The Italian mafia was originally formed in the year 1282 as a terrorist and freedom fighter group. It was a secret society to unite the native Sicilian people so that they could evade the attacks of the French and the Arabs. In fact, one of several contrived meanings of the word mafia is "Morte Alla Francaise Italia Annella", which means "Death to France is Italy's cry"(mafiasite.8m.com). This early mafia group gained power by employing terroristic means to gain influence over the people. In time, the mafia grew in Italy, and became a rather powerful group. Benito Mussolini tried to destroy the Italian Mafia in the early 1900's, so many mafia members immigrated to the U.S., along with thousands of other Italians (Nash, 167). Thus, the Italian mafia began its rise in the United States. Over the time period of about 100 years, the Italian mafia in America grew by using many different illegal methods and force to gain power and wealth, but eventually began to fall apart due to wars between mafia families and arrests of top mafia bosses.

After migrating to America in the early 1900's, the mafia branched out into 3 cities: New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. In New

Being an intelligent man, Maranzo organized the mafia so that he would never be directly involved with any illegal activity, because many layers of men separated him from the crimes. However, one of Maranzo's appointed family heads, Charles Luciano, was gaining power because he controlled Masseria's old family, which was still rather strong. Maranzo tried to kill him, but Luciano found out before the attempted murder and had him killed instead (Nash, 179). Once in charge of La Cosa Nostra, Luciano created the Commision. The Commission was a controlling government for the mafia and helped put an end to the endless wars and early deaths. The head of each family had a seat on the Commission, and the mafia finally united to create policies and settle disputes between families. One of these policies is called Omerta. Omerta states that no member of La Cosa Nostra will talk to or cooperate with the authorities. Today's mafia structure is still based on Luciano's structure and the Commission (Nash, 180).

The mafia's contributions to the U.S. have been negative throughout the years. Thousands of murders, stealing, bribes, and racketeering are all parts of the illegal activities the mafia doesHowever, in the 1920's when people wanted alcohol, the mafia was tha main provider. This was still an illegal operation, but the people were happy that they had liquor. The "contributions" of the mafia to the U.S also include narcotics, bootlegging, and the memory of the St. Valentines Day Massacre, one of the saddest and bloodiest days in history. Overall, the mafia has had a huge impact on America over the past 100 years and they will continue to impact America for years to come.

In the late 1980's, John Gotti became the boss of the Gambino family. He essentially went from rags to riche

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Approximate Word count = 1212
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)