Who are the five Mafia families of New York City?
The five Mafia families of New York City in the 1980s were the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese families.
Bluebeard was a wife murderer in Charles Perrault’s 1679 novel Conte du Temps. The nickname has since been applied to many real-life killers of women. The most famous was Frenchman Henri Desire Landru (1869-1922), who over a period of five years killed 10 women after proposing marriage to them. Gilles de Rais, who was a…
A black act is slang for picking a lock in the dark.
Arnold Rothstein (1882-1928) was nicknamed Mr. Big. Arnold Rothstein financed the criminal operations of Lucky Luciano, Legs Diamond, and others. Also known as the Brain, the Fixer, and the Man Uptown, Rothstein was said to have played a role in fixing the 1919 World Series. Arnold “The Brain” Rothstein was a New York businessman who…
Aces and eights was the hand held by Deputy U.S. Marshal James Butler (“Wild Bill”) Hickok when he was killed. On August 2, 1876, in a saloon in Deadwood Gulch, Dakota Territory, Hickok was shot in the cheek by fellow poker player Jack McCall. McCall later said he had killed Hickok for shooting his brother.
For this crime of shoplifting, women outnumber men by four or five to one.
The phrase, coined by 1920s gang leader Dion O’Banion, referred to the convenient forgetfulness of eyewitnesses testifying about gang lawbreakers. The phrase implied that gang members had persuaded the witnesses to forget whatever they had seen.