From the Evening News, April 30, 1992 - ENRAGED mobs today killed at least five people, set 120 buildings ablaze and looted shops in Los Angeles.

The riot followed the acquittal of four white policemen accused of beating a black motorist. The beating, on March 3, 1991, was videotaped by a local resident and broadcast nationwide, sparking protests about police brutality and heightening racial tensions in LA.

25 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, April 30, 1977

A COUNCIL chief has denied that a sewage polluted Bolton brook was a health risk. Sewage poured into the brook, off Wigan Road, yesterday, after a sewage pumping station broke down. But Mr Harry Hibbert, Bolton director of engineering, said that had the sewage overflowed in dry weather there could have been a pollution risk,"but at this time of the year the brook would have diluted the sewage and made it safe to health."

However, disaster hit Operation Sewage just as Council workmen successfully completed their job. For they dropped themselves in the substance - literally. Three vehicles they were using to move away equipment and debris got stuck, and a mechanical loading shovel fell into a sewage-filled trench.

50 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, May 1, 1952

THE foundation stone of Bolton's crematorium at Overdale, Chorley New-rd., was laid by Ald Sykes, chairman of the Parks Committee, at a special ceremony yesterday. To show how badly Bolton needed a crematorium, Ald Sykes said that he estimated that 1,000 Bolton people were being cremated in other towns each year, and he had been told this was a low estimate. The new crematorium and gardens of remembrance will cover nine acres of ground when it is completed. Before Ald. Sykes laid the stone, the Mayor, Ald. Dunning, placed a box beneath the stone. In it were the Times and Manchester Guardian for April 30th, the Bolton Evening News for April 29th, the Bolton Journal and Guardian for April 25th, Pharos for November, 1951 and February, 1952, and copies of the Book of Bolton and the Bolton Corporation Year Book. Coins, from a farthing to a half crown were also in the box which was described as "a link between Boltonians of the present and Boltonians of the future."

100 YEARS AGO

From the Evening News, May 1, 1902

A SPECTACLE which is very rarely seen was witnessed at the London and North Western Railway goods yard, Crook-st., today, when a special train load of boilers, made by the firm of Messrs Hick, Hargreaves and Co., Crook-st., was despatched to Kircaldy, Scotland.

The consignment, which is unusually large, and for which special trolley vehicles were requisitioned, consisted of four steel Lancashire boilers, each 30ft. long by 8ft. diameter. Each weighs 25 tons. The order also includes a large travelling crane, and one of Hick Hargreaves' high-class Corliss engines. The boilers were loaded in the firm's siding, on to the specially constructed trolleys.

THOMAS Howarth (40) steeplejack, who resided in Brown-st., and who was seriously injured on April 11 by falling from a scaffold attached to a chimney, succumbed to his injuries at the Infirmary this morning.