Recent Hot Topics and How They Looked Back Then

So UCLA just launched an online photo archive of images from the LA Times and Daily News that range from the 1920s to 1990. How did today's hot topics look yesteryear?

The above photo from the LA Times (July 28, 1977) juxtaposes the ubiquitous wildfire against the contemporary city. This is something we have all experienced a lot of this past week and to come all summer long.

Traffic and transportation is no doubt something on everyone's mind when they step out. Here, the LA Times (January 30, 1973) shows rush hour traffic on the San Bernadino Freeway abut the new Rapid Transit District (it was the RTD then, not MTA) El Monte-Los Angeles bus lane. It would travel up to speeds of 70 mph.

Another LA Times photo (July 29, 1984), this shows demonstrators protesting U.S. police in Central America at MacArthur Park. Protests, rallies, demonstrations are nothing new at this park where the country was focused two weeks ago tomorrow. A week later, the Times wrote of a movement to call the area around the park Historical Central America Town.

Albeit a small one, tomorrow's election will not have a voter turnout as large as the one did in this 1942 Daily News photograph of this vote tabulation center in the California primary. The 1940 LA population was 1,504,277.

Summer is coming, how many of you will party with President Bush at the beach like this LA Times photo moment (August 20, 1962) of John F. Kennedy in Santa Monica?