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1890 - John "Mushmouth" Johnson opens the Emporium Saloon and
gambling establishment, begins reign as first Chicago south side
Policy king[1][2].
1882 - Chicago Police Chief William McGarigle, in the pay of
Chicago crime lord Michael Cassius McDonald, is indicted for graft
later fleeing to Canada.
1907 - A group of leading Italian citizens, prominent
businessmen, several ethnic organizations, and the Italian Chamber
of Commerce form the White Hand Society, a legal organization,
to combat La Mano Nera (The Black Hand) in
Chicago.
1907 - Chicago gambling racketeer Bud White's gambling vessel,
City of Traverse, is closed down.
1908 - Earl "Hymie"
Weiss is first arrested for burglary. Weiss was caught robbing
a perfume store and was immediately dubbed the "Perfume Burglar" by
Chicago reporters.
1910s
1910 - Chicago police arrest over 200 known Italian gangsters
and known Black Hand
members in a raid in Little
Italy. However, none are convicted as many of the notes of
extortion threats cannot be traced to them.
1910 - Jim Cosmano, a major Chicago Black Hand leader, is severely wounded in
an ambush by Johnny
Torrio on a South Side
bridge. Cosmano had previously demanded $10,000 threatening to
destroy Colosimo's Cafe.
March 15, 1910 - The Chicago Vice Commission, a civic
organization to close the brothels and panel houses of the Levee district, is
organized.
January 1-March 26, 1911 - Thirty-eight Black Hand victims are killed by Black Hand
assassins, many by the unidentified assassin known only as Shotgun Man, between
Oak Street and Milton Street in Chicago's Little Italy.
May 11, 1920 - Chicago gambling racketeer Jim
Colosimo is gunned down outside his restaurant. The alleged
killer was Al
Capone.
1923 - Al Capone
establishes his headquarters at the Lexington Hotel at
22nd and Michigan Avenues in Chicago. He also gained control of the
Chicago suburb of Cicero, Illinois as a safe base of his
legal operations.
September 17, 1923 - George Meegan, a Chicago bootlegger
allied with the Southside O'Donnell's, and Southside O'Donnell
member George Bucher are killed by Frank McErlane.
April 1, 1924 - Frank Capone, brother of Al Capone, is
killed by policemen during the fighting which broke out while
leading around 200 gunmen into Cicero during the 1924 Chicago
elections in support of Mafia-backed Republican politicians.
November 10, 1924 - North Side Gang leader Dion O'Banion is killed when three
unidentified men enter his flower shop, across from Holy Name Cathedral, and
shoot him several times. This begins a five-year gang war between
the North Side Gang, under Hymie Weiss, and Al Capone's Chicago
Outfit.
January 12, 1925 - North Side Gang members Hymie Weiss, George "Bugs" Moran, and
Vincent "The
Schemer" Drucci attempt to kill Al Capone at a Chicago South
Side restaurant, firing at Capone's car and injuring chauffeur
Sylvester Barton, but leaving Capone unharmed.
January 24, 1925 - Weiss, Moran, Drucci, and Frank "Tight Lips"
Gusenberg ambush Chicago Outfit leader Johnny Torrio as he returns from shopping
with his wife, shooting him several times, wounding him and his
chauffeur Robert Barton. As Moran is about to kill the wounded
Torrio the gun misfires and is forced to flee as the police arrive
on the scene. Soon after this attack Torrio retires to Italy, and
was succeeded by his lieutenant Al Capone.
February 9, 1925 - Johnny Torrio is sentenced by Judge Adam
Cliffe to 9 months in the Lake County Jail in Waukegan. The
jail is chosen by Torrio's lawyers as a facility necessary for
Torrio to receive proper medical treatment however it was actually
chosen for Torrio's protection as the prison warden Sheriff Edwin
Ahlstrom was in the pay of Torrio's organization. Torrio was later
escorted by Capone out of the city after his release.
November 13, 1925 - Samuzzo "Samoots" Amatuna, an ally of
the Genna Family, is gunned down outside a Chicago West Side barber
shop by the North Side Gang.
