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James Belcastro
James "Mad Bomber" Belcastro (1895 – August 23, 1945) was a Black Hand gang member, extortionist, and later chief bomber for the Chicago Outfit during Prohibition. Biography Known as "King of the Bombers", Belcastro was highly skilled at constructing improvised explosive devices. He used these skills to extort money from business owners in Chicago's Little Italy district during the 1910s. In the early 1920s, Johnny Torrio and Al Capone formed the Chicago Outfit and put the Black Hand gangs out of business. However, Capone invited Belcastro to join the Outfit and he soon became a prominent member. During the mid to late 1920s, Belcastro was suspected of causing over 100 deaths while bombing saloons that refused to buy alcohol from Capone. During the 1927 Chicago primary elections – the so-called "Pineapple Primary" – Belcastro launched a bombing campaign against the opponents of Capone ally and Mayor, William Hale Thompson. He primarily attacked voting stations inwards wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elmhurst, Illinois
Elmhurst is a city mostly in DuPage County and overlapping into Cook County in the U.S. state of Illinois, and a western suburb of Chicago. As of 2021, the city has an estimated population of 47,260. History Members of the Potawatomi Native American people, who settled along Salt Creek just south of where the city would develop, are the earliest known settlers of the Elmhurst area. Around 1836, European-American immigrants settled on tracts of land along the same creek. At what would become Elmhurst City Centre, a native of Ohio named Gerry Bates established a community on a tract of "treeless land" in 1842. The following year, Hill Cottage Tavern opened where St. Charles Road and Cottage Hill Avenue presently intersect. In 1845, the community was officially named Cottage Hill when a post office was established. Four years later, the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad was given right-of-way through Cottage Hill giving farmers easier access to Chicago. The first Elmhurst rai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Enemy (term)
"Public enemy" is a term which was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society, though the phrase had been used for centuries to describe pirates, vikings, highwaymen, bandits, mobsters, and similar outlaws. Origin and usage The expression dates back to Roman times. The Senate declared emperor Nero a ''hostis publicus'' in AD 68. Its direct translation is "public enemy". Whereas "public" is currently used in English in order to describe something related to collectivity at large, with an implication towards government or the State, the Latin word "publicus" could, in addition to that meaning, also refer directly to people, making it the equivalent of the genitive of ''populus'' ("people"), ''populi'' ("popular" or "of the people"). Thus, "public enemy" and "enemy of the people" are, etymologically, near-synonyms. The words "'' ennemi du peuple''" were extensively used dur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Gangsters Of Italian Descent
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1933 Deaths
Events January * January 11 – Sir Charles Kingsford Smith makes the first commercial flight between Australia and New Zealand. * January 17 – The United States Congress votes in favour of Philippines independence, against the wishes of U.S. President Herbert Hoover. * January 28 – "Pakistan Declaration": Choudhry Rahmat Ali publishes (in Cambridge, UK) a pamphlet entitled ''Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?'', in which he calls for the creation of a Muslim state in northwest India that he calls " Pakstan"; this influences the Pakistan Movement. * January 30 ** National Socialist German Workers Party leader Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany by President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg. ** Édouard Daladier forms a government in France in succession to Joseph Paul-Boncour. He is succeeded on October 26 by Albert Sarraut and on November 26 by Camille Chautemps. February * February 1 – Adolf Hitler gives his "Proclamation to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1895 Births
Events January–March * January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. * January 12 – The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty is founded in England by Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley. * January 13 – First Italo-Ethiopian War: Battle of Coatit – Italian forces defeat the Ethiopians. * January 17 – Félix Faure is elected President of the French Republic, after the resignation of Jean Casimir-Perier. * February 9 – Mintonette, later known as volleyball, is created by William G. Morgan at Holyoke, Massachusetts. * February 11 – The lowest ever UK temperature of is recorded at Braemar, in Aberdeenshire. This record is equalled in 1982, and again in 1995. * February 14 – Oscar Wilde's last play, the comedy ''The Importance of Being Earnest'', is first shown at St Jam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Untouchables (1959 TV Series)
''The Untouchables'' is an American crime drama produced by Desilu Productions that ran from 1959 to 1963 on the ABC Television Network. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalized experiences of Elliot Ness as a Prohibition agent, fighting crime in Chicago in the 1930s with the help of a special team of agents handpicked for their courage, moral character, and incorruptibility, nicknamed the Untouchables. The book was later made into a celebrated film in 1987 by Brian De Palma, with a script by David Mamet, and a second, less-successful TV series in 1993. A dynamic, hard-hitting action drama, and a landmark television crime series, ''The Untouchables'' won series star Robert Stack an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series in 1960. Series overview The series originally focused on the efforts of a real-life squad of Prohibition agents employed by the United States Department of Justice and led by Eliot Ness (Stack) that helped ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Scarface Mob
