TIMELINE

10,000 BC 1769 1771	Shoshonean Indians settle in the Los Angeles area. Portola expedition encounters 10,000 Tongva natives. Father Junipero Serra founds Mission San Gabriel.
1781 1793 1821	El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles founded. Afro-Mexican Francisco Reyes becomes becomes first alcalde. Mexico wins independence from Spain.
1846 1848 1850s	Pio Pico, last governor of Alta California leaves office. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo signed. Downey Block becomes a site of Indian enslavement.
1856 1871	Biddy Mason wins her freedom Chinatown Massacre.
1872 1876 1882 1887	L.A.’s first synagogue, Congregation B’nai B’rith, founded on Fort Street (now Broadway). Santa Fe Railroad links Los Angeles to San Francisco. Chinese Exclusion Act passed by Congress; LA City Council passes ordinance to remove all Chinese from city limits; ruled invalid by City Attorney for violating 14th Amendment. Arrival of Southern Pacific Railroad to Los Angeles. California Club founded as an organization.
1872 1876 1882 1887
1894	National railroad strike results in rioting in Los Angeles. US Army called in.
1900 1904 1906	Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring founded. Russian Molokans flee persecution and settle in Boyle Heights. After San Francisco earthquake and fire many Japanese Americans migrate to Los Angeles.
1900 1904 1906
1908-10	LA City Council establishes first zoning laws which leads to radically different land use patterns in poor and affluent areas.
1910 1912 1913	LA Times bombing. Union leaders James and Joseph McNamara convicted. Jewish Consumptive Relief Association (The City of Hope) founded in Duarte; Charlotta Spears Bass establishes the California Eagle. Alien Land Law passed by Congress, restricts Asian land-ownership.
1910 1912 1913
1919	Watts elects Frederick Roberts, the state’s first African American Assemblymen; Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), a Garveyite group, blossoms.
1921	Italian American Simon Rodia begins work on Watts Towers.
1922	Laura Senior donates land for Val Verde Park.
1923	Breed Street Shül on Breed Street completed. Upton Sinclair arrested reading Bill of Rights at Liberty Hill.
1926	La Opinion is first published. Major KKK march takes place in Bixby Park.
1920s-30s	Los Angeles Philipino community is concentrated in downtown.
1930s	The Great Depression. State repatriates over 12,000 ethnic Mexicans; Anglo American Dust Bowl migrants settle around Central Avenue.
1932 1934	David Alfaro Siquieros paints "Tropical America." Los Angeles Sentinel, prominent Black newspaper, founded by Leon H. Washington; Strawberry strike by Japanese and Mexican American workers in El Monte; Chinatown is razed to make room for Union Station; Los Angeles Police Department establishes the “Red Squad.”
1932 1934
1938	Harry Raymond, an investigator working with reformer Clifford Clinton (of Clifton’s Cafeteria) investigates corruption in City Hall and the LAPD and is subsequently targeted with a car bomb; he survives the explosion and two LAPD officers are convicted.
1939	Upton Sinclair looses bid for governor on EPIC (End Poverty in California) platform; Establishment of El Congreso Nacional del Pueblo de Habla Espanol.
1941	Los Angeles’ first freeway, the Arroyo Secco (110) opens.
1942-45	Executive Order 9066 passed. West-coast Japanese-Americans are placed in concentration camps, including two in California, Manzanar and Tule Lake; 200,000 African Americans migrate to Los Angeles. Los Angeles internees are held at Santa Anita Race Track prior to being sent away.
1942	The first Mexican braceros arrive to pick crops due to wartime labor shortage.
1943	Zootsuit Riots.
1944	Convictions against nine Sleepy Lagoon murder trial defendants are overturned. LA County Human Relations Commission founded.
1947	Purge of Hollywood Ten after their refusal to testify at McCarthy hearings
1948	U.S. Supreme Court bans restrictive covenants. Covenants were key to residential segregation.
1949	Ed Roybal becomes first Mexican-American elected to the LA City Council in 68 years.
1950	The Mattachine Society, a gay civil rights groups, founded in LA by Harry Hay.
1951	Bracero Program formalized. Largest foreign worker program in US history; “Bloody Christmas Incident”- Seven Mexican-American youths are arrested and beaten by Los Angeles police. Eight officers are later indicted and 36 others are disciplined.
1954 1956	“Operation Wetback” results in deportation of thousands to Mexico; A Federal Court orders the Los Angeles Fire Department to integrate its ranks. Los Angeles County Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO) founded.
1954 1956
1958	Brooklyn Dodgers come to Los Angeles and build Dodger Stadium on free land in Chavez Ravine, a predominately Mexican-American community, shelving plans for a low income housing project. Holiday Bowl built on Crenshaw Blvd.
1959	Ban on high-rise buildings in downtown Los Angeles is lifted, paving the way for massive redevelopment and displacement of thousands of low-income residents in adjacent neighborhoods like Bunker Hill.
1960 1963 1965	The Democratic National Convention is held in Los Angeles, nominating John F. Kennedy. Gilbert Lindsay is first African American elected to Los Angeles City Council. Watts Riot; Congress reforms immigration policy paving the way for massive Asian and Latino immigration.
1967 1968	Major anti-war protest in Century City Ronald Reagan is elected Governor of California. Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis and Robert Kennedy Jr at Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles; Southern California chapter of Black Panther Party founded; Eastside students protest inferior schools.
1967 1968
1969 1970 1973 1972 1973 1976 1977 1981 1984 1985 1986 1987	Los Angeles Police Department inaugurates Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT). Chicano Moratorium mobilizes 25,000 to protest War. Police attack protesters and Ruben Salazar is killed at the Silver Dollar Cafe. Self-Help Graphics is started. Van Troi Anti-Imperialist Youth Brigade disrupts Nisei Week parade to protest War. Tom Bradley elected as city’s first Black mayor Judy Baca begins work on "The Great Wall." Proposition 13 freezes property taxes, cutting funding to education and other local services. First AIDS case appears in Los Angeles County. Los Angeles becomes nation’s second largest city. Heal the Bay formed to protect shoreline waters. Congress passes Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), making undocumented workers more vulnerable to INS sweeps California Club unsuccessfully fights City ordinance to let women and people of color."Justice for Janitors" labor campaign begins.



