Charles Luciano Research Paper

Salvatore Lucania was born on November 24, 1897 in Sicily, Italy; almost ten years later, he began a new life of crime and prosperity in New York City’s lower east side. Upon arrival, he could not speak english; he bullied the other kids into paying him for protection and participated in drug dealing. One day, Lucania was abducted, beaten, stabbed, and left for dead; miraculously, he survived. This rather fortunate recovery led him to become known as Lucky Luciano (“Lucky Luciano Biography.com.” Edited by Biography.com, The Biography.Com website, A&E Television Networks, 17 June 2015, www.biography.com/people/lucky-luciano -9388350). In 1916, he became the leader of the Five Points Gang and continued to make a name for himself. During these early years, Luciano was in and out of jail-- mostly for getting caught dealing drugs.

When we think of the mafia and gangs, one name comes to mind, Al Capone. Al Capone, also known as Scarface, was an infamous mafia leader who was active in Chicago during the Prohibition era. Having committed numerous criminal deeds and being the man behind countless murders, Capone was finally arrested for tax evasion . Now, you might ask, “How was he able to commit all these violent deeds without being imprisoned?” Well, we first have to go to the beginning of Capone’s life.

During the period of prohibition, from 1920 to 1933, the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol was made illegal, through the Volstead act of 1919, leading to the first and only time an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was repealed. Throughout this time in American history gangsters were common and were constantly increasing in every city but one in particular stood out from all the others making a significant impact on American history. Scarface, Alphonse Capone or more commonly known as Al Capone; who was the most infamous gangster, taking advantage of the era of Prohibition, ran an organized crime association in Chicago during the 1920s. He was responsible for over 500 murders; he had 700 men under his control and earned $60 million a year for bootlegging. Capone, who was glamorised in media and shown as charitable to the helpless was also controlling and violent and became an iconic figure of the successful American gangster who insisted he was just ‘supplying the public demand’.

Even after he stopped pursuing his education, Capone began to work to support his family and “always brought his entire paycheck home to his mother”. However, Al was steered towards a life of crime when he started spending time in Manhattan with his older brother, Ralph, who often did odd jobs for gangs. After some time, Al began to work for Johnny Torrio, a renowned mob boss in New York. From there, his penchant for a life of crime only grew. Capone became something of a protegee to Torrio. Eventually, Torrio realized his organization could become more profitable in Chicago, so he turned over his territory to Frankie Yale, for whom Al began to work. Soon, Capone had made enemies within a rival gang, so Yale suggested he move to Chicago to work for Torrio until New York was safer. Capone recognized the move as a step up, and so he continued his work in Chicago for the rest of his career. After an attempt on Torrio’s life, he retired, and put Capone in charge of his entire organization when he was just twenty-six years old. When Capone took over, the United States was mid-prohibition, so the large majority of his focus was on bootlegging. Before the end of the decade, Capone “controlled all 10,000 speakeasies in Chicago and was said to be ruling the entire bootlegging business from Canada to Florida”. Needless to say, Al Capone had become a powerful and influential figure in Chicago.

Al Capone, who was born in New York in 1899, was one of the most prominent gangsters in America in the 1920s. He was the son of Italian immigrants, and after leaving school at a young age, became a small-time criminal. Known as ‘Scarface,’ he had links to the leader of the Five Points Gang, Johnny Torrio, and moved to Chicago in 1920, where he gradually rose through the ranks as a partner in saloons, gambling and brothels. They moved their operations to Illinois after an offer to work with Jim Colosimo, a central figure in Chicago’s brothel business. Gang rivalry heated up after a dispute between Torrio and Colosimo over whether to begin in the bootlegging business, and in 1920, Colosimo was murdered allegedly by Al Capone. After this, Torrio’s criminal empire expanded massively throughout Chicago, before leaving in 1925 and handing over operations to Capone. After taking over, Capone expanded operations even further, and was able to control Chicago’s Mayor, ‘Big Bill’ Thompson and fix his elections. A local newspaper from the time reported

now the story behind him. What made him to be the most feared gangster in the city of Chicago? How did this kid from a rough neighborhood and no money grow up to have $60,000,000? I’ve always been fascinated with organized crime but had never been taught anything in school about it. This report gave me the chance to explore something interesting and also educational. The more I researched Al Capone, the more I wanted to learn about him. He may look like an innocent Italian at a glance, but he

