60 Fun Facts About Los Angeles

In what year was the pueblo of Los Angeles founded under Spanish governor Felipe de Neve?

Governor Felipe de Neve founded El Pueblo de la Reina de los Ángeles on September 4, 1781, with settler families recruited in Sonora; the city marks that date as its birthday.

Which mountain range, home to Mount Wilson Observatory, rises north of Los Angeles?

The San Gabriel Mountains wall off the Los Angeles basin to the north; on Mount Wilson, 5,710 feet up, Edwin Hubble used the 100-inch telescope in the 1920s to show the universe is expanding.

Los Angeles ranks where among US cities by population?

It passed the previous number two for the spot in early 1984, and only New York City is larger.

Which city did Los Angeles overtake in population in early 1984?

Chicago had been the nation's second-largest city since 1890; Census Bureau estimates released in 1984 showed Los Angeles had moved ahead of it, the same year Los Angeles hosted its second Summer Olympics.

What are the indigenous people of the Los Angeles basin before Spanish settlement called?

The Tongva, also called Gabrieleño after Mission San Gabriel, lived in villages across the Los Angeles basin and the Channel Islands; Yaanga, near today's downtown, stood beside the original pueblo.

Which explorer claimed the Los Angeles region for Spain in 1542?

Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo sailed into San Pedro Bay in October 1542 and claimed the coast for Spain; no settlement followed for more than two centuries.

The Los Angeles Aqueduct, completed in 1913, brings water to the city from which river?

The aqueduct taps the Owens River, 233 miles north in the eastern Sierra, and runs on gravity alone; draining the Owens Valley set off the California water wars.

Which engineer built the Los Angeles Aqueduct and later saw the St. Francis Dam collapse in 1928?

William Mulholland, the self-taught chief engineer, delivered the aqueduct in 1913; the 1928 St. Francis Dam failure killed more than 400 people and ended his career, though Mulholland Drive keeps his name.

In which year did Hollywood merge into the City of Los Angeles, largely to get water and sewer access?

Hollywood, incorporated only in 1903, voted to join Los Angeles in 1910 to tap the city's water and sewers; the Nestor company opened the first Hollywood studio the following year.

The Hollywood Sign was erected in 1923 to advertise what?

The sign advertised Hollywoodland, a housing development in the hills above Beachwood Canyon; it originally read HOLLYWOODLAND, and the last four letters came down when the sign was restored in 1949.

The Hollywood Sign stands on which peak in the Santa Monica Mountains?

The letters stand on the south face of Mount Lee, 1,708 feet high, above the old Hollywoodland tract; in 1976 a prankster altered them to read HOLLYWEED.

Which magazine founder donated the final $900,000 in 2010 to save the land around the Hollywood Sign?

Hugh Hefner, Playboy's founder, gave the last $900,000 of the $12.5 million needed to buy Cahuenga Peak in 2010; he had hosted the 1978 rebuild fundraiser and paid for the letter Y.

Why has admission to Griffith Observatory been free since it opened in 1935?

The donor's will is the reason: Griffith J. Griffith died in 1919 leaving money for the observatory on condition it be free to all; he had already given the city 3,015 acres for Griffith Park in 1896.

A bust of which actor stands on the grounds of Griffith Observatory because of a 1955 film shot there?

James Dean starred in Rebel Without a Cause, which staged its knife fight and its finale at the observatory in 1955; his bronze bust stands on the west lawn, and La La Land revisited the site in 2016.

Which film premiered at the opening of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in May 1927?

Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings opened the theatre on 18 May 1927; the theatre's own account says Norma Talmadge began the forecourt handprint tradition by accidentally stepping into wet concrete.

Which company paid $5 million in 2013 for the naming rights to Grauman's Chinese Theatre?

TCL, the Chinese electronics maker, bought a ten-year naming deal in January 2013 for more than $5 million, making it the TCL Chinese Theatre; nearly 200 celebrity hand and footprints fill the forecourt.

