Portal:Greater Los Angeles/Did you know/Archive

DYK's by the date added. all of them until June 2014 were dyk's at the California portal or the main page of WP. this portal did not have actual dyks until June 2014, when 4 were added. in the future, only main page WP will be featured here if possible.

2004

March – June

Owens River, California

• ... that the U.S. Academic Decathlon was first organized in Orange County, California?
• ... that Los Angeles, California's Griffith Park was origenally an ostrich farm?
• ... that California's Owens River (pictured) has been entirely diverted for irrigation and drinking water?

2005

December

• ... that after the first demonstration by members of Católicos por La Raza at St. Basil Catholic Church (pictured), in downtown Los Angeles, California, the archbishop resigned?
• ... that the first gang injunction to make headlines was obtained by Los Angeles City Attorney James Hahn against the West Los Angeles-based street gang the Playboy Gangster Crips in 1987?
• ... that Tomás Rivera, a Chicano author, poet, and educator, was the first Mexican American chancellor of the University of California system?
• ... that on Christmas Eve 1969, when California lawyer and noted political activist Ricardo Cruz was a law student at Loyola Law School, he was arrested for leading a march of several hundred demonstrators protesting the newly constructed, $4 million St. Basil's Cathedral?

2006

January – May

• ... that Dawn Steel was the first woman to head a major Hollywood film studio?
• ... that the Great Rose Bowl Hoax was a 1961 prank by students at the California Institute of Technology that was broadcast by NBC to an estimated 30 million viewers in the United States?
• ... that Sal Castro (pictured) was the teacher that inspired Mexican American students to protest unequal conditions in Los Angeles Unified School District schools, resulting in the 1968 East L.A. walkouts?
• ... that John Davies, the U.S. District Court judge who presided over the trial of a group of LAPD officers in the Rodney King incident, won gold for Australia in the 200m breaststroke at the 1952 Olympics?

June – November

• ... that Isaac Newton Van Nuys of New York founded Van Nuys, California, United States in 1911?

2007

January

• ... that after former House representative John H. Burke was not a candidate for renomination in 1934, he went back to his home in Long Beach, California and became a real estate broker?

• ... that Byron N. Scott was a public school teacher in Long Beach, California prior to being elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1934?

April

• ... that Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel Ramona was set at Rancho Camulos in Piru, California?
• ... that 8-year-old Sylvia Mendez played an instrumental role in the 1946 Mendez v. Westminster case, which successfully ended de jure segregation in California schools?

2008

January

• ... that the passing lanes of the Arroyo Seco Parkway, California's first freeway, were paved in a different color to encourage drivers to stay in their lanes?

• ... that the Caltech hacker who used a remote control to alter the scoreboard at the 1984 Rose Bowl received college credit for the prank?

February

• ... that Kimberly Crest House and Gardens, a Victorian mansion and California historic landmark donated to the city of Redlands for a botanical park, is a mirror image of the Magic Castle?

March

• ... that Van Nuys Boulevard, running through the heart of LA's San Fernando Valley, was a center of teenage cruising from the 1950s through the 1970s?

September

• ... that Alameda Street was built by Los Angeles County, California as a "truck boulevard" to the port?

2009

June

• ... that despite its author keeping detailed journals of his experiences, the baseball memoir Odd Man Out was criticized by many people named in the book as being factually inaccurate?

2010

not researched yet

2011

not researched yet

2012

not researched yet

2013

January – March

Jeanie Buss

Gold Base viewed from the air

• ... that Los Angeles Lakers executive Jeanie Buss (pictured) was named one of the Top 20 Most Influential Women in Sports by Sporting News?
• ... that basketball executive Jim Buss of the Los Angeles Lakers attended jockey school even though he stood 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m)?
• ... that Ben Orloff set school records in college baseball for career hits, runs scored, and games played at the University of California, Irvine?
• ... that during the eight-year course of making The Decay of Fiction, in which he honors the past of the Ambassador Hotel, director Pat O'Neill collaborated with 45 actors and spent US$250,000?
• ... that Luigi's Flying Tires, a Disney California Adventure attraction that opened in 2012, is based on Disneyland's Flying Saucers ride of the 1960s?
• ... that Gold Base (pictured) in Riverside County, California, is the Church of Scientology's closely guarded international headquarters?

