In response to the words "American gangster," one name comes to mind before all others: Al Capone. (Apologies to Ridley Scott.) Though few Americans could now describe the full scope of his empire's criminal activities, many know that he grew that empire bootlegging during Prohibition and that he was eventually brought down on the relatively mild charge of tax evasion. A media spectacle by the standards of the day, the trial that convicted Capone in 1931 was in some sense the natural last act of his publicity-commanding career. Most Caponeologists place the beginning of the mob boss' fall at the 1929 "Saint Valentine's Day Massacre" of seven of Capone's rivals. Later that year came the stock market crash that set off the Great Depression, which offered Chicago's "Public Enemy No. 1" one last chance to win back that public's favor.
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