In 1920, the United
States passed prohibition and banned the sale of
alcoholic beverages. While the supply of liquor was
shut down, demand still existed and organized crime stepped
in to fill the void. The age of the
bootlegger had begun. Alfonse Gabriel "Al"
Capone was 25 years old when he became the boss
of the Chicago rackets. One of the 20th century's most
infamous cultural figures, by the time he was
done, Capone's name would become practically
synonymous with organized crime itself. Today, we're going to
recount the things you didn't know about Al Capone. But before we get started,
what's the matter with you, see? Be sure to subscribe to
the Weird History Channel. Yeah. Once you've done that, you
better leave us a comment and let us know
what kind of topics you would like to hear about. If there's one thing
Americans love, it's a good rags
to riches story, even if the middle
of that story happens to be filled with kidnapping,
bootlegging, and whacking guys. Along those lines, Al Capone
started from near the bottom of society. He was born in Brooklyn,
New York in 1899. His parents were
Italian-American immigrants and the family
lived in a rundown tenement near the naval yards. As such, the area
was always rife with sailors and
soldiers searching for booze and prostitutes. However, Capone's
roots weren't quite what you would have imagined. His father, originally
from Naples, was cosmopolitan
and highly educated. The family was considered
professional and respectable. Indeed, for the
early years of life, Al himself had no trouble
walking the straight and narrow path. It wasn't until his teen
years that his dangerous side began to emerge. He slowly began to
transform into a delinquent at the age of 14. And at the age of 14
is reported to have hit a female teacher in his school. That donnybrook
got him expelled. At the time, New York City
was awash with street gangs, like the Hudson Dusters
and the Gopher Gang. Wow. Gangster names
used to be so cool. Capone joined up with the city's
infamous Five Points Gang. He excelled at his work and
eventually found his way into organized crime, via an
association with Johnny Torrio, a powerful boss who,
like Capone's father, hailed from Naples. Al Capone's underworld
nickname was Scarface, which is so badass
it literally inspired at least three movies all by itself. So how did he get it? Well, after getting
kicked out of school, Capone found work as a
bouncer in a local club called the Harvard Inn. The story goes that one night,
while he was working the door, Al took a liking to a
woman named Lena Galluccio. He offered to take her
for a walk on the beach, but she wasn't interested. Not one to take no for an
answer, Al kept after her and, later in the
evening, shouted to her that he liked her backside. Al meant it as a compliment,
but Lena's brother, Frank Galluccio,
didn't take it as such. Frank wasn't as
big as Al, but he did have a knife, which
he used to carve Capone across the face, three times. It took 80 stitches
to close the wounds. And the lines left behind
would lay the groundwork for one of the most
famous nicknames in the history of crime. While the world may have
called him Scarface, Al's friends had another
slightly less threatening nickname for him, Snorky. Yes, you heard
that right, Snorky. One of the most
dangerous mob bosses in the history of the world was
known to his friends as Snorky. Why? Because in 1920s Chicago,
Snorky was gang slang for a sharp dresser
and Capone had a weakness for expensive,
imported Italian suits. History also records that
his friends occasionally called him The Big Fellow,
but that one really doesn't need much explaining. Al Capone liked nice things. Besides his fondness
for custom-made suits, when Capone started making bank,
he spent a great deal of it on his clothes. In fact, Capone was
known to shell out in the neighborhood of
$500 for his outfits. It might not seem like
a lot, but converted from 1920 era prices,
that's the modern day equivalent of almost $7,000. Of course, if you're spending
that much on your outfit, you probably
wouldn't want to see it get all ripped
up with bullet holes and stained with gangster juice. Neither did Al. So to protect protective suits,
and presumably also his life, he had a 1928
Cadillac V8 Town Sedan reinforced with armor plating. The car was loaded
with 3,000 pounds of steel plates and
bulletproof glass windows, essentially making it
the equivalent of a tank. And in a twist that would
make James Bond jealous, the car had a few
other cool extras, including holes cut in the
rear insides of the car, so that he and his
henchmen could shoot back at attackers without having to
come out from behind the armor. Capone was the OG Pimp My Ride. Golfing with the boss
is an American tradition and the mob was no exception. Capone and his men
loved to go golfing. And while they enjoyed the game,
what they really enjoyed more was raising a little hell. The Capone Gang was reported
to have drank heavily on the course and bet
ridiculous amounts of money on almost anything. They were also known to keep
guns in their golf bags, because when you were with a
gangster in the 1920s Chicago, a shootout could break out
at almost any time, anywhere. On one outing in
September of 1928, Capone hit the links
with fellow mobster Fred "The Killer" Burke,
Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, and "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn. Capone went searching through
his bag for a particular club and accidentally
grabbed his revolver. It fired a shot and
Capone was rushed to St. Margaret's Hospital. He was registered under
the assumed name L. Geary, to keep a low profile
and, presumably, because he didn't want anyone
