Yesterday (March 10th) marked the anniversary of the 1933 Long Beach earthquake along the Newport-Inglewood fault. as a result of this very destructive earthquake, many of the building codes for public buildings such as hospitals and schools were drafted. The study of this earthquake resulted in a vast improvement in the understanding of our local geology and vastly improved the practice of modern geology.
For more information see the Wikipedia entry – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Long_Beach_earthquake