Workers at Harvey's Resort and Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, discover a nearly 1,500-pound bomb disguised as a copy machine in an executive suite. A ransom note that had been attached to the massive explosive demanded $3 million to be paid in return for instructions on how to defuse the bomb.

As experts from the bomb squad examined the complex, handmade explosive containing a control box with more than 20 switches, the hotel was evacuated and the adjoining streets shut down. However, the nearby casino remained open to the skeptical gamblers who refused to leave.

The extortionist demanded that a helicopter fly $3 million in cash to an area south of the Lake Tahoe airport where a strobe light would give further coded instructions. But when the FBI violated the ransom instructions by contacting the helicopter by radio, the plan went awry and the bomb squad was left to dismantle the bomb.

From the Sahara Tahoe Hotel, experts tried to disassemble the bomb with robots. Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful: The bomb exploded, demolishing the hotel. Luckily, none of the gamblers were killed.

After remaining at large for nearly a year, the four perpetrators were arrested by FBI agents in 1981. John Waldo Birges, who had lost a large amount of money at the casino in the months before the bomb exploded, orchestrated the plan with the help from his girlfriend, Ella Williams, and two other men. His sons later testified that he stole the TNT from a construction site. Birges was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Harvey's Resort and Casino was eventually rebuilt.