Book picks similar to
Illegal Tender: Counterfeiting and the Secret Service in Nineteenth-Century America by David R. Johnson
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american-history
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counterfeiting
John Dillinger: The Life and Death of America's First Celebrity Criminal
Dary Matera - 2004
John Dillinger is an adrenaline-fueled narrative that reignites America's fascination with the suave but deadly desperado who was the FBI's first "Public Enemy." Dubbed "The Jackrabbit" because of the way he leaped over bank cages and railings, Dillinger and his bank-robbing gang cut a criminal swath yet to be equaled. They became so famous in the 1930s that throngs of excited spectators would block the route to their getaway cars. When caught, Dillinger staged the most harrowing prison escapes imaginable—only to finally be betrayed by the infamous "Lady in Red." John Dillinger brings to light new information, including bank robberies never before reported; detailed plans for major crimes that Dillinger nearly implemented; the revelation that the "Lady in Red" was actually a police plant; and the startling fact that John Dillinger was summarily executed by rogue FBI agents being manipulated by East Chicago detectives desperate to cover up widespread police corruption. With access to thousands of detailed accounts, and pages of telling photographs, Matera's definitive book describes every robbery, shoot-out, and prison escape as though he choreographed them himself.
The Art of Making Money: The Story of a Master Counterfeiter
Jason Kersten - 2009
He took to crime almost immediately, starting with petty theft before graduating to robbing drug dealers. Eventually a man nicknamed "DaVinci" taught him the centuries-old art of counterfeiting. After a stint in jail, Williams emerged to discover that the Treasury Department had issued the most secure hundred-dollar bill ever created: the 1996 New Note. Williams spent months trying to defeat various security features before arriving at a bill so perfect that even law enforcement had difficulty distinguishing it from the real thing. Williams went on to print millions in counterfeit bills, selling them to criminal organizations and using them to fund cross-country spending sprees. Still unsatisfied, he went off in search of his long-lost father, setting in motion a chain of betrayals that would be his undoing. In The Art of Making Money, journalist Jason Kersten details how Williams painstakingly defeated the anti-forging features of the New Note, how Williams and his partner-in-crime wife converted fake bills into legitimate tender at shopping malls all over America, and how they stayed one step ahead of the Secret Service until trusting the wrong person brought them all down.
Young Al Capone: The Untold Story of Scarface in New York, 1899-1925
William Balsamo - 2011
Valentine’s Day Massacre. But few are aware that Capone’s remarkable story began in the Navy Yard section of Brooklyn, New York. Tutored by the likes of infamous mobsters Johnny Torrio and Frankie Yale, young Capone’s disquieting demeanor, combined with the “technical advice” he learned from these insidious pedagogues, contributed to the molding of a brutal criminal whose pseudonym, “Scarface,” evoked fascination throughout the world. Despite the best efforts of previous biographers lacking true insider’s access, details about Capone’s early years have, until now, mostly been shrouded in mystery. With access gained through invaluable familial connections, the authors were able to open the previously sealed mouths of Capone’s known living associates. Collecting information through these interviews and never-before-published documents, the life of young Al Capone at last comes into focus. Among the many revelations in Young Al Capone are new details about the brutal Halloween Night murder of rival gangster “Wild Bill” Lovett, grisly details on how Capone and his Black Hand crew cleverly planned the shootout and barbaric hatchet slaying of White Hand boss, Richard “Peg Leg” Lonergan, insight into the dramatic incident that forced Capone to leave New York, and much more.
Tinder Street
Nick Russell - 2020
Following Rachel McNally to the big city, he had no idea how much his life and the world around him would change.Chronicling the days leading up to World War I and the events that followed, Tinder Street is the first book in a saga that will take readers from rural farms to a major industrial city in the Midwest, across an ocean where German U-boats lurk waiting for a target to come within range of their deadly torpedoes, to the bloody trench warfare of France, and home again. And of how, back at home, the soldiers of a victorious Army try to put their experiences behind them and pick up the pieces of the lives they once had, to look toward a future bright with promise. Lucas was one of those soldiers, a man who hated the thought of killing, but did his duty. A duty that would haunt him long after the last shots were fired.This is also the story of the simple working class people who built America. Farmers, factory workers, streetcar conductors, midwives, and public servants. Their joys and sorrows, their wins and losses, and how these people who struggled together to build a better life for themselves and their children changed a place named Tinder Street to Tender Street, a reflection of one family’s devotion to their neighbors.
The Corporation: An Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld
T.J. English - 2018
Known on both sides of the law as "the Corporation," the Cuban mob’s power stemmed from a criminal culture embedded in south Florida’s exile community—those who had been chased from the island by Castro’s revolution and planned to overthrow the Marxist dictator and reclaim their nation.An epic story of gangsters, drugs, violence, sex, and murder rooted in the streets, The Corporation reveals how an entire generation of political exiles, refugees, racketeers, corrupt cops, hitmen, and their wives and girlfriends became caught up in an American saga of desperation and empire building. T. J. English interweaves the voices of insiders speaking openly for the first time with a trove of investigative material he has gathered over many decades to tell the story of this successful criminal enterprise, setting it against the larger backdrop of revolution, exile, and ethnicity that makes it one of the great American gangster stories that has been overlooked—until now.Drawing on the detailed reporting and impressive volume of evidence that drive his bestselling works, English offers a riveting, in-depth look at this powerful and sordid crime organization and its hold in the US.
The Mafia and the Machine: The Story of the Kansas City Mob
Frank R. Hayde - 2007
Events unfolding in this city affected the fortunes of all the 'families', & shaped the entire underworld. In this book, Frank Hayde ties in every major name in organised crime as well as the corrupt Kansas City police force.
