Al Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 17, 1899. He grew up in a rough neighborhood and was a member of two "kid gangs," the Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors. He was said to be very large and actually quite smart. When he was 19 he got married and had kids with Mary "Mae" Coughlin. They moved to Chicago that year, where Capone started an empire. He got involved with a man named John Torrio who saw Capones potential ant tool him under his wing. Capone worked his way up the food chain until he was the number two man. When Torrio was shot by a rival gang Capone got full control over the empire of Bootleging, saloons, gambling houses and brothels. Caopne was an even better leader that Torrio was. Capone expanded the business to include horse and dog race tracks, night clubs, distilleries, breweries and even the largest cleaning and dieing plant in Chicago. The mayor was one of Capones main business partners. Eventually the mayor turned on him and drove him out of Chicago. When Capone looked for a new place to live, he quickly discovered that he was unpopular in much of the country. He finally bought an estate at 93 Palm Island, Florida in 1928.

Capone's most notorious killing was the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. On February 14, 1929, four Capone men entered a garage at 2122 N. Clark Street. The building was the main liquor headquarters of bootlegger George "Bugs" Moran's North Side gang. Capone sent in his men in dressed up as police officers. They ended shooting the six men over 150 times. Capone never got caught for murdering anyone because he always had an alibi, in this case he was in Florida.
In 1927 Capone was tried for tax evasion which lead to his down fall. It was said that Capone was making $100 000 000 per year, so the income tax would have been staggering. The only thing was, Capone never filed an income tax return, owned nothing in his own name, and never made a declaration of assets or income. He did all his business through front men so that he was anonymous when it came to income. The governments answer was to put a man from the IRS's Special Intelligence Unit (Frank Wilson)to investigate Capones financial situation. Wilson accidentally found a cash receipts ledger that not only showed the operation's net profits for a gambling house and a record of Capone's income from it. Capone was soon convicted for tax evasion. At the court hearing tried to bribe the jury but the judge changed the jury at the last second. Capone was found not guilty on 18 of the 23 counts and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was sent to a prison in Atlanta, where he "took over" so he was transferred to Alcatraz. He could not get any influence in Alcatraz, due to the super tight security which lead to him going crazy and finishing his sentence in the hospital. Once released Capone did not take his business over again because he was not the same as he was before and died a short while after.

I think that Al Capone was an amazing man that wored wis way to the very top of the food chain when he started at the bottom. His good side is also under rated. He was the first person to open soup places to give out a free lunch to the people devestated by the stock market crash during the great depression.