During the Second World War, Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was the leader of the Italian Nationalist Fascist government. He was head of the Italian government from 1922 till 1943. The significance of Mussolini is that he played a key role acting as the Italian Prime Minister and established a totalitarian regime, during this time, as the unchallenged supreme leader, known as ‘Il Duce’. Fascism consisted of many contributors of which Mussolini with all his quirks was the key to most of its failures and successes, making him the most significant player that is worthy of being investigated. This topic is worthy of being investigated as Mussolini made a lot of decisions that lead to the death of many, but the question as to

Alphonse was destined to a life of lawlessness from a young age. In his adolescence, he lived the life of an Italian Immigrant. Sequestered to predominantly Italian boroughs, education was lackluster and the influence of the Italian mob was ever present. However, Capone's education played a key role in his development. As Kobel states in his novel, it was here at school where Capone met another future mob boss. Another Italian delinquent youth at the time, Salvatore Lucania, also known as Lucky Luciano. (Kobler 23) Capone continued to live a moderately normal life until his expulsion from school at age fourteen. He worked side jobs around Brooklyn

Al Capone was a highly known gangster in the 1920s Alphonse Capone born in Brooklyn, New York to a poor US immigrant couple, Gabriele and Teresina Capone, seeking a better opportunity for their then big family of eight children. He was known for running many lucrative illegal businesses that included alcohol bootlegging, gambling, prostitution, and protection. Al Capone was so notorious that he would murder those who got in his way. With little prosecution of his actions, Al Capone believed his self to being unstoppable. Al Capone, being raised as a kid in poverty learned hands on how to organize crime and became the biggest force in organized crime.

wise when it came to living on the streets of New York. He had a clever

The 1920s was a “time of great criminal activity, with prohibition laws in America and the world in an economic depression” (Nash, 1). Organized criminals such as American mobsters thrived during this time. Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, and John Dillinger were the most well-known of the gangsters at the time, many of the common people looked to these criminals as “heroes”. There were a tremendous amount of people who turned to criminal activity; mostly because jobs were scarce and

It took time and persistence for Al Capone to become a leader, and to be considered the notorious criminal he was, and due with the guidance of Johnny Torrio, a mob leader in Chicago, Al Capone became the man he was set to be when came to Chicago. In the award-winning book “American Decades” it states “... in 1919 after the 18th amendment went into effect, bootlegging operations opened up and drew in immense wealth. In 1925, Torrio retired, and Capone became the crime czar of Chicago, running gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging rackets and expanding his territories by the gunning down of rivals, and rival gangs.” (Bondi).

Description: Nancy was found raped and strangled to death in the bathtub of her apartment. They found a cord and a piece of horse hair in her bedroom at the crime scene. Just the week before her death Fiorenza had come to her house to fix her couch and claimed to not go into the bedroom. But once they linked the fibers from the couch to the bedroom brought in by Fiorenza… they knew that he did and they questioned him and then he admitted to the brutal crime and was put on trial and convicted and was executed.

In the 1920s, the Prohibition era just began in America and crime across the country increased dramatically. Simultaneously, the very unpopular Benito Mussolini became leader of Italy. The combination of mobsters needing a new home and America with a new demand for crime created a destined path for the Sicilian mobsters. New York City became the new breeding ground for the Italian life of crime, and with the influence of the

One of the most successful Mafia bosses involved in bootlegging and prostitution was Charles "Lucky" Luciano. He was born in 1897 in Sicily, Italy. At the age of 9 he moved to the Lower East Side of New York. In 1920 he began his own prostitution