St. Valentine's Day Massacre

February 14, 1929, will forever be remembered in history as the “Saint Valentine's Day Massacre.” In an attempt to thwart his enemy's control in the bootleg liquor industry, Al Capone took revenge by staging a massacre in which several of his enemies were killed.

During the early morning raid in Chicago, the Capone gang simulated a raid against seven unarmed members of the George “Bugs” Moran gang. Shortly after a bootlegger lured Moran's men to a garage to make a buy on some liquor at a low price, several of Capone's men appeared disguised as policemen in stolen uniforms, as if to conduct a raid. After gunning down the Moran gang with machine guns, two of the alleged policemen perpetuated the ruse further by appearing to arrest the “bootleggers” and fleeing in a stolen police car.

The plan was cunning, except for one crucial detail: Bugs Moran, the target of the plan, was not among those gunned down. Late to the prospective buy and sensing trouble as he neared the garage, Moran fled when he spotted a police car. One of the dying men, in an effort to maintain his omerta, or code of honor and silence, refused to implicate the person responsible for the mass execution, answering that he didn't know who it was. The event received national attention and expanded Capone's celebrity image, demonstrating the lengths to which the Mob would go to control the bootlegging industry during Prohibition.