History of the United States Navy the Panama Canal, which was completed in 1914. The Great White Fleet required almost 50 coaling ships, and during the cruise most of the fleet's coal was purchased from the British, who could deny access to fuel during a military crisis as they did with Russia during the Russo-Japanese War. When United States agents discovered that the German merchant ship "Ypiranga" was carrying illegal arms to Mexico, President Wilson ordered the Navy to stop the ship from docking at the port of Veracruz. On 21 April 1914, a naval brigade of marines and sailors occupied Veracruz. A total of 55
History of the Mexican Americans in Los Angeles los Ángeles", was constructed in its place a mere thirty years later. The city has witnessed a development of a Hispanic (mainly Mexican) cultural presence since its settlement as a city in 1769. Mexican-Americans have been one of the largest ethnic groups in Los Angeles since the 1910 census, as Mexican immigrants and US-born Mexicans from the Southwest states came to the booming industrial economy of the LA area between 1915 and 1960. This migration peaked in the 1920s and again in the World War II era (1941–45). The city's original barrios were located in the eastern half of the