When gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel opened his landmark Flamingo hotel and casino in 1946 on the Las Vegas Strip, it helped usher in a seemingly endless jackpot for the city's tourism and casino trades. In 1996, the year this photo was taken, four mega-casinos made their debut on the Strip: the New York-New York, Monte Carlo, the Orleans, and the Stratosphere.
—Photograph from "Believing Las Vegas," December 1996, National Geographic magazine