The Battle of the Bulge: A Graphic History of Allied Victory in the Ardennes, 1944-1945
Wayne Vansant - 2014
Thirty-one American divisions - fully one-third of the U.S. Army raised during World War II - saw action in this battle. This battle was truly a test: could this conscript army from a pacifistic democracy defeat the best remaining men and machines that Germany's totalitarian government could produce? In Battle of the Bulge, author and artist Wayne Vansant brings readers into the frozen foxholes, haunting forests, and devastated villages of the Ardennes during that freezing cold winter. With meticulous historical accuracy and hand-drawn visuals that can tell a story in ways words alone cannot, Vansant recounts the Bulge with insightful detail, replaying the thrusts and volleys of both the combined Allied and German forces during the tumultuous battle. This is a story of panic, fear, and physical misery; a story of how a generation of draftees, National Guardsmen, and a small core of regular officers and NCOs faced those three elements as snow piled around their foxholes and the incessant drumming of artillery splintered the woods that gave them shelter. It is the story of men, frozen and hurting, far from home and holding little hope of seeing it again until the killing finally ended. Above all, TheBattle of the Bulge is a story of incredible triumph, now beautifully illustrated in graphic novel format for the first time.
John Adams: Reluctant Patriot Of The Revolution
Leonard Falkner
Murder, Inc.: The Story Of The Syndicate
Burton B. Turkus - 1972
Murder, Inc. is the book that exposed the Syndicate to the eyes of the world. First published in 1951, it rose to the top of the best-seller list, but later fell out-of-print. Now, here is a new edition of the classic that tells all about the great gangsters of the late ’30s and ’40s: Frank Costello, Louis ”Lepke” Buchalter, Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, Buggsy Siegel, Johnny Torrio, Willie Sutton, Joey Adonis, Dutch Schultz. Here are the stories of how Pittsburgh Phil and Buggsy Goldstein literally set Puggy Feinstein on fire; how and why Kid Twist Reles sang to the D.A. for twelve straight days, confessing dozens of murders; how the killers’ boss, Albert Anastasia, slipped through the arms of the law.From the highest levels of the U.S. government down to the lowest levels of street crime, the Syndicate infiltrated American life. Murder, Inc. tells how it was formally organized by the nation’s ranking mob lords at the end of Prohibition to control all crime, from gambling to crooked politics to labor extortion and murder. It describes the carefully built organization with its board of governors and its kangaroo court, and shows how this massive and powerful organization was finally broken.For it was only from the murderers themselves that the truth could be learned. And no man was more qualified to tell the whole story than Burton Turkus, the Brooklyn assistant D.A. who listened to the killers’ tales and who sent seven of them to the electric chair. Together with Sid Feder, a veteran journalist, they produced Murder, Inc., the definitive work on the most dangerous group of gangsters the law has ever known.
How Jesus Christ Became White
Aylmer Von Fleischer - 2014
There is more than enough evidence to prove that the historical Jesus was a Black man. Today Jesus Christ is widely portrayed as a White man. This eBook explains how and why Jesus Christ metamorphosed from Black to White.
The Comanche Captivity of Sarah Ann Horn
James A. Crutchfield - 2015
After spending several months in New York City, the family signed up for a journey to the Republic of Texas where they could homestead and eventually acquire 137 free acres for their efforts. Soon growing discontented with, not only the land, but also the management of the colony in which they had settled, the Horns decided to return to England. But, it was not to be. Attacked and captured by a party of Comanche Indians, Sarah Ann was faced with challenges and realities the like of which she never could have dreamed. Over a period of fifteen months of Comanche captivity, she and her captors rode endlessly across the Texas plains until finally she was purchased out of bondage and befriended by traders in New Mexico. This is the true story of a remarkable woman who endured an unimaginable amount of suffering and pain in her short lifetime.
Paths of Armor: The Fifth Armored Division in World War II
Vic Hillery - 2015
This is the history of that division and the men and tanks that fought in it. Vic Hillery and Major Emerson Hurley, two veterans of the division, have provided a thorough account of this fascinating division in World War Two, from its inception in 1941 through to the end of the war. Hillery and Hurley fully explain how the Fifth Division, under the tactically brilliant leadership of Jack E. Heard, Sereno E. Brett, Lunsford E. Oliver, were able to revolutionise armored warfare. With detailed analysis the authors reconstruct the battles of the division and explain how they were able to carve a path through Normandy, Northern France, the Ardennes, Alsace, the Rhineland and Central Europe. Paths of Armor is essential reading for anyone interested in the Western Front of World War Two and the development of tank warfare that occurred through that war.
A Cargo Pilot's Life- Tails from Corrosion Corner
Brett Lane - 2018
I flew cargo from the 1980's to the present time. From older planes and pilots that are no longer around, to the more modern cargo jets up to today's Boeing 747 jumbo jet.
Bushwhacker: Autobiography of Samuel S. Hildebrand
Samuel S. Hildebrand - 1871
Like William Clarke Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson, Samuel Hildebrand was a proud Missouri bushwhacker. In this long out of print book, Hildebrand describes raids and executions his band of men carried out. He remained at the end of the war and unreconstructed rebel and fervent racist. Like many of his southern brethren who fought, he never owned slaves but kept a captured black man with him after the war. This self-serving but fascinating account is a valuable addition to the canon of Civil War literature. In it, Hildebrand claims that others have tried to tell his story but have gotten it wrong, so he has a notarized statement by prominent men included as verification of authenticity. Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever. For the first time ever, this long-out-of-print book is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE or download a sample.
CALIFORNIA: A Trip Across the Plains, in the Spring of 1850
James Abbey - 2015
He kept a day-by-day journal of his overland journey. Abbey provides a wealth of information about what it was like to travel overland by wagon in 1850.