No matter whether your Valentine's Day is good or bad, it can't be worse than Valentine's Day 1929 was for seven men in Chicago.
Al "Scarface" Capone was the most infamous gangster in Chicago in the 1920s. According to History.com, Capone was attempting to eliminate his rivals in the underground world of gambling, prostitution and bootlegging in the '20s.
On Valentine's Day 1929, men dressed as police officers entered a garage on the North Side of Chicago. The garage was used by Capone's rival and longtime enemy, George "Bugs" Moran, in his bootlegging operation.
The seven men who were in the garage at the time were lined up against a wall and mowed down. Moran wasn't at the garage at the time, but was on the way and narrowly missed being among the dead.
Over 70 rounds were fired in the attack, which was over in mere minutes. When police arrived on the scene, one of the victims was still alive.
Frank Gusenberg was barely alive, but he refused to give police information about those who attacked him and the others before his death.
This was common for mob gangsters, who operated under the unspoken Mafia law of omerta, the code of silence.
Moran immediately blamed Capone, saying to reporters, "Only Capone kills like that." Capone, who claimed to be at his home in Florida at the time of the massacre, countered,"The only man who kills like that is Bugs Moran."
Nobody was ever prosecuted for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The authorities weren't able to prosecute Capone for any mob-related killings.
However, it was well known by those in the underworld that Capone rose in power by gunning down his enemies.
In 1931, the U.S. Treasury Department put together a case against Capone for tax evasion. Capone was convicted and sent to prison for 11 years.
After being released from the federal prison at Alcatraz in 1939, Al Capone lived a quiet life in Florida until his death in 1947.
Although baby boomers weren't alive during Capone's days, many boomers watched the old black-and-white TV show "The Untouchables."
This show held me captive in the '60s and led to a lot of research on Al Capone and a school report about the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
Although I don't still have the report, I can remember reading and re-reading the book to capture the details for the report.
Those who are interested in the history of organized crime can see the brick wall from the Chicago garage where the St. Valentine's Day Massacre occurred at the Mob Museum, which opened last year in Las Vegas.
So, if your Valentine's Day plans go awry, take heart in the fact that your Valentine's Day could have been a whole lot worse.
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