Happy Birthday LA

1781, El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles (The Town of the Queen of the Angels) is founded

Today, September 4, 2013 marks the 232nd birthday of the founding of our great city.

The story of Los Angeles' founding begins with a Russian expedition to North America in the 1730s and 1740s. Although Spain had laid claim to Alta California for nearly two centuries, it had never settled the land, which lay along the northwestern reaches of its vast American empire. But when a Russian expedition, led by the Danish explorer Vitus Bering, reached Alaska in 1741, it became clear that the Russian empire, expanding eastward over the Eurasian landmass and across the soon-to-be-named Bering Strait, might harbor territorial ambitions toward Spanish California... Learn More

Image credit: Pre-1869 view of the Los Angeles Plaza. Courtesy of the California Historical Society Collection, USC Libraries.

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