For a couple days, the scenes out of sections of London, Birmingham and several other British cities in flames, with rioters angrily mobbing the streets, brought back many Americans, and especially Los Angelinos to an unfortunate moment 20 years before. As with England, it was sparked by a moment of brutality caught on film: a white police officer assaulting a black suspect, Rodney King. He was the driver of a vehicle pursued by the California Highway Patrol in a high speed chase. King’s companions in the car were arrested without incident; King was brought down to the ground, tasered, and beaten repeatedly.

On this day, April 29, in 1992, after all four police officers were acquitted of the most serious charges, the heavily-black communities in South-Central Los Angeles erupted in violence.

Different groups read different motives for the riots: some blamed the enmity between blacks and Koreans (and a recent shooting of a black woman by a Korean shopkeeper). Others blamed the “Culture of Poverty” made worse by the recession that disproportionately affected the communities where the riots began. With the addition of units of Marines and National Guard units, the riots were put down. But not before six days, 50 deaths and nearly a billion dollars in property damage.