As a child, Al Capone was very wise when it came to living on the streets of New York. He had a clever and somewhat ingenious mind when it came to street smarts. If the act of plotting a crime was in question, Al Capone was as sharp as they come. As far as school goes, Capone was a near-illiterate. He came from a poverty stricken neighborhood in Brooklyn, so education was not a top priority.

When Capone reached the age of eleven he became a member of a juvenile gang in his neighborhood. While this was taking place, around the year 1900, about eleven percent of all the foreign born population in the United States were Italian. Being part of the first born U. S. Generation, Capone was forced to either deal with a miserable low wage job with a hopeless future or make an improveme

Being the "King of Chicago" had its downfalls for Capone. Numerous threats on his life were made over his notorious reign. He was shot at in streets, had poison slipped into his food at clubs, and numerous other occasions. Such as the time a rival Chicago street gang, headed by Dion O'Banion, emptied 1,000 rounds into the Hawthorn Inn where Capone was staying. This was perhaps Capone's closest brush with death, as he watched the bullets chew up the wood and glass that covered the Inn, from his back on the dining room floor. Later the arranging of O'Banion's death would be marked as one of Capone's greatest accomplishments. This assassination was done by Capone's two best gunners, John Scalise and Albert Anselmi. As it turns out, Scalise and Anselmi were conspiring a plan with enemies of Capone to kill him. "Capone invited them to a banquet in their honor and, at the climax of the evening, produced a gift wrapped Indian club with which he bashed their brains out." (The Mafia Encyclopedia 62)

Johnny Torrio grew very jealous of Colosimo and soon sent for his most loyal hit man, Al Capone. The real reason Capone left New York was not because of being indicted. He would have been released just like the previous two times because of his gang affiliations there. When Capone arrived in Chicago, he was assigned the small jobs as a bouncer and bartender to disguise Torrio's real reason for sending for him, to kill off "Big Jim" Colosimo.

On December 18, 1918, Capone was wed at the age of 19, to a 21 year old Irish girl named Mae Coughlin. A short time later Albert Francis Capone was born to the couple. (The Encyclopedia of World Crime 604) At the same time this was going on, in New York Johnny Torrio moved his operations to Chicago. Torrio's prospects in New York looked dim because Capone was indicted for two murders. He was released when a witness lost her memory, and evidence suddenly vanished from the court. Al Capone knew that he had Johnny "Papa" Torrio to thank for this. A few days later, Capone got into a scruff with another man and killed him. Rather than being indicted again, Capone called Torrio and received an invitation to move to Chicago. So he packed up his wife and child and did just that.

After giving up on school, Al Capone took up odd jobs such as working as a pin-setter at a bowling alley, and working behind the counter at a candy store. Capone was definitely a night owl. He was a pool shark, winning every eightball tournament held in Brooklyn. He also became an expert knife fighter. Although the Bim Booms Gang was the first gang Capone ever entered, he was quickly picked up by the Five Pointers. The Five Pointers was the most powerful gang in New York city. The gang was headed by Johnny Torrio, and was made up of over 1,500 thugs who specialized in burglary, extortion, robbery, assault, and murder. While working as a strong arm enforcer under Torrio, Capone learned all the lethal tricks that would propel him from rags to riches in no time at all. Capone was very grateful to Torrio and is quoted as saying: "I looked on Johnny as my adviser and father and the party that made it possible for me to get my st

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Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)