1988 1989 1990 1991	Mothers of East Los Angeles prevents construction of Vernon incinerator. Maria Elena Durazo leads Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) Local 11, signaling a major shift in labor politics. Second mass demonstration at Century City, this time involving hundreds of striking downtown janitors. The Tongva people demand protection of sacred lands at University High School.
1988 1989 1990 1991
1992 1993 1994 1995	Rodney King verdict and subsequent Los Angeles Uprising. Van Nuys plant, the last remaining GM facility in Southern California, closes after decade long fight to preserve unionized jobs. Los Angeles gang truce signed. Hotel workers begin organizing drive at New Otani Hotel in Little Tokyo; Jackie Goldberg, first openly gay City Council Member, is elected. ChoSun Galbi targetted for labor reform. California adopts Proposition 187 which denied public services to the undocumented; The “Three Strikes” initiative is passed leading to massive increases in the prison population. 60 Thai nationals are freed after being held as slave labor in El Monte garment factory.


1996	Criminal trial of O.J. Simpson concludes; Miguel Contreras is elected first non-white to lead LA County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO; Proposition 209, banning affirmative action, passed by California voters; Bus Riders Union wins historic consent degree compelling Metropolitan Transit Authority to lower bus fares and purchase hundreds of new buses.
1997 1998 1999	Los Angeles City Council adopts “living wage” ordinance. California voters pass Proposition 227, eliminating most bilingual education. Ramparts scandal rocks Los Angeles Police Department.
2001	Figueroa Corridor Coalition for Economic Justice (FCEEJ) wins historic agreement guaranteeing “community benefits” in the development of Staples Center. Antonia Villaraigosa loses Los Angeles mayoral election to Jim Hahn.Metrolink officials commemorate Chinese contributions to the building of the railroad in the Metrolink Lang Station.
2003 2003-4 2004	Holiday Bowl torn down. Governor Gray Davis is recalled in historic election. Governor Schwarzenegger urges repeal of bill that allowed the undocumented to obtain drivers’ licenses. Inglewood residents reject Wal-Mart in grassroot organizing.