to know how clumsy he was. Capone spent money
like it was water. He bought fancy suits,
expensive jewels, high tech cars with
armor and gadgets, and yet he never
ran out of cash. Indeed, as a Chicago
boss with interests in racketeering, gambling,
prostitution, bootlegging, and vices of every
imaginable kind, Capone was able to amass a
staggering amount of money. In fact, Capone is
believed to have earned in the area of
$100 million a year. And that was in the 1920s. Adjusted for inflation
to 2020 dollars, Al Capone's fortune would
today be worth somewhere north of $1.3 billion. Yes, that's billion with
a B, making Al something like the Jeff Bezos of crime. To maintain his iron
grip on crime in Chicago, Al Capone had one simple
task, take out anyone who dared get in his way. It didn't matter if you were
a customer or a competitor. If you messed with
The Big Fellow, you weren't long for this world. Of course, when you
whack that many people, it's bound to raise
a few questions. Al had that covered though. To keep his men out of jail
and safe from prosecution, Capone put unprecedented
numbers of police officers, politicians, lawyers, and
judges on his payroll. He spent millions
each year on bribes to keep the establishment on
his side and out of his way. When it came to crime, Al
Capone had a keen mind, but it would fail him over
the course of his life. At the age of 18, Al had
contracted syphilis and never bothered to receive
medical attention. Untreated, the effects of
the disease were severe. It slowly eroded his mind. And by the 1940s,
he was reported to have the intellectual
capacity of a 7-year-old. In prison, he
required special care and was known to lash out at
nurses and mumble to himself. Near the end of his
life, he was reported to be little more than a
shell of his former self. It sounds like a story
from a Hollywood movie. Two brothers go
down separate paths. One becomes an
infamous bootlegger and the other a prohibition
task force member bent on bringing the
bootleggers down. Yet this was the reality
of the Capone family. Born seven years prior
to his famous brother, James Vincenzo Capone went
off to fight in World War I and lost contact
with his family. When he came back
from the front, he moved to the
Midwestern United States and pulled a Don Draper,
changing his name to Richard Hart. Richard Hart became
marshal of a town called Homer, Nebraska,
where he led numerous raids against bootleggers. Marshal Hart was the type of
man who preferred subterfuge to direct action. Where treasury agents,
like Eliot Ness, would take on the gangsters
by kicking in the front door with guns blazing,
Hart preferred to wear disguises and catch
the bad guys in the act. When he wasn't running
his bootlegging empire, bribing cops and
judges, or ordering the murder of his
competitors, Capone was known to be a
great philanthropist. Whether it was all just
a public relations move or whether he actually
enjoyed helping the needy out is unknown. But in his time, Capone
developed a lasting reputation as a man of the people. During the Great Depression, he
opened some of Chicago's four soup Kitchens and was even known
to go in and help feed the poor himself. Like many other
famous gangsters, he was also famous for
being a good tipper. When you think of
Al Capone, you think of illegal beer, the St.
Valentine's Day Massacre, and Robert De Niro's
performance in The Untouchables, but you probably
never think of milk. Yet, according to
the Capone family, Al and his brother
Ralph extensively lobbied the Chicago
city council to pass a law requiring all milk bottles
to bear an expiration date. The story goes that
one of their relatives became sick after
drinking spoiled milk and Al vowed to do
something about it. Strangely, this isn't where
Capone's milk obsession ends. He also invested
in dairy, which he let his brother-in-law
partially run. His brother Ralph was
so heavily involved, he acquired the
nickname Bottles. Being vicious and brutal
was par for the course as a criminal in 1920s
Chicago, but what made Capone different
from his competitors was that he loved the spotlight. Gangsters of the time
typically avoided publicity, but Capone enjoyed wearing
flashy suits and jewels and publicly flaunting the
highly illegal activities he engaged in. Capone was so obsessed
with his public image that he even hired
his own press agent when he was on trial
for federal crimes. Interestingly, that press agent
was the writer Damon Runyon, whose stories would go on to
form the basis of the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls. Despite being
loved by the public and having half the city
officials on his payroll, Capone was eventually caught. In 1931, he was
convicted of tax evasion and sent to serve time at a
federal prison in Atlanta. However, the prison
couldn't control him. Capone bribed guards and managed
to maintain his influence even from behind bars. Not to be outdone,
the government transferred Capone
to Alcatraz in 1934. The rock was famous
for its strict security and Capone's reputation
didn't help him there. The guards were
indifferent to him and his fellow inmates
didn't fear him. One even stabbed him with
a pair of barber shears. It was here that the long
term effects of a syphilis began to emerge. In 1939, his mind
mostly gone, Capone was transferred to Terminal
Island Prison in California. He served out the
rest of his sentence and was granted parole
later that year. The rest of his life was spent
battling the disease, which he finally succumbed to in 1947. Which of these facts about Al
Capone surprised you the most? Let us know in your favorite
gangster voice in the comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our Weird History.
