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1928
President Calvin Coolidge signs the Boulder Dam bill. Once built, the dam would provide water and electricity to Southern California. Other states dependent on Hoover Dam are Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada — plus the country of Mexico. The Dam was renamed by Congress in 1947 in honor of Herbert Hoover, an engineer by training and the 31st President of the United States. California is entitled to 4,400,000 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River annually. Over 2700 miles of transmission lines send electricity from Hoover Dam to Los Angeles.[Sources: US Bureau of Reclamation, HistoryNet.com, and Wikipedia.]
1940
F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, dies in Hollywood at the age of 44, following a heart attack three weeks earlier. Novelist Nathanael West died the next day.
1945
US Army General George Smith Patton Jr. died from injuries sustained in a low-speed car accident. He was born Nov. 11, 1885, in San Gabriel, California.
2017
March Fong Eu, former California Secretary of State and US Ambassador to Micronesia, died from complications following surgery after a fall at home in Irvine. She was born on March 29, 1922, in Oakdale in northern California. [Source: statement released by Caren Lagomarsino, former spokesperson for March Fong Eu, and Wikipedia.]