Modern Era · North America · Politics

1929

Saint Valentine's Day Massacre

February 14, 1929

In a Chicago garage, men dressed as police lined seven members of Bugs Moran's gang against a brick wall and cut them down with tommy guns. It was Al Capone's work, though Capone was in Florida with an alibi. Prohibition-era gangland violence had reached a spectacle threshold, and America was both horrified and thrilled.