Benjamin Siegel was Born On This Day in 1906

On this day in 1906 and bringing the month a February to a close was the birth of one of the most notorious mobsters, by the name of Benjamin Siegel. Bugsy was famous for his temper, his charisma, for being the first front-page celebrity mobsters, and of course for the creation of the Flamingo Hotel.

He was also one of the first members of Murder Incorporated, and for that famous assassination in 1947 where he was killed whilst reading a newspaper.

On this day in 1906, on the final day of February, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. Few could have predicted that the scrappy kid from Williamsburg would go on to become one of the most colourful, dangerous, and ultimately tragic figures in the entire history of American organised crime.

From his earliest days on the streets of New York, Siegel demonstrated a volatile combination of fearlessness, charm, and explosive violence. It was on those same streets that he formed a lifelong friendship with Meyer Lansky, a partnership that would prove central to the development of the National Crime Syndicate. Together, the pair ran a small gang before aligning themselves with the rising power of Charles "Lucky" Luciano, becoming trusted associates in the criminal network that would reshape the American underworld during the 1930s. Siegel was no mere foot soldier either — he was a founding member of Murder Incorporated, the enforcement arm of the Syndicate responsible for hundreds of killings across the country, and a man personally suspected of committing numerous murders himself.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Siegel possessed a magnetic, movie-star quality that made him as comfortable in Hollywood drawing rooms as he was in back-alley meetings with killers. He relocated to Los Angeles in the late 1930s, cultivating friendships with film stars, socialites, and celebrities, becoming the first genuine front-page gangster of the modern era. His infamy was as much about personality as it was about crime.

His most ambitious and fateful undertaking, however, came in the Nevada desert. Siegel threw himself into the development of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, pouring Syndicate money — and vastly over-running his budget — into what he envisioned as a glamorous resort that would transform a dusty stopover into a gambling paradise. His backers, including Lansky and figures connected to the major crime families of New York, grew increasingly impatient with the spiralling costs and whispers of skimming.

On the evening of 20th June 1947, Siegel was shot dead at the Beverly Hills home of his girlfriend Virginia Hill, struck by rifle fire whilst sitting reading a newspaper in the lounge. No one was ever charged with the murder.

His legacy, however, proved far more enduring than his enemies perhaps intended. The Las Vegas that Siegel helped to imagine grew into the most lucrative gambling destination on earth, a monument — however unintentional — to the vision of one of organised crime's most unforgettable figures.