FROM THE BIRTH OF “WHAT HAPPENS HERE” TO DICAPRIO’S REJECTED REQUEST TO RECORD RAIN
August 15 2006: A federal judge voids a 2004 deal by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority that sold the popular slogan “What happens here, stays here” to an advertising agency for $1. The 13-member LVCVA board successfully argued it didn’t know about the deal.
August 16, 1951: Casino owners, angered by the opening of Binion’s Horseshoe the day before, start reassessing their betting limits. Owner Benny Binion sets the craps limit at $500 – 10 times the maximum anywhere else. Benny’s life is allegedly threatened, but the higher stakes prove successful everywhere.
August 17, 2002: Laila Ali, a boxer like her dad Muhammad, wins her first title, the IBF Super Middleweight championship, with a second-round TKO over Suzette Taylor at the Aladdin. She retires in 2007 with a 24-0 record, although some critics accused her over the years of dodging tough opponents.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
August 18, 2002: At a post-Bruce Springsteen concert party at the Hard Rock Hotel, Leonardo DiCaprio asks to hear hip hop music and says he’ll leave unless he gets his way. He doesn’t, and stays anyway. In that column, I added: “There's a reason it's called the Hard Rock Hotel, not the Hard Hip Hop Hotel."
August 19, 1962: Squeaky-clean crooner Pat Boone, who had shunned Las Vegas because of its Sin City image, finishes his four-week debut engagement at the Flamingo, performing in a tuxedo and white bucks. He says he hadn’t realized that nice family folks come to Vegas, too, and returns often.
August 20, 1964: The Beatles make their only Las Vegas appearance, performing afternoon and evening concerts at the Convention Center before 11,000 screaming fans. Ticket prices range from $2.20 to $5.50. They stayed in the Sahara suites and played slot machines that were placed in their rooms because of the horde of fans that swarmed into the casino.
August 21, 1957: A second day of rain brings the two-day total in Las Vegas to 2.59 inches, an all-time record.
August 22, 1968: Tiny Tim wraps up a week as a ukelele-playing, falsetto-trilling headliner at Caesars Palace, for a reported $50,000. One night during the stint he inspects the hotel’s room service menu and orders one of everything. His wedding to Miss Vicki on the Tonight Show is still a year away.
Research by Mike Precker