(Roughly) Daily

One can’t be too careful.  It’s something of a relief, then, to find Money Mumbo Jumbo’s “Ten Safes Capable of Protecting the World’s Riches“– from Fort Knox and the Doomsday Seed Vault to Karl Lagerfeld’s tres chic accessories cache.

Still, lest one rest easy, consider the Antwerp Diamond Center’s vault (pictured above):  It was considered the safest precious stone repository in the world, protected as it was by 10 layers of security– including Doppler radar, magnetic field locking system, seismic sensors, infrared detectors and a main door lock with over a 100 million possible combinations.  One can read here how it was that, nonetheless, a team of thieves made off with over $100 million worth of sparklers from the vault.

As we contemplate life in the Age of Schlage, we might recall that it was on this date in 1931 that the State of Nevada legalized most forms of gambling.  Anxious to cash in the the tourist boom that was expected to follow the (then-imminent) completion of Hoover (nee Boulder) Dam, the state legislature in effect simply legitimized what was an already-flourishing (albeit illegal) gaming industry.  (There was nothing that the State legislature could do about Prohibition, then in effect; but then, liquor was already flowing freely, if illicitly, in Nevada, as elsewhere in the U.S.)

Ever watchful for ways to attract more visitors, Nevada also eased the threshold for divorce– and became a “divorce haven.”  (Prior to the no-fault divorce revolution of the 1970s, divorces were quite difficult to obtain in other states.)

Nevada State Journal
March 20, 1931