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St. Valentine’s Day Massacre
In what is now a parking lot in North Chicago, Illinois was once a garage that became infamous for the bloodiest day in mob history.A bit of back story to set the scene.1920s Chicago was a place filled to the brim with gangsters, violence, murder, prostitution, bootlegging and police corruption. The city was split up into two factions, one in South Chicago, the other in North Chicago, and these two gangster factions had a history of rivalry. Of course, the bosses of these gangs chang [...]
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American Gangster Baby Face Nelson
Lester Joseph Gillis (George Nelson) was born on December 6, 1908. On July 4, 1921, at the age of twelve, Nelson was arrested after accidentally shooting a playmate in the jaw with a pistol he had found. He served over a year in the state reformatory. Arrested again for theft and joy riding at age 13, he was sent to a penal school for an additional 18 months. Nelson became gang-affiliated during his mid-teens, and would later become the leader of the gang. It was within this first gang where he was called by the alias Baby Face by members of his first gang for his youthful appearance. He would…
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Al Capone
“You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.” – Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born January 18th,1899 not 17th as is often stated, to Italian immigrants Gabriele Capone and Theresa – Teresa in Italy – (née Raiola) in Brooklyn, New York. He was one of nine children, some of whom would assist Al in his endeavors later in life. His father was a barber and his mother was a seamstress, both born in Angri, a town in the Province of Salerno. The family first immigrated from Italy to Fiume, Austria-Hungary (present day Rijeka, Croatia) in 1893, traveling…
