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And now, a bit of real life noir compliments of the photo collection of the Los Angeles Public Library and the real lives of two L.A. femme fatales – the Black Widow and the Vice Queen.
Memorial Day is officially observed on the last Monday of May, honoring the men and women who lost their lives while serving in the U.S. military. It was originally known as Decoration Day because families would decorate the graves of those who had fallen in the Civil War.
Born in Louisiana in 1922, Rolland J. Curtis came to Los Angeles with his wife in 1946 after serving in the Marines during WWII.
While attending the 1907 Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, ten-year-old Amelia Mary Earhart saw her first airplane. She was not impressed. She described it as “a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting” and asked her father, Edwin Earhart, to take her back to the merry-go-round.
Cinco de Mayo is a holiday commemorating just one event: The Battle of Puebla, which was a day of victory for the Mexican army against the French in 1862. Over 150 years later, people still mistake the holiday for Mexican Independence Day which is September 16.
If you're an Angeleno with even a casual interest in the Dodgers, you've probably heard of veteran baseball writer Jon Weisman.
In the spring of 1942, the City of Los Angeles experienced a population exodus triggered by a presidential executive order. Images in the Los Angeles Public Library's Herald Examiner Collection and Shades of L.A.
Today is National Bookmobile Day, a day to celebrate the contributions bookmobiles make to their communities. From 1949 to 2004, Los Angeles Public Library’s bookmobiles made a significant impact in the community by visiting lots of neighborhood schools, parks, and housing developments around the city.
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. He was 39 years old when he was shot to death at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.
Why are the libraries closed on Monday? The answer is Cesar Chavez Day. The holiday celebrates the birthday and legacy of the civil rights and labor movement activist Cesar Chavez.