Sep 062014
 
The Gangster Wars during Prohibition Timeline

Prohibition began in the United States when the Eighteenth Amendment, which banned the production, transfer and sale of intoxicating beverages, came into effect on January 17, 1920, and it was repealed on December 5, 1933. The United States would be transformed during those thirteen years. The law was unpopular from the beginning, and speakeasies, illegal bars, quickly sprung up across the nation. The Prohibition Bureau, which had been formed to enforce Prohibition, soon became riddled with corruption. Before Prohibition, criminals had operated small gangs, limited to extortion, gambling and prostitution, and squabbling over neighborhoods, but bootlegging offered wealth beyond their wildest dreams. Despite the huge wealth, the gangs fought vicious wars over territory, until the more organized, ruthless gangsters formed a national network that would spread its tentacles across the nation by the time Prohibition was finally repealed. Here is a timeline to help understand it.
Read More…

Apr 102014
 
Boardwalk Empire Season Four

Another season of Boardwalk Empire, another season of watching characters die or leave the show. Mostly die. Actually, the number of dead or departed characters approached Game of Thrones-levels. This season, Chalkie White (Michael Kenneth Williams) faces the threat of Doctor Valentin Narcisse (Jeffrey Wright), a gangster from Harlem, who plans to expand into Atlantic City, and is the first character on the show to question the social order that made African-Americans second-class citizens. Read More…

Feb 142013
 
Boardwalk Empire: Season Three

Following the dramatic end to the civil war for control for Atlantic City, the series has expanded its focus outwards, devoting more attention to the underworld in Chicago and New York, as well as the corruption in the national capital. Season three starts in 1923, roughly a year after the end of season two. Enoch ‘Nucky’ Thompson (Steve Buscemi) has gained firm control of Atlantic City. Pressured by his government contacts to sell to a single customer to reduce attention, Nucky decides that Arnold Rothstein (Michael Stuhlbarg) will be his sole customer, which leads to war with Gyp Rosetti (Bobby Cannavale), an astonishingly thin-skinned gangster from New York, who resents Rothstein’s new monopoly.
Read More…