You no doubt know the names of the city's famous fictional private detectives—Philip Marlowe, Easy Rawlins, Jake Gittes—but let me introduce you to Mr. Samuel Wardlaw, Los Angeles Public Library's Special Investigator.
The theft and mutilation of library materials was a monumental problem in the early twentieth century. Multiple factors contributed to this crisis, including the lack of...
Ruthanna Emrys lives in a mysterious manor house in the outskirts of Washington DC with her wife and their large, strange family.
While attending the 1907 Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, ten-year-old Amelia Mary Earhart saw her first airplane. She was not impressed. She described it as “a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting” and asked her father, Edwin Earhart, to take her back to the merry-go-round.
July 17 is the 63 anniversary of Disneyland's opening day. This Disney loving librarian is planning on celebrating and won't be the only one either; it will probably be super crowded, and there will be lots of other pass holders eager to commemorate the day.
It's summertime in Los Angeles and the mercury is rising. Are you beach ready? Have you packed your sunscreen, hats, coolers, snacks, umbrellas, folding chairs, kites, frisbees, bikes, trikes, boogie boards and blankets? Do you know how you'll get there?
![A close-up shot is lined up by the director and cameraman during a Maverick shoot on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, [1961]. Valley Times Collection](https://www.lapl.org/sites/default/files/styles/whats_on_list_120x90/public/blogs/2026-01/backyardheader.jpg?itok=y4-ILNQd "A close-up shot is lined up by the director and cameraman during a Maverick shoot on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, [1961]. Valley Times Collection")
In January 1947, KTLA Channel 5, Los Angeles's first commercial television station, aired its first broadcast, and the Herald Express newspaper was there to report the milestone event.
Dr. Kathryn Harkup is a chemist and author. Kathryn completed a Ph.D. then a postdoc at the University of York before realizing that talking, writing and demonstrating science appealed far more than spending hours slaving over a hot fume-hood.
The world of comics has long been filled with stories written by young men, for young men, featuring men throwing punches in a never-ending fight for justice, revenge, etc. But times have changed.
Ian McDonald was born in 1960 in Manchester, England, to an Irish mother and a Scottish father. He moved with his family to Northern Ireland in 1965. He has won the Locus Award, the British Science Fiction Association Award, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.
Long before Divine, Charles Pierce, Craig Russell, Jim Bailey, or any contestant on ‘Drag Race’ brought the art of drag performance to mainstream audiences, there was Julian Eltinge. Although remembered (mostly) by historians of queer history, he has been largely forgotten by the mainstream public.
After Ann Forst, the Black Widow, was sentenced to serve time for pandering, one of her protégés, Brenda Allen (born Marie Mitchell and going under a number of aliases including Brenda Allen Burns, Marie Brooks, Marie Cash, Brenda Burris, and Marie Balanque) wasted no time in setting up her own prostitutio