The Harvey's Resort Hotel bombing took place on August 26–27, 1980, when several men masquerading as photocopier deliverers planted an elaborately booby trapped bomb containing 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of dynamite at Harvey's Resort Hotel (now "Harveys") in Stateline, Nevada, United States. After an attempt to disarm the bomb, it exploded, causing extensive damage to the hotel but no injuries or deaths. The total cost of the damage was estimated to be around $18 million. John Birges Sr. was convicted of having made the bomb with a goal of extorting money from the casino after having lost $750,000 there. He died in prison in 1996, at the age of 74.
Background
John Birges Sr. was a Hungarian immigrant to Clovis, California. He claimed to later biographers he flew for the German Luftwaffe during World War II, during which time he provided intelligence to the United States. He was captured and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor in the Soviet gulag. Eight years into his sentence in the gulag, he was released during a period of mass repatriation of POWs held in the Soviet Union to their home countries and returned to Hungary. From there...
Turing Radius
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