on the ridgeline of the Santa Monica mountains and Hollywood Hills. It’s still one of the world’s most beautiful drives.
1924 - Theatre Magnate Marcus Leow amalgamates Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictues, and Louis B. Mayer pictures into what will become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).
1924 - CBC Film Sales Corporation is renamed Colombia Pictures.
1924 - L.A. population tops 1 million people.
1924 - The Original Pantry Cafe opens in DTLA. The 24-hour eatery claims to never have closed or been without a customer since opening.
1925 - The LA Central Library opens.
1925 - Fox Film Corporation and Twentieth Century Pictures merge to form Twentieth Century Fox.
1925 - Spanish language newspaper La Opinion is founded. Today it’s the most distributed spanish-language newspaper in the United States.
1926 - 2,400+ miles of road connect Los Angeles and Chicago. It’s called Route 66.
1927 - “Talkies,” or talking pictures, arrive with Jazz Singer.
1927 - Grauman’s Chinese Theatre opens,
1927 - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is established.
1927 - The 13-story United Artists Building is built in DTLA. Today the site houses the Ace Hotel and Theatre.
1928 - Los Angeles City Hall opens.
1928 - The first Academy awards ceremony takes place at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Wings wins Best Picture.
1928 - Wald Disney releases Steamboat Willie, starring Mickey mouse.
1928 - The first NAACP convention in the west takes place on Central Avenue.
1929 - UCLA opens the first of four buildings of its current campus in the Westwood district.
1929 - Ross-Loos Medical Group of Temple Street becomes the first comprehensive medical care organization in the united States.
1930 - LAX opens. It’s the 4th-busiest airport in the world.
1930 - The original Pueblo of Los Angeles is renovated and opens as Olveira Street.
1930 - The Greek Theatre opens in Griffith Park
1930 - The Pantages Theatre opens at Hollywood and Vine.
1932 - Los Angeles hosts the Games of the X Olympiad. Tenth street is renamed Olympic Boulevard.
1933 - First publication of African-American newspaper the Los Angeles Sentinel.
1934 - The Original Farmers Market opens at 3rd and Fairfax. It’s still there.
1935 - The Griffith Observatory opens in Griffith Park.
1938 - Lawry’s The Prime Rib opens on La Cienega.
1939 - Union station opens in DTLA. Chinatown moves to its present location.
1939 - MGM releases The Wizard of Oz.
1939 - Pink’s Hot Dogs is founded by Paul and Betty Pink as a pushcart. They later open their current location in 1946.
1940 - The Hollywood Paladium opens with a dance featuring Frank Sinatra.
1940 - The Arroyo Seco Parkway opens between DTLA and Pasadena, becoming the nation’s first freeway. Today, LA has 27 interconnecting freeways.
1940 - WW2. Shipbuilding becomes the primary business of the port of LA. 1/3 of warplanes are manufactured in Los Angeles.
1942 - LA gives the world its first parking meter.
1944 - Bing Cosby’s “San Fernando Valley” reaches no. 1 on the charts.
1946 - The Cleveland Rams football team moves to LA to become the Los Angeles Rams. They are the first team to capitalize on TV.
1947 - The area code 213 is assigned to Los Angeles.
1948 - The first In-N-Out Burger opens in Baldwin Park
1950 - LA population is 1,970,358—surpassing Detroit as fourth largest in the nation.
1950 - Sunset Boulevard is released and becomes a definitive film about Hollywood.
1950 - The Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine is founded in the Pacific Palisades. It holds a portion of Gandhi’s ashes.
1951 - The Wayfarers Chapel, aka “The Glass Church,” is built in Rancho Palos Verdes overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
1954 - Oil magnate J. Paul Getty first opens a museum of his collections to the public in Pacific Palisades. It would become one of the richest museums in the world.
1954 - Simon Rodia completes the Watts Towers.
1955 - Walt Disney moves to Los Angeles’ Bel Air district and proclaims his new Disney Park in Anaheim as the “Happiest Place on Earth.”
1956 - The Capitol Records building in Hollywood is built to resemble a stack of 45-rpm disks, and still stands as a symbol of the entertainment industry.
1958 - KTLA becomes the first TV station to use a helicopter.
1958 - The Brooklyn Dodgers become the Los Angeles Dodgers, becoming the first MLB team west of the Mississippi.
1958 - USC establishes the first schools in the nation for cinema-television.
1959 - LA-based toy company Mattel debuts Barbie.
1960 - LA population is 2,479,015—surpassing Philadelphia as third largest in the nation.
1960 - The Minneapolis Lakers move to Los Angeles
1960 - The Hollywood Walk of Fame opens with a star dedicated to Joanne Woodword embedded in the sidewalk.
1960 - LA hosts the national convention of the Democratic Party and John F. Kennedy is nominated to run for president.
1961 - The space-age Theme Building, influenced by cars and jets, opens as the centerpiece of LAX. It influences The Jetsons.
1961 - Cleopatra becomes the first film to break the $10 million mark in production budget.
1961 - The California Institute of the Arts forms.
1962 - Dodger Stadium opens in Chavez Ravine.
1962 - Johnny Carson becomes host of NBC’s The Tonight Show. It moves to LA.
1963 - The Pacific Cinerama Dome opens. It’s now part of ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood, and just closed :(.
1964 - The Dorothy Chandler Pavillion opens as the cornerstone of the Music Center of Los Angeles County. It is home to the LA Philharmonic, The LA Opera, and several Oscar ceremonies.
1965 - The Whisky A Go Go opens on the Sunset Strip. They host The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Talking Heads, Oasis, Nirvana, Soundgaarden, and others.
1965 - The LA County Musuem of Art opens. LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States.
1965 - Marina Del Ray becomes the largest man-made pleasure boat harbor in the world.
