Don't Know Beach About History: Short Histories of Long Beach

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Old‑timey Long Beach in 1899 was booming with bicycles, electricity, tent cities, and tasty waves—not to mention a headline‑grabbing murder that stunned the tiny new town. Join us as we explore the wild early days of the “Queen of the Beaches” and the murder that shook it. 

Each day in the late 1940s, thousands of sick people visited the residential Long Beach home of Roy Beebe, a self-styled "scientist" whose homemade "cosmic ray" machine was said to cure all of mankind's ills.Beebe's "cosmic ray" laboratory and its growing arm…

With a wingspan as wide as a football field, the Spruce Goose was the largest plane ever built.   The craft—designed by eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes and made out of wood—was intended for use in WWII, but the plane wasn't finished until after the war was already over.  Under intense pres…

In 1923, the Long Beach Press began an advice column—Minerva's Mailbag, later changed to Tell It to Mary—geared toward the young women of Long Beach.What problems were vexing the teen girls and emerging adult women of Long Beach?  Join us for an absolutely terrif discussion about flappers, dat…

It's money, murder, and madness in old timey Long Beach as our case goes to trial!  Join us for the final installment of this tale of greed, guns, drugs, ice cream, oil scams, Charlie Chaplin, and Ponzi schemes among the upper class in Long Beach's golden age!

Did a prominent Long Beach businessman get away with killing his wife and his business partner?  Probably!  Join us for a tale of greed, guns, drugs, ice cream, and con games as we deep-dive into a case of murder most foul among the elite business class in Long Beach's golden age!

In June 1956, just days after his infamous hip-thrusting performance on the Milton Berle Show, young rocker Elvis Presley came to Long Beach to play the Municipal Auditorium and a near-riot broke out.  What did Long Beach teens and grown-ups think of Elvis and this new dangerous thing called rock a…

On July 12, 1922, two young women spent the day in a Long Beach speakeasy, drinking and commiserating about their unfaithful husbands.  That evening, on a remote road in Los Angeles, one of those women would beat a romantic rival to death with a hammer.  The brutal  murder case became one of Southe…

  On July 12, 1922, two young women spent the day in a Long Beach speakeasy, drinking and commiserating about their unfaithful husbands.  That evening, on a remote road in Los Angeles, one of those women would beat a romantic rival to death with a hammer.  The brutal  murder case became one of Sout…