FLASHBACKS: STRIP LIGHTS DIM FOR REAGAN, CARLIN’S LAST SHOW AND JAVON WALKER’S BAD NIGHT
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June 11, 2004: The Las Vegas Strip dims its lights in memory of President Ronald Reagan, who died six days earlier. The same rare tribute previously honored John F. Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and victims of the September 11 attacks.
June 12, 2005: Taking a break from their busy schedules, newlyweds Kenny Chesney and Renee Zellweger host a honeymoon party at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville. Three months later, the movie star and the country singer file for an annulment.
June 13, 2012: Boxer Floyd Mayweather, serving three months in jail for attacking his former girlfriend, loses his appeal for early release because bad food and non-bottled water are damaging his health. “It’s jail,” prosecutor Lisa Luzaich says. “Where did he think he was going? The Four Seasons?"
June 14, 1855: William Bringhurst arrives in Las Vegas with a group of Mormon missionaries to establish a fort and begin converting the local Paiute Indians. Though relations with the Indians are peaceful, drought and lack of success in conversions force the Mormons back to Utah three years later.
June 15, 2008: Comedian George Carlin, a Las Vegas regular for 40 years, gives his final public performance at the Orleans. Seven days later he dies of heart failure in California at 71. He had been booked to return to the Orleans in August.
June 16, 2009: Sen. John Ensign, a one-time Las Vegas veterinarian and a rising star in the Republican Party, admits to having an affair with a campaign staffer whose husband is his best friend. The subsequent furor over coverups and payoffs to hide the scandal forces Ensign to resign in 2011.
June 17, 1960: El Rancho Vegas, the Strip’s first resort and the city’s biggest hotel when it opened in 1941, is destroyed by a fire. Betty Grable and Harry James are on stage when the blaze breaks out – apparently by accident – but there are no injuries.
El Rancho
June 18, 2008: NFL star receiver Javon Walker is released from Sunrise Medical Center, one day after being found unconscious on a Las Vegas street. He admits he was drunk after a night of partying, got into a car with men he didn’t know, and was robbed and beaten. The attacker gets life in prison.
--Researched and written by Mike Precker