Rodney King, the black motorist whose 1991 videotaped beating by Los Angeles police officers was the touchstone for one of the most destructive race riots in the nation’s history, was found at the bottom of his swimming pool early Sunday and later pronounced dead. He was 47.

King’s videotaped beating on the night of March 3, 1991, triggered the Los Angeles riots more than a year later, when three of the officers who beat him were acquitted of all charges. On the third day of the riots, he famously pleaded on national television, “Can we all get along?”

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Here’s a gallery of images looking back at the L.A. race riots and the life of Rodney King.

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