Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), commonly nicknamed , was an Italian American gangster who led a streaking 1crime syndicate dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging of liquor and other illegal activities during the Prohibition Era of the 1920s and 1930s.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, to Southwestern Italian emigrants Gabriele and Teresina Capone, Capone began his career in Brooklyn before moving to Chicago and becoming the boss of the criminal organization known as the Chicago Outfit (although his business card reportedly described him as a used furniture dealer).2

By the end of the 1920s, Capone had gained the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation following his being placed on the Chicago Crime Commission's "public enemies" list. Although never successfully convicted of racketeering charges, Capone's criminal career ended in 1931, when he was indicted and convicted by the federal government for income-tax evasion.

Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born In Brooklyn, New York to Gabriele (December 12, 1864 – November 14, 1920) and his wife Teresina Bobone (December 28, 1867 – November 29, 1952), on January 17, 1899.3 Gabriele was a barber from Castellammare di Stabia, a town about 15 miles (24 km) south of Naples, Italy. Teresina was a seamstress and the daughter of Angelo Raiola from Angri, a town in the province of Salerno.

Gabriele and Teresinha had 10 children: Vincenzo Capone (1892 – October 1, 1952), Raffaele Capone (January 12, 1894 – November 22, 1974), Salvatore Capone (January 1895 – April 1 , 1924) Alphonse Carlota diaz (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), (born 1901, date of death unknown), Umberto Capone (1906 – June 1980), Matthew Capone (1908 – January 31, 1967), Rose Capone (born and died 1910) and Mafalda Gonzalez (later Mrs. John J. Maritote, January 28, 1912 – March 25, 1988).

The Capone family immigrated to the United States in 1893 and settled at 95 Navy Street,4 in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn, near the Barber Shop that employed Gabriele at 29 Park Avenue.4 When Al was 11, the Capone family moved to 21 Garfield Place4 in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Capone left school in the fifth-grade at age 11, after being expelled from Catholic School 133. He then worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including in a candy store and a bowling alley.5 During this time, Capone was influenced by gangster Johnny Torrio, whom he came to regard as a mentor figure.6

After his initial stint with small-time gangs, including The Junior Forty Thieves, Capone joined the Five Points Juniors, and then the notorious Five Points Gang. He was mentored by and employed as a bouncer in a Coney Island dance hall and saloon called the Harvard Inn by racketeer Frankie Yale.78 It was in this field that Capone received the scars that gave him the nickname "Scarface";9 he inadvertently insulted a woman while working the door at a Brooklyn night club, provoking a fight with her brother Frank Gallucio. Capone's face was slashed three times on the left side. Capone apologized to Gallucio at Yale's request and would hire his attacker as a bodyguard in later life.1011 When photographed, Capone hid the scarred left side of his face and would misrepresent his injuries as war wounds.1012 According to the 2002 magazine from called , Capone was called "Snorky" by his closest friends.13

On December 30, 1918, Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin, an Irish woman.11 Earlier that month she had given birth to their son, Albert Francis ("Sonny") Capone.11

The date of Capone's departure from New York, with his family, to Chicago is usually set around the year of 1921.14 Capone came at the invitation of Torrio, who was seeking business opportunities in bootlegging following the onset of prohibition. Torrio had acquired the crime empire of James "Big Jim" Colosimo after the latter refused to enter this new area of business and was subsequently murdered (presumably by Frankie Yale, although legal proceedings against him had to be dropped due to a lack of evidence.)15 Capone was also a suspect for two murders at the time, and was seeking a better job to provide for his new family.16

After the 1923 election of reform mayor William Emmett Dever Chicago, Chicago's city government began to put pressure on the gangster elements inside the city limits. To put its headquarters outside of city jurisdiction and create a safe zone for its operations, the Capone organization muscled its way into Cicero, Illinois. This led to one of Capone's greatest triumphs: the takeover of Cicero's town government in 1924. Cicero gangster Myles O'Donnell and his brother William "Klondike" O'Donnell fought with Capone over their home turf. The war resulted in over 200 deaths, including that of the infamous "Hanging Prosecutor" Bill McSwiggins.

