In this monthly feature, The Tidings explores news and events of the past as related in the weekly archdiocesan newspaper.

100 Years Ago: 1906
August 3: The third annual teachers' institute opened at Immaculate Heart College in Hollywood with 127 sisters attending from Oakland, Santa Rosa, Tucson, Phoenix and Kansas City. Bishop Thomas Conaty addressed the group and spoke on "School Room Responsibility."

August 10: St. Victor's Church at Sherman, built by Victor Ponet and his wife, will be dedicated in October, the feast of St. Victor. The couple also donated eight blocks of land for church property.

August 17: Sunday, August 12, marked a distinctive epoch in the history of the church in the Diocese of Los Angeles. On that date in Monrovia, the stone church erected in memory of Mrs. Simona Bradbury by her children was dedicated by Bishop Conaty with impressive ceremonies. The Church of the Immaculate Conception, a monument to the memory of a devoted mother, was donated "free from incumbrance" by her son and three daughters as a tribute of devotion.

August 24: The first Mass is celebrated at St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Santa Maria and a class of 21 children received First Communion. For 11 months Father Fernes with the help of local Catholics was able to build the brick veneer church and rectory and thus eliminate the use of the Methodist church that was used for worship for some time.

August 31: An editorial asks: "Will it ever happen, that these United States will have a Catholic President? The only chance for a Catholic to occupy that office would be if the two great parties nominated Catholics. Even then, it would only be a probability. Catholic citizens are just as good as any other, but the fear of prejudice will not change the unfortunate opinion."

50 Years Ago: 1956
August 3: Some 2,000 persons participate in annual pilgrimage procession at shrine of St. Anne in Santa Monica. Statue of St. Anne is carried in procession down Santa Monica Boulevard. …Four Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet leave for Koyoto, Japan to open the congregation's first mission in Asia.

August 10: Selection of a new site for Marymount College is announced by Mother Gertrude and Mother Aquinas. The women's college founded in 1934 will move from Westwood to a 45-acre site in Palos Verdes….Dr. Tom Dooley speaks in L.A. before his next medical venture in Indo-China where 2,000,000 people share only one doctor.

August 17: Pope Pius XII, in a special audience, receives two Angeleno priests and their mothers: Father Harold Laubacher of St. Andrew's and his mother Nan, and Msgr. Benjamin Hawkes, secretary to Cardinal James Francis McIntyre, and his mother Mae.

August 24: An estimated 125,000 students will enroll in Catholic schools, while 14 new elementary schools and two new high schools will open. In the last 10 years, the number of schools has increased from 140 to 269.

August 31: A statue of Padre Serra is rededicated in new Plaza Park to commemorate 175th birthday of Los Angeles as 175 candlebearers process across the Plaza to the new site…. Five Immaculate Heart Sisters celebrate their golden jubilee in Hollywood. In 1906 they were the first sisters to make profession of vows at the new convent.