Independent history writing about the parts of the American record that get skipped. Every claim here is sourced — check the citations and argue with them.
Organized Crime
By 2010 Mexican cartels controlled drug distribution in 230 American cities. The Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG now generate revenue that dwarfs everything the Italian-American Mafia achieved at its peak — and fentanyl deaths hit 74000 in 2023.
Organized Crime
The Hells Angels grew from a 1948 California riding club into a RICO defendant with chapters in 27 countries. The Bandidos fought a shooting war in Scandinavia. How motorcycle clubs became criminal empires.
Organized Crime
Murder Inc. executed an estimated 500 contract killings for the national crime syndicate. Meyer Lansky built the financial architecture that laundered their revenue through Las Vegas the Bahamas and Swiss banks.
Organized Crime
The Westies controlled Hell's Kitchen through dismemberment and fear. Winter Hill ran Boston for three decades under FBI protection. Irish-American organized crime dominated its territories without the national structure the Italian families had.
Organized Crime
The Chicago Outfit Philadelphia mob Detroit Partnership Kansas City mob and Winter Hill Gang operated for decades as nodes in a national criminal network. This series covers organized crime as a national system.
Organized Crime
The Kansas City mob controlled the Tropicana counting room and skimmed casino revenue for Chicago Cleveland and Milwaukee — until FBI surveillance ended the mob's entire Las Vegas era in the 1980s.
Organized Crime
Detroit's Mafia never produced a John Gotti, and that was the point. A handful of intermarried families ran the rackets for most of a century by keeping their names out of the paper.
Organized Crime
Nicky Scarfo ran the Philadelphia mob in the 1980s and ordered more murders per year than any comparable crime family — violence that ultimately generated the cooperating witnesses who destroyed the organization.
Organized Crime
Whitey Bulger ran Boston's Winter Hill Gang while serving as an FBI informant — and used classified informant identities to have rivals murdered. The FBI paid $100 million to settle wrongful death suits.
Organized Crime
The Chicago Outfit outlasted Al Capone by sixty years — running Las Vegas skim operations and Teamsters pension fund schemes from Tony Accardo's era through the 1990s RICO prosecutions.
War Crimes & Military Atrocities
From My Lai to Hiroshima: a full accounting of American war crimes and contested military decisions — the documented pattern of what happens and who is held responsible.
War Crimes & Military Atrocities
Five cases where the harm is documented but the moral verdict isn't settled: internment firebombing atomic bombs POW camps and drone warfare.