Historicalism

In April of 1906, a young Sicilian boy named of Salvatore Lucania landed at the New York docks with his parents and four siblings and settled on the lower east side of Manhattan. Over the coming years, the young would-be kingpin joined the notorious Five Points Gang and developed a taste for gambling, stealing, selling drugs and rudimentary racketeering, demanding money from young Jewish schoolchildren to protect them against attacks by the Italian and Irish gangs. The boy would come to be known as Charles “Lucky” Luciano, changing his name himself to make it easier for Americans to pronounce. There is some speculation concerning the origin of Luciano’s distinctive nickname “Lucky”. Some believe it may have just been a simple mispronunciation of his name. Others have theorised that it may refer to his prowess as a gambler or that he may have earned the epithet after suffering a savage beating at the hands of unknown assailants in 1929, after which he was left for dead ...