On this day, Aug. 26, in 1980, hotel workers discovered a 1,500-pound bomb disguised as a copy machine inside a Nevada casino. Disgruntled gambler John Birges Sr., 59, snuck the bomb into an executive suite of the Harvey’s Resort Hotel, and left a ransom demanding that a helicopter fly $3 million in cash to the Lake Tahoe airport, where a strobe light would give further coded instructions.
Bomb squad units with robots unsuccessfully tried to disarm the bomb, blowing up much of the hotel.
Birges and three henchmen were arrested by FBI agents in 1981.
FBI officials said Birges stole dynamite from a Fresno, Calif., construction site to build in his garage one of the biggest bombs they had ever seen.
He was sentenced to 40 years in prison — and died in 1996.
-Scott McCabe