Who is the only person honoured with a star in all five categories on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?

Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy, holds stars for film, television, radio, recording and live performance; Muhammad Ali's star is the only one mounted on a wall so nobody walks on it.

The Packers beat which team in the first Super Bowl at the LA Coliseum in January 1967?

Green Bay beat the Kansas City Chiefs 35–10 before 61,946 fans, the only Super Bowl never sold out; the Coliseum, host of the 1932 and 1984 Olympics, was chosen for the 2028 Games as well.

A crowd of 115,300 at the Coliseum set a Guinness World Record for attendance at what kind of event?

A baseball game: the Dodgers drew 115,300 to a March 2008 exhibition against the Boston Red Sox, marking 50 years in Los Angeles; they had played at the Coliseum from 1958 to 1961 while their own ballpark was built.

The Dodgers moved to Los Angeles from which city before the 1958 season?

The Brooklyn Dodgers left Ebbets Field after the 1957 season, with the Giants moving west from New York at the same time; the name dates to 1895, when Brooklyn fans were nicknamed Trolley Dodgers.

The Dodgers' ballpark, opened in 1962, was built on top of which historic Los Angeles neighbourhood?

Dodger Stadium rose on Chavez Ravine, where a Mexican American community had been cleared in the 1950s for a public-housing project that was never built; the ballpark opened in April 1962 with 56,000 seats.

Which Dodgers pitcher is the only player to win the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year in the same season?

Fernando Valenzuela, a 20-year-old left-hander from Sonora, won both awards in 1981, when his screwball sparked Fernandomania and the Dodgers won the World Series.

The Lakers' name, odd in Los Angeles, was inspired by the nickname of which state?

The team began in 1947 as the Minneapolis Lakers, named for Minnesota's Land of 10,000 Lakes; owner Bob Short moved them to Los Angeles in 1960 and kept the name.

The Clippers relocated to Los Angeles in 1984 from which other California city?

The franchise played as the San Diego Clippers from 1978 to 1984, after Donald Sterling bought it in 1981 and moved it north to share the Los Angeles market with the Lakers.

For how many seasons did the Raiders play in Los Angeles at the Coliseum before returning to Oakland?

13 seasons, from 1982 through 1994, including the Super Bowl XVIII title won after the 1983 season; the Rams also left for St. Louis in 1995, leaving Los Angeles without an NFL team until 2016.

In which stadium did the Rams win Super Bowl LVI in 2022 on their home field?

SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, opened in 2020, hosted Super Bowl LVI on 13 February 2022, when the Rams beat the Cincinnati Bengals 23–20; NFL owners had voted 30–2 in 2016 to let the team return from St. Louis.

The mascot of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics was Sam, what kind of animal?

Sam was a bald eagle, drawn by Disney artist Bob Moore in red, white and blue; the Games turned a profit of more than $200 million despite a boycott by 14 Eastern Bloc nations.

The Los Angeles River was encased in concrete after devastating floods in which decade?

After the floods of the 1930s, above all March 1938, the Army Corps of Engineers began lining the channel in concrete that year; the dry bed later starred in Grease's drag race and Terminator 2.

The Los Angeles River flows about 51 miles from Canoga Park to its mouth in which city?

The river ends in Long Beach, emptying into San Pedro Bay beside the Port of Long Beach after crossing the San Fernando Valley, Glendale and downtown.

The 1940 Arroyo Seco Parkway, the West's first freeway, linked Los Angeles to which city?

The parkway opened to Pasadena in December 1940 carrying US 66; it was signed as the Pasadena Freeway from 1954 until 2010, when the Arroyo Seco Parkway name was restored on the National Scenic Byway.

What does the X in the airport code LAX stand for?

Nothing at all: when two-letter airport codes were expanded to three in 1947, LA simply gained a filler X; the field had opened in 1928 as Mines Field.

LAX's flying-saucer Theme Building of 1961 exemplifies which architectural style?