1926 - Al Capone and his crew try to kill Myles O'Donnell and
William "Klondike" O'Donnell, leaders of the Westside O'Donnell
Mob, in Cicero.
1927 - Al Capone's Chicago Outfit earns a yearly income of $108
million.
1927 - Sam Valante, recently hired by Joe Aiello, is killed while arriving in
Chicago.
August 24, 1927 - Green Ones members Anthony F. Russo and
Vincent Spicuzza are killed in Chicago, supposedly lured there by
the rival Cuckoos Gang in an attempt to murder Al Capone. Hours
later Green Ones member Benjamin Giamonco is killed in a gunfight
attempting to avenge their deaths.
February 14, 1929 - Four unidentified men, dressed as Chicago
police officers, storm into a North Side Street garage and murder
seven members of George
Bugs Moran's North Side Gang. Known as the St.
Valentines Day Massacre, the attack effectively ends the five
year gang war between Capone and Moran.
May 29, 1929 - Thomas McElligot of the Westside O'Donnells is
killed in a Loop saloon in Chicago.
1930s
Taxi Wars of 1930s - rival gangs threw dynamite into the other
rival's cabs.
May 1932 - Outfit namesake, Al Capone, began serving his
11-year sentence for tax evasion, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was out
in six years for good behavior and because of declining mental and
physical health.
March 19, 1943 - Facing extended incarceration for the extortion of Hollywood film
studios and being claustrophobic, Outfit boss Frank "The Enforcer"
Nitti committed suicide.
1947 - In a stunning turn of events that could only mean
someone did a political favor, the Outfit higher-ups who were each
sentenced to 10 years in prison in the Hollywood extortion case get
out of Leavenworth in 42 months. One condition of Paul Ricca's
release from prison by the court was that he was banished from ever
associating with the criminal element or face the rest of his
prison sentence.
1950s
Nov.4, 1955 - Extortioner and "rat", Willie Bioff was blown
to smithereens after getting in the driver's seat of his car, in
his garage, in Arizona. He testified against his Outfit friends for
a lighter sentence, in the, "Hollywood extortion case."
1956 - Political fixer Jake Guzik died of a heart attack.
1957 - Tony
Accardo retired from the day-to-day leadership of the Chicago Outfit
and appointed Sam
"Momo" Giancana to oversee these operations of the crime
syndicate. However, Accardo remained a presence in the organization
serving in an advisory capacity as consigliere on all major Outfit
business and assassinations.
1958 - The Vice Lords are founded in St. Charles
Correctional Facility by a group of young men from 16th street on
Chicago's west side.
The CIA conspired with a Chicago gangster described as "the
chieftain of the Cosa Nostra and the successor to Al Capone" in a
bungled 1960 attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro, the leader of
Cuba's communist revolution, according to classified documents
published by the agency.[3] see
also: Family Jewels
(Central Intelligence Agency), Operation
Mongoose
1965 - Giancana thrown in federal prison for one year for a
federal Contempt of Court citation, when he refused
to testify to his or the Chicago Outfit's alleged criminal
activity.
1966 - Giancana deposed as Outfit head, due to a lifestyle that
brought heat and light on Chicago's underworld. He moved to Mexico
and oversaw the Outfit's international gambling operations.
Nov. 23, 1965 - The ultimate Outfit "fixer", Murray "The
Camel" Humphreys, died a suspicious death,
after suffering a heart attack.
The Black Gangster
Disciples are formed on the south side of Chicago in the 1960s
by uniting two separate gangs. The two gangs conjoined were The
Supreme Gangsters, led by Larry Hoover, and The Devil's Disciples,
led by David
Barksdale.
1970s
Oct. 11, 1972 - Secret boss and ultimate Outfit consiglier, Paul Ricca, died of a
heart attack.
June 17, 1975 - Former boss Sam Giancana was shot in the back of the
head while cooking a snack of sausages and escarole in his Oak Park
home. It has been debated whether it was the Outfit or CIA that murdered
Giancana.
