Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Los Angeles Historical Events Timeline

Historical Events Timeline for Los Angeles County
Click (here) for the list of Cities in Los Angeles.  Any city with a live link will have a Historic Event Timeline, and resources to help 
with your research.


I compiled a lot of the data below from Discover Los Angeles, Wikipedia , Influenzaarchive.com

  • 1781 11 Families settle the area.  The Spanish Governor names the settlement El Pueblo Sobre el Rio de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles del Rio de Porciuncula.
  • 1797 Mission San Fernando founded.
  • 1821 Mexico gains Independence.  
  • 1841 Los Angeles's first Census, 141 people recorded as living there.
  • 1842 California's first Discovery of gold found near San Fernando, and starts population growth.
  • 1848 California Ceded to the U.S. as part of the peace treaty ending the Mexican War
  • 1850 California becomes a State, and Los Angeles a Municipality.
  • 1857 An estimated 7.9 magnitude quake hits the San Andreas Fualt
  • 1865 African American population grows after the end of the Civil War
  • 1871 Railroad connects Los Angeles to San Francisco
  • 1873 First Trolley in Los Angeles Operational
  • 1877 Train box cars with refrigeration capability allow agriculture to flourish in Los Angles and starts shipping produce back east.
  • 1881 Los Angeles Times Produced (later Los Angeles Times)
  • 1880s Multiple railroads go straight to Los Angeles from the East Coast prompting more population growth
  • 1890s Many sources of oil found in Los Angeles.
  • 1910s Movies are starting to be filmed in Los Angeles.
  • 1915 Steam ships are now arriving straight from Japan to Los Angeles.
  • 1918 - 1918 Influenza epidemic hits Los Angeles
  • 1924 Pneumonic Plague Outbreak in Los Angeles
  • 1923 Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum complete. 
  • 1932 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles at the Memorial Coliseum.
  • 1933 6.4 magnitude quake caused 120 deaths, and 50 million in Property damage
  • 1934 A major Polio outbreak is in Los Angeles County
  • 1939 A tropical storm caused extensive damage and at least 49 deaths
  • 1947 Los Angeles Receives it's 213 telephone area code.
Below are some more events that may have affected your ancestors
Some of the  Native American Tribes known to inhabit California were the Hupa, Maidu, Pomo, Modic, Mohave, Chowignas, Pimunguns.  According to Ereferencedesk there were over 135 distinct language dialects.
1542 The official discovery of California by Spain
1545 Typhus and other European diseases start killing larges amounts of native populations in Cuba, and New Spain
1579 Sir Francis Drake claims some land north of San Francisco for England
1633 - 1634 Small Pox
Spanish missionaries start settling California in the 1700s
1775 - 1783 Revolutionary War
1776 Declaration of Independence signed
1793 Yellow Fever
1812 Russian fur traders build Fort Ross just north of San Francisco
1820 American Trappers start arriving from the East
1820 - 1875 Texas - Indian Wars
1821 Mexico gained independence from Spain
1832 - 1866 Cholera
1846 - 1848 Mexican - American War
1848 California is ceded to the United States by Mexico
1849 The Gold Rush begins
1850 California becomes the 31st State
1858 Scarlet Fever
1861-1864 The Civil War
1862 The Great Floods  
1863 Emancipation Proclamation
1877 Jim Crow Law enacted till 1950s
1882 The Chinese Exclusion Act
1898 the American Anti-Imperialist  League formed
1900 Oil discovered in California
1905 Japanese and Korean Exclusion league formed in California and gained 80,000 + members
1906 San Francisco Earthquake and fires
1906 - 1907 Typhoid
1910 Angel Island opens (West Coast’s Ellis Island)
1913 California Alien Land Law
1914 - 1918 WWI
1915 - 1955 Polio Outbreaks
1918 - 1919 Spanish Flu Pandemic
1920 ACLU founded
1920 Women get the right to vote
1920 - 1933 Prohibition
1921 - 1925 Diphtheria Outbreaks
1924 United States gives citizenship to some Native Americans
1929 Beginning of the Great Depression
1933 The Long Beach Earthquake
1939 - 1945 WWII
1941 Pearl Harbor
1942 President Roosevelt Signed Executive Order 9066 (Feb)
1942 General Dewitt issued Public Proclamation No. 1(Mar, internment camps)  
Here is some links you may find useful in your Los Angeles County research

Associated Historical Societies of Los Angeles County  

County of Los Angeles Public Library

Pre 1905 Los Angeles County Death Index (not complete) on Root Web

California Online Historical Newspapers

L.A. County Fair











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