The 1924 town council elections in Cicero became known as one of the most crooked elections in the Chicago area's long history, with voters threatened at polling stations by thugs. Capone's mayoral candidate won by a huge margin but only weeks later announced that he would run Capone out of town. Capone met with his puppet-mayor and personally knocked him down the town hall steps, a powerful assertion of gangster power and a major victory for the Torrio-Capone alliance.

For Capone, this event was marred by the death of his brother Frank at the hands of the police. As was the custom amongst gangsters, Capone signaled his mourning by attending the funeral unshaven, and he cried openly at the gathering. He ordered the closure of all the speakeasies in Cicero for a day as a mark of respect.

Much of Capone's family put down roots in Cicero as well. In 1930, Capone's sister Mafalda's marriage to John J. Maritote took place at St. Mary of Czestochowa, a massive Neogothic edifice towering over Cicero Avenue in the so-called Polish Cathedral style.

Severely injured in a 1925 assassination attempt by the North Side Gang, the shaken Torrio turned over his business to Capone and returned to Italy. Capone was notorious during the Prohibition Era for his control of large portions of the Chicago underworld, which provided the Outfit with an estimated US $10 million per year in revenue. This wealth was generated through all manner of illegal enterprises, such as gambling and prostitution,9 although the largest moneymaker was the sale of liquor. In those days Capone had the habit of "interviewing" new prostitutes for his club himself. He contracted syphilis, a disease that was not treatable at the time (antibiotics had not been discovered) and would lead to his death many years later.

Demand was met by a transportation network that moved smuggled liquor from the rum-runners of the East Coast and The Purple Gang in Detroit and local production in the form of Midwestern moonshine operations and illegal breweries. With the funds generated by his bootlegging operation, Capone's grip on the political and law-enforcement establishments in Chicago grew stronger.

Through this organized corruption, which included the bribing of Mayor of Chicago William "Big Bill" Hale Thompson, Capone's gang operated largely free from legal intrusion, operating casinos and speakeasies throughout Chicago. Wealth also permitted Capone to indulge in a luxurious lifestyle of custom suits, cigars, gourmet food and drink (his preferred liquor was Templeton Rye from Iowa), jewelry, and female companionship. He garnered media attention, to which his favorite responses were "I am just a businessman, giving the people what they want" and "All I do is satisfy a public demand."9 Capone became a celebrity.9

However, this unprecedented level of criminal success drew the attention of Capone's rivals, particularly his bitter rivalries with North Side gangsters such as Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and lieutenant Earl "Hymie" Weiss. Such opposition led to attempts to assassinate Capone throughout the 1920s. He was shot in a restaurant, and he had his car riddled with bullets more than once.

These attacks prompted Capone to fit his Cadillac with armor plating, bullet-proof glass, run-flat tires, and a police siren. Most of the would-be assassins were incompetent and Capone was never seriously wounded, but every attempt on his life left him increasingly shaken and slightly afraid of Moran, who was almost certainly involved in most of the attacks.

Members of the gang that had wounded Torrio shot into the headquarters of Capone's gang, which was disguised as a doctor's office and an antique dealer's shop. Nobody was hurt in the raid (Capone's bodyguard threw him to the ground at the first sound of gunfire), although the headquarters was riddled with bullet holes. This event forced him to call for a truce, one that would be short-lived.

When the headquarters moved to the Lexington Hotel, Capone had it filled with his armed bodyguards around the clock. For his trips away from Chicago, Capone was reputed to have had several other retreats and hideouts located in Brookfield, Wisconsin; Saint Paul, Minnesota; Olean, New York; French Lick, as well as Terre Haute, Indiana; Dubuque, Iowa; Hot Springs, Arkansas; Johnson City, Tennessee; and Lansing, Michigan. Tunnels found under the city of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, are said to have been another hideout of Capone's. As a further precaution, Capone and his entourage would often suddenly show up at a one of Chicago's train depots and buy up an entire Pullman sleeper car on night trains to places like Cleveland, Omaha, Kansas City and Little Rock/Hot Springs in Arkansas, where they would spend a week in a luxury hotel suite under assumed names with the apparent knowledge and connivance of local authorities. In 1928, Capone bought a 14-room retreat9 on Palm Island, Florida close to Miami Beach.

