Los Angeles

Today in History 08/11 (Watts Riots)

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Fires burn in Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood during the fourth day of rioting and looting that began on Aug 11, 1965 (© Bettmann/Corbis)(1965) South Central Los Angeles engulfed in flames and rioting
Spurred by poverty, racism, and tension between residents and the city’s police, riots break out in L.A.’s Watts neighborhood. Lasting six days, the worst rioting yet seen in the city’s history will count more than 3,000 people arrested, over 1,000 injured, and 34 dead.
The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion, took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965. On August 11, 1965, Marquette Frye, an African-American motorist on parole for robbery, was pulled over for reckless driving. A minor roadside argument broke out, and then escalated into a fight with police. False rumors spread that the police had hurt a pregnant woman, and six days of looting and arson followed. Los Angeles police needed the support of nearly 4,000 members of the California Army National Guard to quell the riots, which resulted in 34 deaths and over $40 million in property damage. The riots were blamed principally on police racism. It was the city’s worst unrest until the Rodney King riots of 1992.
Start date: Aug 11, 1965
End date: Aug 16, 1965

Burning buildings during Watts Riots
Burning buildings during the riots
wiki/Watts_riots
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(1965) South Central Los Angeles engulfed in flames and rioting.
Also on this day,

1973 | DJ Kool Herc’s Bronx party kick-starts hip-hop music
Clive ‘Kool Herc’ Campbell is throwing a party in the rec room of his South Bronx, New York, apartment building and he plays dance music on the ‘Merry Go Round,’ two manually-controlled turntables. It’s a great success, and DJ Kool Herc will be hailed by many as the father of hip-hop.
1973 | ‘American Graffiti’ cruises into theaters
Writer/director George Lucas takes moviegoers back to the early 1960s with stories of drive-ins, high-school sock hops, and cruising the strip. The cast includes Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Mackenzie Phillips, and Cindy Williams, as well as a cameo from another future TV star.
2016 | Japan first celebrates Mountain Day
A law passed two years earlier takes effect, and Mountain Day is an official holiday in Japan. The idea came from hiking groups who wanted a holiday to celebrate the country’s terrain and geography. This date (8/11) was chosen since the Kanji character for 8 looks like a mountain, and 11 looks like two trees.

Today in History 08/11/17

German flags in front of the of Reichstag building in Berlin (© Westend61/Getty Images)(1919) From the ashes of war Germany's first democracy emerges
A constitutional assembly in Weimar, Germany, adopts a parliamentary democracy, the first in the country's history, replacing centuries of imperial rule. The massive chaos and loss caused by German defeat in World War I has led to the Weimar Republic, but Nazi rule is less than 15 years away.
Weimar Republic was an unofficial, historical designation for the German state between 1919 and 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar, where its constitutional assembly first took place. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich; it had remained unchanged since 1871. In English the country was usually known simply as Germany. A national assembly was convened in Weimar, where a new constitution for the Deutsches Reich was written, and adopted on 11 August 1919. In its fourteen years, the Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism, as well as contentious relationships with the victors of the First World War. The people of Germany blamed the Weimar Republic rather than their wartime leaders for the country's defeat and for the humiliating terms of the Treaty of Versailles. However, the Weimar Republic government successfully reformed the currency, unified tax policies, and organized the railway system. Weimar Germany fulfilled most of the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles although it never completely met its disarmament requirements, and eventually paid only a small portion of the war reparations. Under the Locarno Treaties, Germany accepted the western borders of the republic, but continued to dispute the Eastern border.
Founded: Nov 09, 1918
Dissolved: 1933
Population: 62.41 million (1925)
Area: 181,000 sq miles (468,787 km²)
Capital: Berlin
Official language: German
Map of the German Reich, (Republic of Weimar/Third Reich) 1919–1937
Map of the German Reich, (Republic of Weimar/Third Reich) 1919–1937

wiki/Weimar_Republic
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LA County Seal Declared Unconstitutional

A federal judge has ruled that in 2014, Los Angeles County violated the California constitution when it added a Christian cross to the official seal. The judged dismissed arguments that the change was to promote historical accuracy. The ruling means the county will have to go back to an older version of the seal that does not include the cross. However, the seal will still feature a Spanish mission as a nod to the region’s Catholic roots.

LA County Seal Timeline

The first Seal of the County of Los Angeles was established in 1887 and has been changed three times since then. It is used on official county documents, vehicular decals, on buildings, and is displayed on the bear-top shield badge worn by uniformed county officers. It is also featured prominently on the county’s flag. The current seal was adopted in January 2014.

The current form of the seal, adopted in January 2014, portrays an image of a Native American woman, representing the early inhabitants of the Los Angeles Basin, surrounded by six smaller iconic images, with three on each side. The words “County of Los Angeles, California” surround the seal.


The woman stands on the shore of the Pacific Ocean with the San Gabriel Mountains and the sun in the background.


On her right, there are the engineering instruments of a triangle and a caliper (representing the industrial construction complex of the county and its vital contribution to the exploration of space), a Spanish galleon (specifically Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo’s ship the San Salvador, which sailed into San Pedro Harbor on October 8, 1542), and a tuna (representing the fishing industry).


On her left, the images of The Hollywood Bowl (representing the County’s cultural activities) with two stars above it (to represent the motion picture and television industries), the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel (representing the historic role of the missions in the settlement of the Los Angeles region), and the championship cow Pearlette (representing the dairy industry).



First seal: 1887–1957
The original 1887 county seal displayed grapes, surrounded by the words “Board of Supervisors — Los Angeles Co. Cal.”

Second seal: 1957–2004
Former L.A. County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn designed a new seal, which was drawn by Millard Sheets, and adopted by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on January 2, 1957, effective March 1, 1957. It included an image of Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit trees, and the symbols of a cross and oil towers.

Third seal: 2004–2014
In 2004, the seal was altered. A short time later, on May 25, 2004, the ACLU claimed that the seal’s cross was a violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The Board’s new seal had also voluntarily eliminated Pomona and the oil towers, without references by the ACLU.

In the current seal, the stars and an image of the Hollywood Bowl (originally in the middle right column, also where the cross was originally placed) replaced the oil towers. The cross was removed, and replaced with an image of the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel.

Some official L.A. county buildings still use old seals, probably due to lack of effort in removing the seals. Occasionally, when a new seal is adopted, old ones may continue to be used until they are no longer usable due to wear, as in Mississippi’s case when it adopted a new state seal in 2014.

Fourth seal: 2014–present
On Tuesday, January 7, 2014, the Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to put a cross back on top of the mission, depicted on the County seal claiming it more correctly reflected the history of the San Gabriel Mission. The cross on the mission was removed during renovation. The ACLU of Southern California expressed opposition, claiming the action would violate both the Californian and United States Constitution. A federal lawsuit was filed against Los Angeles County on February 6, 2014. In April 2016, the addition of the cross to the seal was ruled unconstitutional.