IN 1953, Janet E. Dickinson operates an apparatus in front of L.A. City Hall to check auto exhaust fumes and gas vapors. Even if you weren't around Los Angeles in 1992, you've heard of Rodney King, the man whose videotaped beating at the hands of the LAPD... See more
Los Angeles Times PASADENA residents calling themselves the Smog-A-Tears rally in 1954. Eighty years ago, the enchantment ended. Los Angeles, that magical realm of shimmering natural beauty, was befouled by smog — maybe forever. The mayor, Fletcher Bowr... See more
BRUCE H. Cox Los Angeles Times IN 1950, chemist Arie Haagen-Smit demonstrates how smog is produced. Just like a Hollywood crime movie — everyone, everything was a suspect. The crime: smog. The victims: any Angeleno with a set of lungs. That master of de... See more
Trinity Audioplayer ready... Surely you haven’t forgotten those mad COVID weeks of scrambling for the most elementary necessities: the masks, the baby formula, the toilet paper? Maybe we should start to think of that as … practice. Twice in the past 50 ye... See more
It’s late July in 1943. Over the radio, Bing Crosby is crooning, Bob Hope is joking, and news of the war — against Hitler, against Japan — keeps sizzling and crackling across the dial. But here in Southern California, something more is in the air: a... See more