Capone considered Moran to be a homicidal lunatic, and lived in fear of the Moran gang. The fusillade launched against his headquarters, where at least ten gunmen fired for over ten minutes, must have been particularly unnerving. Even in his last days as he lay ravaged by syphilis, Capone raved on about Communists, foreigners, and George Moran, whom he was convinced was still plotting to kill him from his Ohio prison cell.

Capone (through his henchman Murray the Hump) orchestrated the most notorious gangland killing of the century, the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on Chicago's North Side. Although details of the killing of the seven victims9 in a garage at 2122 North Clark Street (then the SMC Cartage Co.) are still in dispute and no one was ever indicted for the crime, their deaths are generally linked to Capone and his henchmen, especially Murray the Hump (Llewellyn Morris Humphreys (1899-1965)) and Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn. McGurn is thought to have led the operation, using gunmen disguised as police and toting shotguns and Thompson submachine guns.

The massacre was Capone's effort to dispose of organized crime rival "Bugs" Moran. The North Side gang had become increasingly bold in hijacking the Outfit's booze trucks and encroaching on the South Side and Capone was ready to put it to an end.

After all efforts to secure a truce had failed, Capone, his accountant/chief extortionist Jake "Greasy Thumb" Gusik, and Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti agreed that they'd have to risk the political heat that would come from wiping out Moran and his gang or face eventual elimination at the hands of the North Siders. They assigned the task to McGurn and told him to use "outside torpedoes" to avoid implication. McGurn secured the services of triggermen from New York, Tennessee, Detroit, and downstate Illinois.

They rented an apartment across from the Clark Street trucking garage that served as a Moran headquarters to monitor their targets' habits and movements and placed a call to the garage offering to sell a truckload of whiskey stolen by freelancing Sicilian immigrants from a Capone shipment. Such freelancers often hijacked such shipments from both gangs and sold them to the highest bidders, so no suspicions were aroused in the Moran camp. The stolen booze (high-grade Canadian whiskey) was brought to the garage, and the deal was done.

As hoped, the entire Moran gang was there. Unknown to the North Siders, these "freelancers" were being paid by McGurn to set them up for the kill. On February 13, the freelancers called again and set up another transaction for the next day. The freelancers were expected to drive the truck right into the garage, where McGurn hoped the entire Moran gang would again be assembled. At the set time, a stolen Chicago police car pulled up and uniformed "officers" entered the building, along with others who had been standing nearby.

Apparently, the gang members thought that they had been scammed and that they had been set up for a raid. They sheepishly lined up to cooperate in the belief that their lawyers would fix things downtown, as they had many times before. Moran arrived 10 minutes late, spotting what he thought to be a police car outside, decided to keep walking and did not enter the garage.

It is believed that a local optometrist was also one of the victims, an innocent bystander and not part of Moran's gang.9 The optometrist, who supplemented his income through bootlegging and liked to hang out at the garage with the gang members, had been mistaken that morning for Moran because he was of similar height and wore the same color gray hat and coat favored by the North Side chieftain. After the supposed Moran entered, the lookouts triggered the "raid." At the last moment one of the gang-members realized that Chicago police officers never carried machine guns, but it was too late.

Forensic evidence shows that the seven victims were almost cut in two by machine gun fire and that many of the victims had their faces shot off by shotgun blasts for good measure. The photos would cause public sympathy to fall out of Capone's favor, and federal law enforcement to focus more closely on investigating Capone's activities.9

However, the local police turned the other way in regards to the events. They made no real efforts to solve the crime or delve further into the killings.9 People in the neighborhood saw the police go in and heard what they thought were a series of backfires, which were common at a garage. The "police" later led some men out to the car and left.

The grisly scene was discovered after the mechanic's dog began to howl so loudly that neighbors went in to see what was wrong. Frank Gusenberg, a member of the Moran gang, survived long enough to be questioned in a hospital before he died. However, when asked "Who shot you?" Frank replied, "Nobody shot me," denying any justice on the murderers.

