History of Los Angeles Trivia Quiz

Answer: Gabrielinos

The Spanish called the Native people Gabrielinos from the mission they set up in the area. The Gabrielinos were locally known as the Tongva who called their home Yaanga. They worshiped the creator God Chinigchinix and were primarily fishers and hunters.

The Gabrielinos sold their goods to the Spanish who came from Mexico and also offered services such as digging ditches and building buildings.

Answer: The last Pobladores arrived in Los Angeles

The Pobladores were the first groups of families, forty-four people in total, who were the original Europeans (via Mexico) to settle permanently in Los Angeles. Although many families had arrived earlier in 1781, the date of September 4 is the given as the founding date because that is when the last family arrived to claim their land after having been in quarantine with smallpox.

Some of the land given to the Pobladores was taken from the Native Americans who had been baptized Christian when they forced from the land.

Answer: Mexico

During the Mexican-American War, the U.S. had a firm grip on northern California but the southern part proved to be troublesome. In August 1846, John C. Fremont and Robert Stockton had conquered large parts of California. However, both Fremont and Stockton left Los Angeles to Archibald Gillespie. Gillespie was woefully underprepared to fight and underestimated the strong Mexican sentiment of the people, many of whom were of Mexican descent, living in Los Angeles at the time.

He surrendered to Jose Maria Flores within twenty-four hours.

Answer: Beef supplier

As people from around the world flocked to northern California during the gold rush years, southern California played a huge role agriculturally. Los Angeles in particular was called Queen of the Cow Counties because it supplied a large amount of beef, cattle and other foodstuffs to miners up north.

It was during this time that Los Angeles began shedding much of its Spanish influence. Crucially one of the things that was disbanded was the Spanish legal system. However, a new system was not installed for some time leading Los Angeles to become one of the most lawless cities in the west. Crime ran rampant when prostitutes, gamblers and other "criminals" were exiled from the north to make way for settlers' families. They arrived in Los Angeles in huge numbers. Murders skyrocketed, in particular lynchings against Mexicans.

Answer: Chinese

Racial tensions had long been high in Los Angeles. However by the 1860s, Chinese immigrants had become the main target. In the days leading up to the lynching, two factions of Chinese immigrants brawled over the abduction of a Chinese prostitute (almost all the Chinese women in Los Angeles during this time were prostitutes) and a shootout occurred. This led to an increase in police presence along the Calle de los Negros. On October 24, Officer Jesus Bilderrain responded to a fight and was fatally shot along with a white rancher named Robert Thompson. It is not clear what exactly happened but a riot broke out that pitted the Chinese against a group of white and Mexican men. At least twenty Chinese men were lynched and hanged from trees. Because of poor documentation of lynchings in the U.S. it is believed, but not confirmed, this is the largest mass lynching in American history.

Unusual for lynchings, eight (of the nearly 500) rioters were convicted but their convictions were overturned on technicalities.

Answer: Dodger Stadium

Edward Doheny discovered oil in Los Angeles in 1892 and by the turn of the century he became extremely wealthy. He established the Los Angeles City Oil Field and expanded his business to Beverly Hills and other places. He sold his business in 1902 and was later caught up in the Teapot Dome Scandal.

The discovery of oil saw Los Angeles become a center of oil production. By the 1920s, Los Angeles produced about a quarter of the world's oil supply. The exact location of where Doheny discovered the oil is believed to be where Dodger Stadium stands now. Dodger Stadium was completed in 1962 and became the home of the Dodgers after they left New York in the 1950s.

Answer: Los Angeles Times Building

Tensions were high in Los Angeles regarding the iron workers. L.A. iron workers were not unionized and paid significantly less than iron workers elsewhere in the country. Organization efforts failed in Los Angeles despite succeeding elsewhere because Harrison Gray Otis, the publisher of the L.A. Times, was in charge of the local merchants' association and he had successfully halted any organizing efforts in the city. Striking and picketing became illegal in the city but that did little to stop the iron workers from walking off their jobs.

On October 1, 1910, James and John McNamara left a suitcase full of dynamite in the alleyway near the Los Angeles Times Building. Other bombs were left at Otis' home and the homes other involved in anti-union efforts. The bombing left at least twenty newspaper workers dead and injured more than a hundred others.

Answer: Nestor Studios

Nestor Studios was originally founded in Bayonne, New Jersey but moved to Los Angeles in 1911. It was not the city's first film company but was the it's first permanent studio for films and the first to be located in what is termed Hollywood today. Nestor Studios produced short, one-reel films such as "The Best Man Wins" and "Operating on Cupid". Nestor Studios was also home to Hollywood's first film stage. Eventually, Nestor Studios was incorporated into what is now called Universal Studios.

Answer: American servicemen

The Zoot Suit riots of June 1943 were one of many race riots that occurred during World War II. During the war, certain fabrics were rationed and zoot suits, which were commonly worn by ethnic minorities especially those of Mexican heritage, were considered unpatriotic. A group of sailors got into a scuffle with Mexican-American teenagers wearing zoot suits. Each side blamed the other for the violence. Soon after, hundreds of primarily white servicemen entered the heavily Latino neighborhoods of Los Angeles and attacked young men and boys wearing zoot suits. In many cases, the servicemen stripped them naked and burned their zoot suits. Hundreds of people were injured and arrested, primarily Latinos. Although much of the violence was geared toward Hispanics, other ethnic minorities (such as Italians) were targeted as well. The violence spread to other cities across the country.

Although patriotism was the given reason for the riots, racial tensions had been high for years. Much of that problem could be attributed to poor city planning the previous decade. The military, for instance, had displaced hundreds of Hispanic people from their homes to build a naval base instead of building it in any of the much more suited areas.

Answer: George McGovern

Los Angeles was the scene of one of the most infamous assassinations in American history. Robert F. Kennedy, brother of former President John Kennedy, was running for president in the Election of 1968. On June 4 of that year, RFK won the South Dakota and California primaries. He met with supporters well past midnight on the fifth and as he was being led through the hotel's kitchen, he was shot by Sirhan Sirhan (though there are conspiracies that suggest another shooter). Sirhan was subdued by former football player Rosey Grier (who was serving as a bodyguard) and George Plimpton (a journalist friend of RFK). Kennedy was shot while shaking hands with 17-year old Juan Romero who was working as a busboy in the kitchen. Romero appears in an infamous picture that was taken shortly after the shooting. RFK's wife Ethel was also present nearby but she was blocked from the scene by a crowd of people. George McGovern, RFK's main opponent in the primary, was not present but had spoken to Kennedy shortly before.

Kennedy died on June 6 from his injuries. His assassination dramatic altered American politics and the election that year. Kennedy was widely seen as the favorite in both the Democratic primary and the general election.