Aug. 9, 1976 - The decomposing body of Johnny Roselli,
"Handsome Johnny", was found floating in a 55-gallon drum, in a bay
near Miami. His legs were sawed off.
1977 - Helen
Brach, heiress to the Brach's fortune, disappeared. Suspects are Victor Spilotro
and Curtis Hansen. Her body has never been found.
1978 - Jimmy "the Bomber" Catuara is found dead near his car at
Hubbard Street and Ogden Avenue. Bill Dauber is suspect, who along with
Albert Tocco were
trying to take over Catuara's rackets.[2]
1980s - "Marquette Ten", 10 police officers in the Marquette District convicted
for taking bribes from drug dealers. Among those is John Ambrose's
father, Thomas Ambrose.
January, 1986 - Joe Ferriola was appointed boss of The
Outfit. With the approval of his top captains and consiglieri, Tony Accardo, he decided it's
time to kill Anthony Spilotro for causing a
multitude of problems in Las Vegas and in Chicago.
June 14, 1986 - The bodies of Outfit enforcer, Tony Spilotro, and his brother Michael, a
small-time hood, were found in a shallow grave, in a cornfield, in
Enos, Indiana. Due to authorities finding sand in their lungs, they
were probably buried alive.
1989 - James Basile, a bookmaker, agreed to become a government
informant, later identifying a "Mafia graveyard" in the suburban
neighborhood of Hillside.
May 27, 1992 - Tony Accardo, Chicago's Boss of Bosses,
died of congestive heart failure after almost 50 years at the helm
of The Outfit.
September 1997 - Harry Aleman is retried for the murder of
William Logan based on testimony by former Outfit attorney Robert Cooley and
evidence showing the first trial was fixed. This is the first time
in U.S. history someone has been retried for the same crime after
being acquitted.
December 23, 1999 - Ronald Jarrett, a mob lieutenant to John
"Johnny Apes" Monteleone of the South Side Crew, is shot while
going to a funeral. It is the first hit in seven years.
2000 to
present day
January 25, 2000 - Ronald Jarrett dies from the gunshot wounds
he sustained in late 1999.
January 15, 2001 - William Hanhardt, former chief of
detectives is indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of
masterminding a ring of Mafia related thieves who stole $4.85
million in jewels in heists across the nation.[4]
November 22, 2001 - Anthony "the Hatch" Chiaramonti is shot
outside a Brown's Chicken & Pasta
in south suburban Lyons.
June 14, 2006 - Former city clerk James Laski sentenced to 24
months in prison after admitting he pocketed tens of thousands of
dollars in bribes as part of the Hired Trucking Scandal.
June 15, 2006 - A 26 year old member of the Vice
Lords on the Chicago West Side is arrested. He may have
information on where the supply of fentanyl-laced heroin is coming from which has already killed
at least 60 people.[3]
August 31, 2006 - Mobster Anthony Zizzo disappears. His car was
found in Melrose Park, and there was no
sign of foul play.
September 6, 2006 - George Ryan is sentenced to six and a half
years in prison.[5]
June 18, 2007 The trial for, "Operation: Family Secrets",
begins.
September 10, 2007 - The Family Secrets trial's anonymous jury
finds guilty verdicts on all counts of the five defendants. The
five defendants were Joseph Lombardo, James Marcello,
Frank
Calabrese, Sr., Paul Schiro, and Anthony Doyle. [4]
October 2008 - Patrick Fitzgerald has former CPD commander Jon Burge arrested on
charges of obstruction of justice and perjury, with a trial date of
October 29, 2009.
April 28, 2009 - Deputy U.S. Marshal John T.
Ambrose is convicted for leaking secret information to the mob
about a protected witness in a federal organized crime
investigation. [5] He was
originally charged with theft of Justice Department property,
disclosing confidential information and lying to federal agents who
questioned him about the leak. He was however acquitted of two charges
of lying to federal agents.
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