Googie, named after Googies coffee shop on Sunset Boulevard, gave Southern California its space-age diners and car washes; the Theme Building's crossed arches are Googie on a grand scale.

The Bunker Hill funicular, the world's shortest incorporated railway, has cars named Sinai and what?

Olivet and Sinai are the two counterbalanced cars, named for biblical mountains; Angels Flight first ran in 1901 on Third Street and was rebuilt half a block south in 1996.

Los Angeles City Hall's tower concrete was mixed with sand from every California county and water from what?

Water from all of the 21 missions of Spanish California went into the mix, along with sand from every county; the 454-foot tower, finished in 1928, posed as the Daily Planet in the 1950s Adventures of Superman.

The 1893 Bradbury Building was J. F. Sebastian's apartment in which film?

Blade Runner (1982) used the Bradbury's iron-lace atrium for Sebastian's derelict apartment; the 1893 building, designed by George Wyman, is a National Historic Landmark.

Which lone Italian immigrant built the Watts Towers over 33 years?

Simon Rodia, an immigrant from Campania, raised the 17 towers between 1921 and 1954 with hand tools and no plans, studding the steel and mortar with bottles, tiles, seashells and mirrors.

The Getty Center, opened in 1997 in Brentwood, was designed by which architect?

Richard Meier designed the hilltop campus in his trademark white enamelled panels and 16,000 tons of Italian travertine; visitors reach it by a cable-pulled hovertrain from the parking garage.

Which famous Van Gogh painting hangs at the Getty Center?

Irises, painted at the Saint-Rémy asylum in 1889, has hung at the Getty since 1990, after a 1987 auction sale at $53.9 million fell through; the museum's other site is the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades.

What had to be done in 2005 to some panels of Gehry's stainless-steel Walt Disney Concert Hall?

The offending panels were lightly sanded in 2005 to kill the glare and heat the mirror polish was bouncing onto neighbouring apartments and the sidewalk; Lillian Disney's $50 million gift in 1987 had started the project.

The Hollywood Bowl, opened in 1922, is the summer home of which ensemble?

The Los Angeles Philharmonic has played its summer season at the Bowl since the venue opened in 1922; the Beatles' 1964 and 1965 concerts there became a live album released in 1977.

Los Angeles restaurants Philippe the Original and Cole's both claim to have invented which sandwich?

The French dip: Philippe Mathieu's story has him accidentally dropping a roll into a pan of meat drippings in 1918, while Cole's says it dipped bread for a customer with bad gums; both opened in 1908.

Roy Choi's Kogi truck, launched in Los Angeles in 2008, paired Korean barbecue with what?

Tacos: the Kogi truck's Korean short-rib tacos, launched in November 2008, drew crowds by announcing each stop on Twitter, which led Newsweek to call it 'America's first viral eatery'.

In Iron Man 2, Tony Stark eats doughnuts inside the giant sign of which Inglewood shop?

Randy's Donuts has sat under its 32-foot rolled-steel doughnut since 1953; the sign has also turned up in Get Shorty, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles and Futurama.

Developer Abbot Kinney founded which beach neighbourhood in 1905, digging canals to drain it?

Venice, billed as 'Venice of America', opened on the Fourth of July 1905 with gondolas on its new canals; the independent town voted to join Los Angeles in 1926.

The investors who incorporated Beverly Hills in 1914 had originally been drilling for what?

Oil: Burton Green's Amalgamated Oil Company bought the old lima bean ranch in 1900, struck water instead, and became the Rodeo Land and Water Company, which laid out the town surrounded by Los Angeles and West Hollywood.

The Avila Adobe on Olvera Street, the oldest surviving residence in Los Angeles, was built in what year?

Francisco Avila, a wealthy ranchero and former alcalde, built the adobe in 1818; Christine Sterling's 1920s campaign to save it grew into the Olvera Street marketplace that opened on Easter Sunday 1930.

