Gangster. Born in January 17, 1899, in Brooklyn, New York. The fourth of nine children born to Italian immigrants, Capone dropped out of school at the age of 12. As a teenager he joined the James Street Gang, which was operated by the notorious New York mobster Johnny Torrio. As a scrappy youth, he was involed in a brawl that left him with a scar on the left side of his face, eventually giving rise to the nickname "Scarface". In 1919, Capone moved to Chicago, where Torrio had relocated his business.

Capone quickly rose through the ranks, eventually becoming the leader of Chicago's bootlegging, gambling, and prostitution rackets. During the Prohibition Era his involvement in gang and liquor wars left hundreds of people dead in Chicago and its suburbs. The most notorious of Capone's commissioned murders occurred on February 14, 1929 (commonly known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre), in which members of a rival gang were brutally killed by a fusillade of bullets.

Increasingly implicated in the corruption of political, law enforcement, and labor officials, Capone was convicted of income-tax evasion in 1931 and sentenced to serve 11 years in prison. Infected with syphilis compounded by a deteriorating mental condition, Capone was released to a Baltimore hospital in 1939. On January 25, 1947, after living reclusively in Florida, Capone died.