1965 - Restrictions are lifted on immigration from East Asia, setting the stage for LA to have the largest Asian population in the United States. LA has the largest Korean, Thai, and Filipino populations outside their respective countries.
1966 - The LA Zoo opens in Griffith Park.
1967 - The first ever Super Bowl takes place at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Packers defeat the Chiefs 35-10.
1967 - The Black Cat in Silver lake hosts a peaceful demonstration for LGBTQ civil rights. It’s the first in the nation.
1967 - The LA Forum opens in Inglewood. The LA Kings hockey team plays its fist games here.
1967 - The Queen Mary is officially retired from service and sails to Long Beach as a tourist attraction, special events venue, and more.
1969 - FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising) is founded in downtown LA.
1969 - The Los Angeles LGBT Center is founded.
1970 - LA’s first gay pride parade. Today it’s the largest in the United States and draws more than 350,000 attendees annually.
1971 - The LA Convention Center opens in DTLA.
1971 - Magic Mountain opens in Santa Clarita. It’s now known as Six Flags Magic Mountain, and it has the most roller coasters of any amusement park in the world.
1972 - Wattstax festival at the Coliseum. It’s dubbed the “Black Woodstock” with performances by Isaac Hayes, Albert King, and more.
1972 - The South Bay Bike Trail is constructed, linking Pacific Palisades with Santa Monica, Venice, Marina del Rey.
1973 - Tom Bradley becomes mayor of LA.
1975 - Jaws is released
1975 - The Western Bonaventure Hotel & Suites opens in DTLA.
1976 - Painting of the Great Wall of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley, the world’s longest mural at 2,500 feet. LA is the mural capital of the wold, with over 1,500 wall paintings around the city.
1977 - The California African American Museum is founded.
1978 - The Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area is established. At 153,000 acres, it’s the worlds largest urban national park.
1979 - MOCA is founded
1980 - LA population is 3,005,072, surpassing Chicago as second in the nation.
1982 - Wolfgang Puck opens Spago on the Sunset Strip, elevating LA into a global culinary destination.
1982 - The Oakland Raiders move to Los Angeles.
1982 - Blade Runner is released, taking place in Los Angeles in 2019. Fast Times at Ridgemont High is also set in the San Fernando Valley.
1983 - Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” is released, and becomes the city’s unofficial anthem.
1984 - LA becomes the only U.S. city to host the Summer Olympic Games twice.
1984 - LA becomes the first city in America with two telephone codes, as the San Fernando nd San Gabriel Valleys are designated as 818.
1984 - A new international terminal opens at LAX, named for Mayor Tom Bradley.
1984 - The Mazda Miata is designed in LA.
1984 - The San Diego Clippers move to LA.
1986 - The first City of Los Angeles Marathon takes place.
1988 - Kirk Gibson hits his legendary World Series home run.
1988 - The Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum opens.
1990 - The US Bank Tower opens. At 73 stories, it would be the tallest building on the West Coast for nearly 3 decades.
1990 - The Hammer Museum opens in Westwood.
1991 - Lakers star Magic Johnson retires and announces he is HIV-positive.
1991 - The 310 area code comes into use for Western, Souther, and Eastern Los Angeles.
1992 - The Japanese-American National Museum opens in Little Tokyo, the only museum in the U.S. telling the story of Japanese Americans.
1992 - Jay Leno takes over as host of The Tonight Show.
1994 - The Petersen Automotive Museum opens.
1994 - O.J. Simpson is arrested for the murder of his wife and the world watches as his white Bronco races around Los Angeles.
1994 - The final match of the FIFA World Cup is held at the Rose Bowl Stadium.
1996 - The Skirball Cultural Center opens in Brentwood and highlights jewish history and culture.
1996 - The LA Galaxy begins play.
1996 - The Museum of Latin American Art is founded in Long Beach.
1998 - The area surrounding Downtown LA is given the 323 area code.
1999 - The STAPLES Center opens.
1999 - The US beats China in the FIFA Women’s World Cup at the Rose Bowl.
2000 - A section of East Hollywood is designated as America’s first and only Thai Town.
2001 - The Kodak Theatre opens as the new venue for the Academy Awards ceremony. The Hollywood & Highland retail and entertainment center opens next door.
2001 - Amoeba Music opens on Sunset Boulevard, occupying a whole block. It’s the largest and most diverse collection of music and movies ever housed under one roof.
2002 - The 11 Story Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels opens in DTLA.
2003 - Walt Disney Concert Hall opens in DTLA.
2003 - The Home Depot Center opens in Carson.
2005 - Antonio Villiaragosa becomes mayor of Los Angeles, the city’s first mayor of Hispanic descent since 1872
2006 - City population is 3,976,071. LA county population is 10,245,572 - by far the nations largest county.
2008 - LA Live, The Broad Contemporary Art Museum in LACMA, and the Grammy Museum open.
2009 - Madame Tussauds opens in Hollywood and the Annenberg opens in Century City.
2010 - Angels Flight reopens.
2010 - The first CicLAvia takes place, inspired by Bogota’s weekly ciclovia.
2012 - The LA Kings win the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.
2013 - Eric Garcetti becomes L.A.’s first elected Jewish mayor.
2014 - The Ace Hotel in DTLA, the Line Hotel in K Town, and others, open.
2015 - LA hosts the Special Olympics World Games.
2016 - The Rams return to Los Angeles after a 22-year hiatus.
2017 - 3.5 miles of Rodeo Road at the Rancho Cienega Sports Complex in South LA is renamed Obama Boulevard.
2018 - Banc of California Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Football Club, opens at Exposition Park.
2019 - Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood pays homage to classic LA landmarks.
2020 - Both the Dodgers and Lakers win world titles.