Indigenous

The Tongva are Indigenous to the Santa Monica area. The village of Comicranga was established in the Santa Monica area.[1] One of the village's notable residents was Victoria Reid, who was the daughter of the chief of the village.[2] During the Spanish period, she was taken to Mission San Gabriel from her parents at the age of six.[1]

Spanish era  Rancho San Vicente y Santa Mónica was granted in 1839 to the Sepúlveda family of California.

The first non-indigenous group to set foot in the area was the party of explorer Gaspar de Portolá, which camped near the present-day intersection of Barrington and Ohio Avenues on August 3, 1769.

There are two different accounts of how the city's name came to be. One says it was named in honor of the feast day of Saint Monica (mother of Saint Augustine), but her feast day is May 4. Another version says it was named by Juan Crespí on account of a pair of springs, the Kuruvungna Springs, that were reminiscent of the tears Saint Monica shed over her son's early impiety.[3][4]

Mexican era  1840 adobe home in Santa Monica

In 1839, Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado granted Rancho San Vicente y Santa Mónica to Francisco Sepúlveda II, of the Sepúlveda family of California. As the definitions of the rancho grant were not precise, the Sepúlveda family came into conflict with the neighboring Rancho Boca de Santa Mónica, owned by Ysidro Reyes and Francisco Márquez. A small Californio community grew up on Rancho San Vicente y Santa Mónica, made up primarily of vaqueros working on the rancho and their families.

Post-conquest era  Arcadia Bandini de Baker, a prominent Californio heiress, is known as the "Godmother of Santa Monica" for her role in founding the city.[5]

After the American conquest of California, Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which gave Mexicans and Californios living in state certain unalienable rights. U.S. government sovereignty in California began on February 2, 1848.

In the 1870s, the Los Angeles and Independence Railroad connected Santa Monica with Los Angeles, and a wharf out into the bay. The first town hall was an 1873 brick building, later a beer hall, and now part of the Santa Monica Hostel.[citation needed] By 1885, the town's first hotel was the Santa Monica Hotel.[6]

Amusement piers became popular in the first decades of the 20th century and the extensive Pacific Electric Railway brought people to the city's beaches from across the Greater Los Angeles Area.

Around the start of the 20th century, a growing population of Asian Americans lived in and around Santa Monica and Venice. A Japanese fishing village was near the Long Wharf while small numbers of Chinese lived or worked in Santa Monica and Venice. The two ethnic minorities were often viewed differently by White Americans, who were often well-disposed toward the Japanese but condescending to the Chinese.[7] The Japanese village fishermen were an integral economic part of the Santa Monica Bay community.[8]

 Ocean Park bathhouse, c. 1907

Donald Wills Douglas Sr. built a plant in 1922 at Clover Field (Santa Monica Airport) for the Douglas Aircraft Company.[9] In 1924, four Douglas-built planes took off from Clover Field to attempt the first aerial circumnavigation of the world. Two planes returned after covering 27,553 miles (44,342 km) in 175 days, and were greeted on their return September 23, 1924, by a crowd of 200,000. The Douglas Company (later McDonnell Douglas) kept facilities in the city until the 1970s.[10]

The Great Depression hit Santa Monica deeply. One report gives citywide employment in 1933 of just 1,000. Hotels and office building owners went bankrupt. In the 1930s, corruption infected Santa Monica (along with neighboring Los Angeles). The federal Works Project Administration helped build several buildings, most notably City Hall. The main Post Office and Barnum Hall (Santa Monica High School auditorium) were also among other WPA projects.[11]

Modern era  Aerial view of Santa Monica, c. 1941

Douglas's business grew with the onset of World War II, employing as many as 44,000 people in 1943. To defend against air attack, set designers from the Warner Brothers Studios prepared elaborate camouflage that disguised the factory and airfield.[12][13] The RAND Corporation began as a project of the Douglas Company in 1945, and spun off into an independent think tank on May 14, 1948. RAND acquired a 15-acre (61,000 m2) campus across the street from the Civic Center and is still there today.

The completion of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1958 eliminated Belmar, the first African American community in the city,[14] and the Santa Monica Freeway in 1966 decimated the Pico neighborhood that had been a leading African American enclave on the Westside.

Beach volleyball is believed to have been developed by Duke Kahanamoku in Santa Monica during the 1920s.[15]

Santa Monica has two hospitals: Saint John's Health Center and Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center. Its cemetery is Woodlawn Memorial.

Santa Monica has several local newspapers including Santa Monica Daily Press, Santa Monica Mirror, and Santa Monica Star.