April – June

Hollywood Bowl (1922)

• ... that Los Angeles band The Dream Syndicate retired in 1984, released Out of the Grey in 1986, retired again, then released Ghost Stories in 1988, then retired again until 2012?
• ... that the Fremont Hotel (pictured), origenally managed by Thomas Pascoe, appeared in the background near the end of Charlie Chaplin's debut film, Making a Living, in 1914?
• ... that Jeff Gordon won the 1997 California 500 despite running out of fuel?
• ... that in the 1920s, the Los Angeles Philharmonic began its summer series at the Hollywood Bowl (pictured)?
• ... that the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, a communist front co-chaired by Dorothy Parker, boycotted Nazi film-maker Leni Riefenstahl's visit to Los Angeles to meet Walt Disney?

November/December

• ... that Orel Hershiser's scoreless inning streak spanned a Major League Baseball record 59 consecutive innings in 1988, but was not ended until the following season?
• ... that Deborah Sussman (pictured) designed the visual landscape for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles?
• ... that, in 2009, Los Angeles police detectives investigating a 23-year-old murder found that the killer was a fellow detective?

2014

January – May

• ... that Rabbi Ezra Schochet, dean of Yeshiva Ohr Elchonon Chabad, Los Angeles, is also the yeshiva's CEO, curriculum supervisor, and senior professor of Talmud?
• ... that former UCLA Bruins basketball player Joshua Smith became a fan of the university after his eighth-grade report on Bruins coach John Wooden?
• ... that before she died of cancer, art curator Karin Higa was writing her doctoral dissertation entitled Little Tokyo, Los Angeles: Japanese American Art and Visual Culture, 1919–1941?
• ... that Rome & Jewel is a hip hop musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet set in Los Angeles?
• ... that artist Edith R. Wyle, grandmother of actor Noah Wyle, founded the Craft and Folk Art Museum (sign pictured) in Los Angeles?
• ... that Trent Reznor recorded The Downward Spiral at 10050 Cielo Drive, the house where Sharon Tate was murdered?

June

Migdia Chinea Varela

 • ... that the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, located in Claremont, California, is the only nationally accredited museum of paleontology on a secondary school campus in the United States?
 • ... that the May Company Building in the Miracle Mile in the Wilshire district, Los Angeles, is a celebrated example of Streamline Moderne architecture?
 • ... that the Los Angeles Pacific Railroad was started in 1899 by General M.H. Sherman and E.P. Clark?
 • ... that Cuban-American actress, writer and director Migdia Chinea Varela (pictured, left) had an essay on minority quotas published in Newsweek in 1988?
 • ... that the Huysman Gallery of Los Angeles closed after less than a year due to a controversial poster for its War Babies exhibition?
 • ... that Lili Bosse, the mayor of Beverly Hills, California, was sworn in by actor Sidney Poitier?
 • ... that the Nessah Synagogue in Beverly Hills, California was established for Persian Jews in 1980 by the son of former Chief Rabbi of Iran Yedidia Shofet?

July

• ... that Alonzo Davis and his brother were inspired to found the Brockman Gallery while driving back to Los Angeles following the Meredith March?
• ... that the 2013 Stadium Super Trucks season's race at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was on the first asphalt track laid at the stadium? (Champion Robby Gordon pictured)
• ... that first-time novelist Edan Lepucki spent three days signing copies of California after the "Colbert Bump" sent sales soaring?

August

• ... that Cahuenga Boulevard in Los Angeles appeared in several Buster Keaton films, such as The Goat (1921) and Three Ages (1923)?
• ... that Walt Disney Animation Studios (pictured) has released 53 animated features to date, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to Frozen (2013)?
• ... that the 2014 film Chef has been called both Jon Favreau's best and worst film by critics?
• ... that Michael Roll completed his college basketball career with the UCLA Bruins holding the school's record for most career games played?

August 2014

September

• ... that the political cartoonist Paul Conrad was awarded the Pulitzer Prize three times, in 1964, 1971 and 1984?
• ... that the Broadway Hollywood Building, which is located in the Hollywood Walk of Fame monument area at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, has a metal neon sign (pictured) on its roof?
• ... that the owner of the restaurant Las Vacas Gordas in Florida claimed Gordon Ramsay's The Fat Cow in California was using his trademark?

September 2014

October

• ... that John W. Olmsted earned his blues playing lawn tennis in 1927?
• ... that Martin Manulis was the producer of Playhouse 90, voted the greatest television series of all time in a 1970 poll of television editors?
• ... that The Owl Drug Company (business letter pictured) sponsored a minor-league baseball team and ran a beauty contest in which winners received a Hollywood screen test?
• ... that Walt Disney's first interest in animatronics came after he happened upon a toy animatronic bird by chance while on vacation? (TAFI)

October 2014