There were more than 1,000 atomic tests in Nevada’s desert between 1951 and 1992, including about 100 above ground.

“VEGANS ‘ATOM-IZED,’” a Las Vegas Review-Journal headline read the next day, Jan. 28, 1951, in big, bold, all-capital letters across the front page.

Coverage featured reports from people awakened by the shockwave, or who witnessed a blinding, white flash, or described a “borealis effect” spread over the whole sky to the northwest.

Source: First atomic blast in 1951 shook, shaped Vegas and Nevada