The 80th anniversary of the first commercial flights at Los Angeles International Airport will arrive this December. The former Mines Field west of Inglewood became the city’s first official airfield, Los Angeles Municipal Airport, on Oct. 1, 1928, but the first commercial flights to use the facility didn’t do so until Dec. 9, 1946. ItContinue reading “The worst accident in LAX history took place miles away from the airport itself”
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Dee Hardison’s stint as Torrance mayor was only part of her service to the city
Dee Hardison became only the second woman to become mayor of Torrance when she won the office in 1994. She directly followed the city’s first female mayor, Katy Geissert, who served two terms from 1986 to 1994. But Hardison achieved a whole lot more before and after her two productive terms as mayor. She wasContinue reading “Dee Hardison’s stint as Torrance mayor was only part of her service to the city”
The U.S. Merchant Marine played a key role in Southern California during World War II
The United States Merchant Marine traces its origin back to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. In June 1775 in Machias, Maine (then part of Massachusetts), townspeople refused to provide the British with lumber to build barracks for their troops, resulting in the British bringing in the armed ship HMS Margaretta to retaliate. The settlersContinue reading “The U.S. Merchant Marine played a key role in Southern California during World War II”
President Jimmy Carter makes a campaign stop at North High in Torrance in 1980
When President Jimmy Carter’s re-election campaign advisers were planning a key West Coast swing through Washington, Oregon and California in mid-September 1980, they decided to hold the campaign’s 19th Town Hall meeting in Southern California. The Town Halls were question and answer sessions with rank and file voters on topics of their choosing. Under theContinue reading “President Jimmy Carter makes a campaign stop at North High in Torrance in 1980”
The Gardena Buddhist church has endured for nearly 100 years despite challenges
The first Buddhist churches of any kind in the country were built in the Bay Area in the early 1850s by Chinese migrant workers who had come to the U.S. to work in the mining and railroad industries. The first Japanese Buddhist church in the U.S. was built in San Francisco much later, in 1899.Continue reading “The Gardena Buddhist church has endured for nearly 100 years despite challenges”
Broadcast television took several decades to become prevalent in American homes
For a scientific marvel that has had amazing, far-reaching impacts on almost all aspects of modern life, it took television a long time to arrive in homes. The concept of using radio waves to transmit images from one place to another began to take root in the early 1900s. The first use of the wordContinue reading “Broadcast television took several decades to become prevalent in American homes”
Northrop develops the first intercontinental cruise missile, the Snark, in Hawthorne
No, the Snark missile’s name doesn’t mean what you might think at first. Northrop Corp. founder Jack Northrop took the name from the author Lewis Carroll’s mythical animal character “the Snark“ in his 1876 poem, “The Hunting of the Snark.” In October 1945, two months after deploying the atomic bomb in Japan, the United StatesContinue reading “Northrop develops the first intercontinental cruise missile, the Snark, in Hawthorne”
Remembering when Western Airlines was “the only way to fly”
If you lived on the West Coast and watched television in the 1960s and 1970s, you couldn’t miss the Wally Bird commercials. In the ads, the animated spokes-bird for Western Airlines reclined on pillows on a company plane’s fuselage while drinking champagne, a reference to the airline’s popular in-flight champagne service. His signature slogan: “WesternContinue reading “Remembering when Western Airlines was “the only way to fly””