''The Scarface Mob'' is an American feature film directed by Phil Karlson and starring Robert Stack. It consists of the pilot episodes for the TV series ''The Untouchables'' (1959) that originally screened as a two-part installment of ''Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse'' on April 20 and 27 1959. The episodes were cut together and released theatrically as a stand-alone feature outside America in 1959 and inside the US in 1962. Premise In 1929 Chicago, Federal investigator Eliot Ness struggles to in the fight against Al Capone. He decides to form a special team of reliable, dedicated, honest law enforcement officers. Cast *Robert Stack as Eliot Ness *Keenan Wynn as Joe Fuselli *Barbara Nichols as Brandy La France *Patricia Crowley as Betty Anderson *Neville Brand as Al Capone * Bill Williams as Martin Flaherty *Joe Mantell as George Ritchie * Bruce Gordon as Frank Nitti *Peter Leeds as Lamarr Kane *Eddie Firestone as Eric Hansen *Robert Osterloh as Tom Kopka *Paul Dubov as Jack Rossma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Mamakos
Peter Mamakos (December 14, 1918 – April 27, 2008) was an American film and television actor. Early life Mamakos was of Greek descent. Mamakos' father owned Pilgrim restaurants in New England. Mamakos was sent to California to scout locations for restaurants, but he liked Hollywood so much that he decided to stay, declining his father's offers of $50,000 in cash and a $250,000 nightclub of his own if he returned to Boston. He told a reporter, "I feel right at home in Hollywood. A hot kitchen and a hot sound stage are alike -- you're surrounded by hams in both." Career Peter Mamakos was perhaps best known for playing Greek, Indian, Hispanic, French, Italian and Middle Eastern villains from the 1940s through the 1990s. Film Mamakos was in eight movies in his first seven months in Hollywood. Mamakos appeared in ''Trail of the Yukon'' (1949), in which he and other supporting players offered what a ''Variety'' review called "stock performances". Television He had a r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heart Disease
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels. CVD includes coronary artery diseases (CAD) such as angina and myocardial infarction (commonly known as a heart attack). Other CVDs include stroke, heart failure, hypertensive heart disease, rheumatic heart disease, cardiomyopathy, abnormal heart rhythms, congenital heart disease, valvular heart disease, carditis, aortic aneurysms, peripheral artery disease, thromboembolic disease, and venous thrombosis. The underlying mechanisms vary depending on the disease. It is estimated that dietary risk factors are associated with 53% of CVD deaths. Coronary artery disease, stroke, and peripheral artery disease involve atherosclerosis. This may be caused by high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes mellitus, lack of exercise, obesity, high blood cholesterol, poor diet, excessive alcohol consumption, and poor sleep, among other things. High blood pressure is estimated to account for approximatel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago Crime Commission
The Chicago Crime Commission is an independent, non-partisan civic watchdog organization of business leaders dedicated to educating the public about the dangers of organized criminal activity, especially organized crime, street gangs and the tools of their trade: drugs, guns, public corruption, money laundering, identity theft and gambling, founded in 1919. The police, the judicial system, politicians, prosecutors and citizens rely on the Chicago Crime Commission to provide advice on crime issues and to communicate vital information to the public. Summary Founded just before Prohibition in the Roaring '20s, local businessmen formed the Chicago Crime Commission to address the lawlessness prevalent in Chicago during the time. The businessmen who founded the crime commission did not think of themselves as a reform organization but saw crime as business work to which they applied business methods. The backlog of murder cases awaiting trial was reduced, while the public corruption ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago Outfit
The Chicago Outfit (also known as the Outfit, the Chicago Mafia, the Chicago Mob, the Chicago crime family, the South Side Gang or The Organization) is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate or crime family based in Chicago, Illinois, that originated in the city's South Side in the early 1910s. It is part of the larger Italian-American Mafia. The Outfit rose to power in the 1920s under the control of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone and the period was marked by bloody gang wars for control of the distribution of illegal alcohol during Prohibition. Since then, the Outfit has been involved in a wide range of criminal activities, including loansharking, illegal gambling, prostitution, extortion, political corruption and murder. Capone was convicted of income tax evasion in 1931 and the Outfit was next run by Paul Ricca. He shared power with Tony Accardo from 1943 until his death in 1972; Accardo became the sole power in the Outfit upon Ricca's death and was one of the longest sit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Hale Thompson
William Hale Thompson (May 14, 1869 – March 19, 1944) was an American politician who served as mayor of Chicago from 1915 to 1923 and again from 1927 to 1931. Known as "Big Bill", Reynolds, Paul (November 29, 2009)"US-UK 'Special Relationship' Not So Special Any More" ''BBC''. Retrieved June 13, 2022. he is the most recent Republican to have served as mayor of Chicago. Historians rank him among the most unethical mayors in American history, mainly for his open alliance with Al Capone. However, others recognize the effectiveness of his political methods and publicity-oriented campaigning, acknowledging him as a "Political Chameleon" and an effective political machine.Bukowski, Douglas. Big Bill Thompson, Chicago, and the Politics of Image. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. ''Time'' magazine said in 1931, "chief credit for creating 20th Century Politics Chicago Style" should go to William Thompson. Thompson was known for his over-the-top campaigning and uncensored ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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