Atomic footage and comentary in this doc. on the relationship of the atom to Las Vegas...
Las Vegas: An Unconventional History
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/la...as/index.html
The story of Las Vegas' last hundred years is a distinctly American saga of optimism and opportunity. By 1999, it had become one of the fastest growing cities in the United States and could lay claim, in the words of one historian, to be "the first city of the twenty-first century." American Experience tells a rollercoaster story, peopled with unlikely heroes and villains, to trace the city's development from a remote frontier way-station to its Depression-era incarnation as the "Gateway to the Hoover Dam"; from its mid-century florescence as the gangster metropolis known as "Sin City" to its recent renaissance as a corporately-financed, postmodern, desert fantasyland.
Atomic Vegas...
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/la...f_atomic.html
In the 1950s the American public accepted above-ground nuclear bomb blasts just 65 miles from an American city as part of the ongoing Cold War effort. The tests became a tourist attraction for visitors. Las Vegas became "Atomic City, USA." The public's enthusiastic reaction to the tests demonstrates how well the government both downplayed the possible dangers of the tests and emphasized the patriotic mission of the program.
In 1988 the U.S. Congress passed a bill to compensate veterans whose health was damaged from exposure to nuclear tests. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah sponsored the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) that was passed in 1990, providing compensation to civilians downwind from the above-ground tests (many in his home state) and quickly amended to also apply to workers at the Nevada Test Site. As of 2001, RECA has paid out some $232 billion for 3,135 claims.
Explore the different ways in which the government presented the safety and importance of the tests to the American public in the early years of the Cold War
Las Vegas: An Unconventional History
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/la...as/index.html
The story of Las Vegas' last hundred years is a distinctly American saga of optimism and opportunity. By 1999, it had become one of the fastest growing cities in the United States and could lay claim, in the words of one historian, to be "the first city of the twenty-first century." American Experience tells a rollercoaster story, peopled with unlikely heroes and villains, to trace the city's development from a remote frontier way-station to its Depression-era incarnation as the "Gateway to the Hoover Dam"; from its mid-century florescence as the gangster metropolis known as "Sin City" to its recent renaissance as a corporately-financed, postmodern, desert fantasyland.
Atomic Vegas...
www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/la...f_atomic.html
In the 1950s the American public accepted above-ground nuclear bomb blasts just 65 miles from an American city as part of the ongoing Cold War effort. The tests became a tourist attraction for visitors. Las Vegas became "Atomic City, USA." The public's enthusiastic reaction to the tests demonstrates how well the government both downplayed the possible dangers of the tests and emphasized the patriotic mission of the program.
In 1988 the U.S. Congress passed a bill to compensate veterans whose health was damaged from exposure to nuclear tests. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah sponsored the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) that was passed in 1990, providing compensation to civilians downwind from the above-ground tests (many in his home state) and quickly amended to also apply to workers at the Nevada Test Site. As of 2001, RECA has paid out some $232 billion for 3,135 claims.
Explore the different ways in which the government presented the safety and importance of the tests to the American public in the early years of the Cold War
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