Posts tagged as:

Trivia

Imlay Name Goes Hollywood in Battle:LA

Names and Faces

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but friends report that Battle:LA features a character named USMC Corporal Lee Imlay. (They also take great joy in telling me he’s a motor-mouth who gets blown to smithereens by aliens.)
Apparently, there’s also a newly released video game based on the movie in which players can take on the [...]

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Pop Quiz: SoCal’s Most Notable Flora

Odds and Ends

Thanks to the region’s famous mediterranean climate, Southern California boasts one of the richest mixes of native and exotic plant life found anywhere in the world. But here’s a thorny pop-cultural question for you…
What does the Bird of Paradise pictured here have in common with the rose, camellia and California Golden Poppy?
One little hint: We’re [...]

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Pop Quiz: Freeway Firsts

Angeleno Sights

Dateline>City of Angels hasn’t served up a Pop Quiz in a while, so let’s revive the feature with a relatively easy question, shall we?
The Question: Los Angeles has long been known as the epicenter of Southern California’s car culture. Not surprisingly, the state’s first freeway was born here. (Many claim it’s actually the first freeway [...]

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Pop Quiz: Recognize This Crude Little Building?

Angeleno Sights

Here’s a relatively easy one, straight out of the LAPL digital archives. Part of the California Historical Society  collection, the above image is the earliest known photo of a famous Southland landmark. So can you identify it? Click “Read More” for the answer (as if you don’t already know it).

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Pop Quiz: Mission San Gabriel of the Earthquakes

Odds and Ends

Today’s pop quiz is dedicated to Mission San Gabriel, which celebrates its 237th annual fiesta tomorrow through Sunday. Founded Sept. 8, 1771, it was fourth in California’s chain of 21 missions, and among the most prosperous. It can also be called L.A.’s Mother Church, since the pobladores set out from here to found the City [...]

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Pop Quiz: Where Was L.A.’s First Chinatown?

Angeleno Sights

As the world celebrates the Beijing Olympic Games, it seems only fitting to serve up a pop quiz paying tribute to the City of Angels’ Chinese community, which has overcome tremendous adversity over the last 156 years…
The Question: Centered around North Broadway, New Chinatown is among L.A.’s most popular tourist attractions. However, as the name [...]

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Pop Quiz: Hooray for That Famous Hollywood Name!

Names and Faces

Famous as the film capital of the world and home to L.A.’s mythic “Boulevard of Dreams,” Hollywood has come a long way since its founding in 1886. Carved from lands that once belonged to Ranchos La Brea and Los Feliz, the area was known to the region’s Californios as “La Nopalera” because of the huge [...]

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Pop Quiz: Ready For Your Sunset Blvd. Close-Up Challenge?

Angeleno Sights

The Film: Sunset Blvd., the 1950 film noir classic co-written/directed by Billy Wilder and starring Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich von Stroheim and Nancy Olson.
The Scene: After leading two repo men on a high-speed car chase along a winding stretch of Sunset Blvd., down-on-his-luck screenwriter Joe Gillis (Holden) ditches them with a quick turn into [...]

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Pop Trivia Quiz: Grind Your Gears on These Streets

Odds and Ends

Question: Ask someone where you’ll find California’s steepest streets and they’ll likely guess San Francisco, where roadways like Filbert and 22nd sport a 31.5-percent grade. Hilly as the City by the Bay may be, however, it’s got nothing on the City of Angels, which actually lays claim to not one, but five of the state’s [...]

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