Living in the Smog

On July 26, 1943, the city of Los Angeles experienced what appeared to be a gas attack. Given that the United States was deeply involved in World War II and had already experienced a surprise attack from the empire of Japan at Pearl Harbor, it wasn’t hard to imagine that one of the largest civilian centers on the West Coast was now being gassed on a mass scale. It was a scary and entirely believable explanation for the thick, smoky fog that had descended on the city in the sunny morning hours....