Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

May 15, 1905: U.S. Sen. William Andrews Clark auctions off 600 plots of land, establishing Las Vegas as a town.
1909: Nevada bans gambling.
1931: The Nevada Legislature relaxes marriage and divorce laws and repeals its gambling ban.


The year was 1932, it was summer and Mrs. Raffetto had been asked, by the Nevada Native Daughters, to sing a song about Nevada at the annual picnic at Bowers Mansion. She completed "Home Means Nevada" at 4:00am on the day of the picnic and sang her composition that afternoon. The song was very well received and former Governor Roswell K. Colcord said to Mrs. Raffetto, "Honey, that's the prettiest Nevada Song that I have ever heard. It should be made the state song of Nevada!"

The song that Mrs. Raffetto sang that afternoon, "Home Means Nevada," did become the official state song of Nevada. It was adopted by the legislature on February 6, 1933.

Nevada State Song by Bertha Raffetto (1885-1952):

Way out in the land of the setting sun
Where the wind blows wild and free
There's a lovely spot, the only one
That means home, sweet home to me.
If you follow the old Kit Carson trail,
Until the desert meets the hills,
Oh you certainly will agree with me,
It's the place of a thousand thrills.

Whenever the sun at the close of day,
Colors all the western sky,
Oh my heart returns to the desert gray
And the mountains tow'ring high.
Where the moonbeams play in the shadowed glow,
With the spotted fawn and doe,
All the livelong night until morning light,
Is the loveliest place I know.

Read the short interesting story behind the composition of "Home Means Nevada" written by Mrs. Bertha Raffetto in May, 1949.

Bertha was a school marm in the Ozarks. She went with the men on turkey shoots; She was an independent, free-thinking woman in an era when the woman’s place presumably was in the home.
Nevada Women's History Project

Las Vegas Timeline & Videos

Short version: The History of Las Vegas, Nevada (feat. Mark Hall-Patton aka "The Beard of Knowledge") the Museum Administrator for the Clark County Museum system, where he oversees the Clark County Museum, the Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum, the Searchlight History Museum and a member of Nevada Aerospace Hall of Fame.




May 15, 1957: At Malden Island in the Pacific Ocean, Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb in Operation Grapple.


But, it was close enough to make the UK a recognized third thermonuclear power.


May 15, 2010: Jessica Watson becomes the youngest person to sail, non-stop and unassisted around the world solo.


Close enough!


Happy Birthday to CONELRAD! (Control of Electromagnetic Radiation) The Truman administration-initiated broadcast warning system became operational May 15, 1953. It lasted for ten years before being replaced by the Emergency Broadcast System. Today we now have the Emergency Alert System (EAS).  Here & abroad, during the Cold War, the UK developed an emergency alert system called the Wartime Broadcasting Service, aimed to keep UK residents informed (terrified) after a catastrophic wartime attack. The UK Emergency Alert System (mobile phone alert system) was launched on 19 March 2023, and tested on a nationwide basis for the first time on 23 April 2023.



Duck and Cover! Cold War car radios let you tune into Radio Armegeddon

The Sacramento Bee's CONELRAD reminder ran at the top of its radio listings from the day the system became operational to the day it was scrapped on August 5, 1963. On August 6th, there was no notice whatsoever (sorry, EBS!).



May 15, 1952, the Alert America Convoy arrived in Los Angeles.











All photos & more for Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, NYC, Philadelphia, Washington, DC:
Archiving Civil Defense: Alert America - An archive of the Civil Defense Administration's 1952 Alert America Convoy.

The convoy’s exhibits included displays meant to shock the audience through the representation of possible, yet seemingly inevitable, events. For example, visitors saw the atomic devastation of “City X,” an average city that audiences all over America were told “…could be your city!” The exhibit was organized as a cumulative display, from the destruction of life, to how to save yourself, your neighbor, and even other cities by joining Civil Defense. As Bill Geerhart states, “If the first half of the Alert America displays were intended to shock, the second half was intended to sell the hope of civil defense. Exhibits and demonstrations on shelter preparation, radiation detection and rescue work were presented.”
Alert America! Convoy at the Armory-Exposition Park May 17-22, 1952

Another source: University of Southern California Libraries



Atomic Cheesecake: The Alert America Convoy Comes to Hollywood