The 1992 Los Angeles riots began after a jury acquitted four police officers in the beating of which man?

Rodney King's videotaped beating by LAPD officers in March 1991 led to the trial; the acquittals on April 29, 1992 set off five days of rioting that killed more than 50 people, before King asked, 'can we all get along?'

The magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake struck the San Fernando Valley on January 17 of what year?

1994: the 4:31 a.m. quake on January 17 killed 57 people and collapsed sections of three freeways; it occurred on a previously unknown blind thrust fault beneath the Valley.

The only human remains found in the La Brea Tar Pits belong to a woman roughly how many years old?

La Brea Woman, dated to about 10,000 years ago, was 18 to 25 when she died; the pits' animal fossils date from the Last Glacial Period, and 'brea' is simply Spanish for tar.

The 1871 Los Angeles Chinese massacre killed 19, roughly what share of the city's Chinese population?

About 10%: the city's entire Chinese community numbered roughly 172 people in 1871, and the mob hanged fifteen of the nineteen victims in the Calle de los Negros district.

Doheny's 1892 oil strike, which set off the LA oil boom, was near the present site of what?

Dodger Stadium stands just north of the site, near Glendale Boulevard and Colton Street, where Edward Doheny and Charles Canfield struck oil in 1892 with a sharpened eucalyptus trunk; by 1900 the city had passed 100,000 residents.

In 1840, Jean-Louis Vignes made the first recorded shipment out of Los Angeles of which product?

California wine: Vignes's El Aliso vineyard shipped casks north to Santa Barbara, Monterey and San Francisco in 1840; the Bordeaux-born vintner had bought 104 acres beside the river in 1831, decades before citrus made the region famous.

In 1908 Los Angeles became the first US city to adopt what kind of municipal ordinance?

Zoning: the 1908 residence-district ordinance separated homes from industrial uses across much of the city, eight years before New York's better-known comprehensive zoning code of 1916.

The city's first railroad, opened in October 1869, ran 21 miles between Los Angeles and which port town?

The Los Angeles and San Pedro Railroad, promoted by Phineas Banning, linked the city to the harbour at Wilmington in October 1869; the transcontinental link came only in 1876 when the Southern Pacific bored the 6,940-foot San Fernando Tunnel.

In which year did Mexico's Congress declare Los Angeles a city and capital of Alta California?

1835: a decree of May 23 raised the pueblo to ciudad and named it capital, though the governors mostly stayed in Monterey; American forces seized the town in 1846 during the Mexican-American War.

The Santa Monica Pier's Looff Hippodrome houses what 1920s attraction on the National Register?

A carousel: the 1922 Philadelphia Toboggan Company merry-go-round, with 44 hand-carved horses, turns inside the 1916 Hippodrome, a National Historic Landmark; the pier itself opened in September 1909.

How many settlers, known as Los Pobladores, founded the pueblo of Los Angeles?

44 settlers in 11 families, recruited in Sonora and Sinaloa, walked north with Governor Felipe de Neve to found the pueblo; the Portolá expedition with Juan Crespí had reached the site in August 1769.

The 1847 agreement that ended fighting for Los Angeles between Americans and Californios was signed where?

The Treaty of Cahuenga, signed on January 13, 1847 at a ranch house near Cahuenga Pass by John C. Frémont and Andrés Pico, ended the fighting; the wider Mexican Cession was formalised at Guadalupe Hidalgo the next year.

Who was elected Los Angeles's first African American mayor in 1973, serving five terms?

Tom Bradley, a former LAPD lieutenant and city councilman, beat incumbent Sam Yorty in 1973 and served until 1993, the longest mayoralty in the city's history; Karen Bass became its first woman mayor in 2022.

Where in Los Angeles did a weather station record 121 °F on September 6, 2020?

Woodland Hills, at the Pierce College weather station in the San Fernando Valley, hit 121 °F on September 6, 2020, beating the 119 °F the same station reached in 2006.