Valentine's Day: 5 Interesting Facts
4. The massacre
Valentine's Day has never been totally disconnected from violence. After all, the date marks the anniversary of when St. Valentine was beheaded for his faith.
On Feb. 14, 1929, the date became synonymous with one of the most violent episodes in the history of organized crime: the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre.
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Hit men believed to have been working for Al Capone murdered seven men in a warehouse, six of whom worked for Capone's rival George "Bugs" Moran.
"Vacationing at his retreat at Palm Island, Florida, [Capone] had an alibi for his whereabouts and disclaimed knowledge of the cold-blooded killings. Few believed him. No one ever went to jail for pulling a trigger in the Clark Street garage, which was demolished in 1967," the Chicago Tribune noted in a 2014 article.
"Although Moran survived the massacre, he was finished as a big criminal. For decades to come, only one mob, that of Capone and his successors, would run organized crime in Chicago."
