Robert Petersen
Robert Petersen is the creator of the Hidden History of Los Angeles podcast (www.hiddenhistoryla.com). Robert was born and raised in Pasadena and received a BA in history from UC Berkeley and a law degree from UCLA. He is currently a Deputy Attorney General for the State of California.
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During the 1950s and 1960s, Los Angeles had its own Motown records — Dootone Records. The label's owner, Dootsie Williams, was a trailblazing Black music executive and entrepreneur who not only left an impact on the music industry, but also in his community.
Streetcars, interurban trolleys, and a fleet of buses transported athletes and spectators around Los Angeles during the 1932 Summer Olympics.
As an undergraduate at Occidental College, Barack Obama lived in the Los Angeles area from 1979-81.
During the 1970s, the name Pico Heights was erased from maps and today the name is all but forgotten.
The first LAPD officer killed in the line of duty was shot by a fellow officer over a reward for recovering a runaway Chinese prostitute.
Though California was technically a "free state" in the 1850s, its laws blessed a system that amounted to slavery for Native people.
Much of the raw material for L.A.'s freeways and concrete structures comes from Irwindale, where rock, sand, and gravel mining has long dominated the local economy.
California, which has spawned so many of its own myths, has its origin in myth. The Spanish explorers were looking for an "island dream" when they gave California its name.
Tiburcio Vasquez portrayed himself as the defender of the Californios following the American takeover of California, though he was tried as a criminal and eventually hung. The last chase of Vasquez throughout L.A. reveals a landscape in transition from...