Submitted by capsaicinintheeyes t3_yfs4ef in todayilearned
& Eliot Ness; Capone, pictured here ~age 34 during his trial, had only been the head of the Chicago outfit for 7 years when he got pinched.
Reading through both their short biographies here, Ness seems to have had the sadder life., simply because he had the greater potential. He was married thrice, his law enforcement career seemed to have gradually withered, he was involved in trying to cover up his own drink and drive accident and ‘In later years, Ness struggled financially; he was nearly penniless at the time of his death, with his role in bringing down Al Capone having been largely forgotten.’
its like Wyatt Earp.. WHen he died he was really known only for refereeing a boxing match everyone thought he was paid to fix.
He and his wife happened to live longer than most of this contemporaries and were friends with the Hollywood circles.. and Josie was a bull dog about white washing and expanding on his hisotry..
It’s always so wild to be reminded how many people bridged the pre-modern and modern era. 1880 and 1920 seem like entire universes apart, far more than 1980 and 2020.
Like it seems perfectly reasonable to imagine someone seeing Star Wars in the theater and also using Twitter. But the idea of riding a train to the Wild West, and later taking a commercial airline flight?
WW2 feels a lot closer to us than WW1 despite only 20 years between them. WW2 feels modern while WW1 feels archaic. It’s weird how we perceive things
Its not just perception thing, its been like that for last couple hundred years. Insane pace of technological improvements have changed this world time and time again is short span.
It's crazy to think that some people who grew up thinking radio was cutting edge watched the moon landing.
Now we have mumble rap and TikTok. What a time to be alive Sigh
I had a teacher in high school complain that there wasn't a way to have both instant news (like on television) with the ability to read different sections (like a newspaper).
It's the colour photography.
I think because WW2 was a truly modern conflict of combined arms and most of the technologies we know today existed back then in rudimentary form.
Mass tank formations, strategic bombing, radar, missiles, jet fighters, effective combined arms strategies, aircraft carriers, etc.
Even though it was only 20 odd years prior WW1 had more in common with warfare of the past and unlike WW2, had no resemblance to a modern conflict really.
WW1 saw absolutely massive leaps in military technology and strategy that paved the way for how "modern" WW2 felt by comparison.
The war of 1918 had no resemblance to that of 1914. Everything had changed dramatically, from the basic uniforms to the appearance of massed tanks, and the strategies employed by both sides.
1914 was closer to the war of 1871 really in how it played out initially.
One woman saw the wagon trains, and the Moon landing.
another guy saw Lincoln get shot and talked about it on a TV show.
Biden was born closer to Lincolns inauguration than his own.
> Biden was born closer to Lincolns inauguration than his own.
Only if you use Lincoln's second inauguration. Lincoln's first was in 1861, 81 years before Biden was born in 1942, and Biden was inaugurated at 78 in 2021.
Yep. We talk about how the Internet has changed life and society, but it’s peanuts compared to the changes that occurred the prior turn of the century.
I've got a picture somewhere of one of the last Confederate Army veterans posing with a 1950's era jet fighter.
for sure
Peter Capaldi saw Doctor Who when it first aired in 63 and in 2013(?) he was the Doctor.
Speaking of Elliott Ness and Al Capone...the original TV show The Untouchables (with Robert Stack as Eliott Ness) aired in the early 1960s, only roughly 30 years after the events it was based on.
But the 1960s and 1930s feel so incredibly far apart to us today, even though to the audience watching The Untouchables on ABC in 1960, it would be like us watching Stranger Things.
Well if you think about it though, 1990 and 2020 are a lot further apart than you think. In 1990 most people did not have a personal computer, and there certainly wasn't widespread adoption of the Internet, those came in the late 90s like 1995 onward with Windows 95 adding support for networking via the Internet. In 1990 you wouldn't even have a cellular telephone let alone anything resembling a smartphone. Video calling, driverless cars, GPS, drones, etc were all the stuff of science fiction. We take for granted how much technology we have access to now that the public simply did not 30 years ago.
> 1880 and 1920 seem like entire universes apart
That's because of the huge changes brought by the invention of processes to mass produce steel in the 1860s. Henry Bessemer created the modern age. When cheap steel became available there was a whole new way of manufacturing everything.
Besides that, there were many important scientific discoveries. For instance, the concept of sanitation started by Florence Nightingale increased life expectation by twenty years during that period.
1903: Wright Bros. first flight.
1966 69: First moon landing.
I still have trouble wrapping my mind around this.
Wasn't the first moon landing in 1969?
I think they mean unmanned landing
Oh.
Stupid fingers.
what? To me, 1880 and 1920 seems like "basically the same time" while 1980 and 2020 seems completely different.
Mostly because he didn’t really play much of a role in bringing down Capone. The image of Ness we have now was mostly created by pop culture (the Untouchables tv show and movie). He did far more as the safety coordinator of Cleveland (created a police academy, introduced patrols both on foot and by cruiser, and created community organizations to head off juvenile delinquency) than he did as an untouchable.
If you want a great, very readable book on them I'd recommend SCARFACE AND THE UNTOUCHABLE by Max Allan Collins. Nonfiction with the pacing of a good novel.
This is what Harry Potter's life would be like.
That's sad. 😔
Jesus those are some city miles on capone lol. Looks much older than 34.
They noticed his syphilis pretty early on in his confinement...I wonder if its early symptoms include any accelerated aging or facial swelling?
Wait, I’m aging…oh man could I have syphilis?
And I'm swelling...but that might just be from your Grandma poses
His brothers Ralph and Frank (who both worked for Al) had a similar premature aging thing going on, with round faces and receding hairlines. Maybe a mix of genetics and excess?
Guy spends most of his career enforcing prohibition. Does an alchoholic.
That means he was 26 when he became the head of the Chicago outfit? That's wild. That's like getting out of college, working for 2 years, going back for an MBA in murdering people and moving illegal booze, and then becoming the regional VP of Murder and Bootlegging of a branch that brings in $1.5B/yr.
Crazy - They were both basically adult kids!
I was 34 before I was even done with edu and started my actual career!
(Was done at 24 with edu for the first, mediocre, whatever career)
A cleveland brewery, The Great Lakes Brewing Co. Has a beer named after Elliot Ness.
and the best porter out there: Edmund Fitzgerald
I also love the Dortmunder Gold, one of my favorite lagers.
they have solid beers. the blackout stout is pretty good.
That was my first introduction to ABVs. Young me thought beers had a similar alcohol content. Was playing games and had a few then finally got up to go to the bathroom. Immediately fell into the door. Good stuff.
haha
i remember wondering why i got buzzed after like two beers the first time i had 90m min IPA (coming from bud or whatever cheap beer people had at parties usually).. heard about people not being able to stand after having 2 or 3 120 min not realizing the ABV..
120 min is so good. Knew what I was doing for that one.
A bit morbidly ironic, if you ask me
Why does every historical figure look 20 years older than they actually are?
No sunscreen, constant drinking and smoking from a young age, barely existent healthcare and wacky ideas about proper nutrition/less access to a variety of food (plus nonexistent environmental, food and medical safety laws). Everybody was either outside getting sun damage or inside breathing their own and other people's smoke constantly from birth, eating meat that wasn't properly handled and potatoes that may have been covered in pesticides we now ban, and taking "medicines" that maybe did fuckall and maybe had cocaine or heroin or lead or mercury or probably just straightup little shards of glass in it.
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