January 17th: Al Capone's birthday

Famous mobster Al Capone was born on this day in 1899. Here are 10 things you may not know about him.

1. Al Capone's full name was Alphonse Gabriel Capone. He also had a couple of nicknames: "Scarface" (which he hated) which came about after he was slashed in the face by Frank Gallucio, whose sister he had inadvertently insulted. When photographed, Capone hid the scarred left side of his face saying the injuries were war wounds. His close friends and family called him "Snorky", a term for a sharp dresser.
2. His father was a barber and his mother a seamstress, and the family had emigrated to the US from Italy. One of his brothers, James Capone, changed his name to Richard Hart and became a Prohibition agent in Homer, Nebraska.
3. When another brother, Frank, was killed by the police, Capone ordered that all the speakeasies in Cicero be closed for the day as a mark of respect.
4. He did well at school, but was expelled at 14 for hitting a female teacher in the face.
5. His favourite drink was Templeton Rye Whiskey from Iowa.
6. "There is some good in the worst of us," said Martin Luther King Jr. Al Capone is an example of this. Despite his fearsome reputation as a gangster and killer, there are stories of his charitable acts, too. In 1929, during the Great Depression, he opened the first soup kitchen in America. A sign over the door of the soup kitchen read: "Free Soup, Coffee and Doughnuts for the Unemployed." The soup kitchen fed 3,000 people a day. Capone himself would help serve the meals there, as well as financing it. Soon, the idea spread and there were soup kitchens all over the US. Another of his charitable acts was providing milk for schools when their milk budget was slashed. Because members of his family had once been made ill by drinking milk that had gone off, he insisted that use by dates were printed on the milk he supplied, so he is said to have been responsible for "use by" dates appearing on cartons of milk.
7. The stereotypical image of a mobster wearing a blue pinstriped suit and tilted fedora is based on photos of Capone.
8. 15 actors have played him on screen including Rod Steiger, William Forsythe and Robert De Niro.
9. Al Capone is the only real-life character ever to appear in any of Hergé's Tintin adventures, in Tintin in America.
10. Although it is widely believed that the first and only time Capone was arrested and sent to prison was for tax evasion in 1931, but he did have a criminal record before this. He had already served short sentences of less than a year for contempt of court and for carrying concealed weapons.