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Los Angeles — often simply called L.A. — is the largest city in the state of California and the second-largest in the United States. It is an Alpha world city having a population of 3.8 million people and spanning 465 square miles. The Los Angeles–Long Beach–Santa Ana metropolitan area is home to 12.9 million people. Los Angeles was founded in 1781 by Spanish Captain Rivera y Moncada, yet it was not incorporated as a municipality until April 4 1850—five months before California achieved statehood. It is the seat of Los Angeles County. Los Angeles is one of the world's centers of culture, science, technology, international trade, and higher education, and is home to world-renowned institutions in a broad range of professional and cultural fields. The city and its immediate surrounding vicinity lead the world in producing popular entertainment — such as motion picture, television, and recorded music — which forms the base of Los Angeles' international fame and global status. History
The Los Angeles coastal area was inhabited by the Tongva (or Gabrieleños), Chumash, and earlier Native American nations for thousands of years. The first Europeans to arrive came in 1542, led by João Cabrilho, a Portuguese explorer who claimed the area for the Spanish Empire but did not stay. The next contact came 227 years later when Gaspar de Portolà, together with Franciscan padre Juan Crespi, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2 1769. In 1771, Father Junípero Serra had the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel built near Whittier Narrows in what is now called San Gabriel Valley. On September 4, 1781, a group of 52 settlers from New Spain, which were predominantly of African descent, set out from the San Gabriel mission to establish a settlement along the banks of the Porciúncula River (now Los Angeles River). These settlers were of Filipino,Indian and Spanish ancestry, of whom two-thirds were mestizo . In 1777, the new governor of California, Felipe de Neve, recommended to the viceroy of New Spain that the site be developed into a pueblo (town). The area was duly named "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula," ("The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels on the River Porciúncula"). It remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820 the population had increased to about 650 residents, making it the largest civilian (non-mission) community in Spanish California. Today the outline of the Pueblo is preserved in a historic monument familiarly called Olvera Street, formerly Wine Street, which was named after Agustin Olvera.
Railroads arrived when the Southern Pacific completed its line to Los Angeles in 1876. Oil was discovered in 1892, and by 1923 Los Angeles was supplying one-quarter of the world's petroleum. Even more important to the city's growth was water. In 1913, led by William Mulholland, the aqueduct's completion assured the city's growth. In 1915, the City of Los Angeles began annexation of dozens of neighboring communities without water supplies of their own. The 1974 motion picture Chinatown presents a fictionalized account of the Owens Valley Water War. In the 1920s the motion picture and aviation industries both flocked to Los Angeles and helped with its further development. The city was the proud host of the 1932 Summer Olympics which saw the development of Baldwin Hills as the original Olympic Village. This period also saw the arrival of the exiles from the increasing pre-war tension in Europe, including such notables as Thomas Mann, Fritz Lang, Bertolt Brecht, Arnold Schoenberg, and Lion Feuchtwanger. World War II brought new growth and prosperity to the city, although many of its Japanese-American residents were transported to internment camps for the duration of the war. The post-war years saw an even greater boom as urban sprawl expanded the city into the San Fernando Valley. The Watts riots in 1965 and Chicano High School "blowouts" along with the 1970 Chicano Moratorium showed the nation the deep racial divisions that existed in the city. In 1969, Los Angeles was one of two birthplaces of the Internet, as the first ARPANET transmission was sent from UCLA to SRI in Menlo Park. The XXIII Olympiad was hosted in Los Angeles in 1984. The city was once again tested by the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and in 2002, the attempted secession by the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood sections of the city both of which were defeated at the polls. Urban redevelopment and gentrification have been taking place in various parts of the city, most notably Downtown. Research Tips
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