Las Vegas, Nevada: Atomic Museum

Open since 2005, the Atomic Testing Museum chronicles America's plunge into the nuclear age. Refreshingly devoid of modern-day political correctness, the museum simply presents life as it was between 1951 and 1992, when the Nevada Test Site (located 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas) detonated 928 atomic blasts in and under the desert.

"Sixty-five miles from Vegas? But isn't that, ummm, really, really close to The Strip?" you ask. Uh-huh ... and you'll see just how close when you view the photograph of a mushroom cloud rising behind the Las Vegas skyline. Patrons used to gather in the Sky Room of the Desert Inn to watch the detonations, which would shake the chandeliers seven minutes later.

Indeed, Vegas enthusiastically embraced the nukes, selling Atomic Cocktails, hosting bomb parties and sponsoring Miss Atomic Bomb beauty pageants. It was definitely a different era, and the Atomic Testing Museum does an excellent job -- with films, memorabilia and other vintage material -- of portraying these blasts from the past.

A sparkling new Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada, is already dusting off a powdery coating of fallout from critics who say it doesn't tell the whole atomic testing story. The museum, the first to focus on the area's legacy of nuclear weapons experiments, opened on February 20 to much fanfare.