---

Newspapers across America carried big, lurid headlines on February 15, 1929 — about the gang shooting in Chicago the day before which became famous as the “Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre.”

Seven men — six members of the Bugs Moran gang and an auto mechanic — were lined up against a wall in a south side garage and mowed down with submachine guns.

The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the U.S. at that time.

It started the collapse of the Moran gang and focused federal attention on Al Capone, thought to be the architect of the killings.

There were just over 9,600 murders in the U.S. in 1929. Most recent figures show nearly 15,000 homicides yearly.