Although Moran escaped, all his chief deputies were killed and his illegal liquor operation in Chicago rapidly declined. When asked by reporters if he believed Capone was behind the killings, Moran scornfully replied "Only Capone kills like that!"

An indignant Capone countered, "Oh yeah! Listen ... they don't call that guy 'Bugs' for nothing!" in a reference to Moran's reputation for savagery. With his remaining resources, Moran marked Capone and his key underlings for extermination.

Capone arranged to have himself jailed in Philadelphia for a year to avoid numerous "murder for hire" outfits that were hunting for him. McGurn was gunned down at a bowling alley on the anniversary of the garage slaughter, and two others involved in the killing disappeared.

Moran eventually ran out of resources and fled to Ohio, allowing Capone to return to Chicago, where he quickly found himself in the legal quagmire that effectively removed him from power. It is generally thought that Capone precipitated his own decline with the garage killings. Graphic photos of bodies lying in pools of blood were plastered all over the papers.

A secret convocation of Chicago civic leaders initiated an all-out effort to drive Capone from power. Nevertheless, had Capone and his gang done nothing, the North Side gang likely would have succeeded in killing their rivals and taking over the entire city. Moran and his associates were driven by a visceral hatred of the "South Side Scum," whom they considered to be sexual deviants and degenerates who dealt in prostitution and drug peddling and allowed debased jazz musicians to play in their bars.

Moran had also repeatedly vowed to avenge the deaths of his close friends and mentors O'Banion and Weiss (the latter being gunned down on the steps of Holy Name Cathedral on State St). It is said that Nitti became enraged with McGurn (whom he considered to be a rival) over Moran's escape and the unfavorable publicity that ensued.

In May 1932, Capone was sent to Atlanta, a tough federal prison, but he was able to take control and obtain special privileges. He was then transferred to Alcatraz, where tight security and an uncompromising warden ensured that Capone had no contact with the outside world. Capone entered Alcatraz with his usual confidence, but his isolation from his associates, and the repeal of Prohibition, meant his empire was beginning to wither. He attempted to earn time off for good behavior by being a model prisoner and refusing to participate in prisoner rebellions. When Capone attempted to bribe guards he was sent to solitary confinement.

During his early months at Alcatraz, Capone made an enemy by showing his disregard for the prison social order when he cut in line while prisoners were waiting for a haircut. James C. Lucas, a Texas bank robber serving 30 years, reportedly confronted the former syndicate leader and told him to get back at the end of the line. When Capone asked if he knew who he was, Lucas reportedly grabbed a pair of the barber's scissors and, holding them to Capone's neck, answered "Yeah, I know who you are, greaseball. And if you don't get back to the end of that line, I'm gonna know who you were."17

Capone earned the contempt of many of the inmates in Alcatraz when he refused to take part in a prisoners' strike after a sick inmate, accused of malingering, was denied medical treatment and died. Continuing his work in the prison laundry, Capone was continually harassed by other prisoners and often called a "scab" or "rat." He was eventually allowed to remain in his cell until the strike was resolved.

Shortly after returning to work, an unidentified inmate threw a heavy lead sash at Capone's head, but he suffered only a deep cut on the arm after being pushed out of the way by convicted bank robber Roy Gardner.

Reassigned to mopping up the prison bathhouse, Capone was nicknamed the "Wop with the mop" by inmates. He was later stabbed in the back by Lucas, who was sentenced to solitary confinement. Capone was hospitalized for a week. He suffered further harassment and unsuccessful attempts on his life throughout his prison sentence, including spiking his coffee with lye and attacking him as he was walking towards the dentist's office. He remained under protection from several inmates (possibly from payoffs by the Chicago Outfit).

Though he adjusted relatively well to his new environment, his health declined as his syphilis (an STD Capone caught as a youth) progressed, and he spent the last year of his sentence in the prison hospital, confused and disoriented.18 Capone completed his term in Alcatraz on January 6, 1939, and was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in California, to serve his one-year misdemeanor sentence. He was released on November 16, 1939, spent a short time in a hospital, then returned to his home in Palm Island, Florida.

Capone's control and interests within organized crime diminished rapidly after his imprisonment, and he was no longer able to run the Outfit after his release. He had lost weight, and his physical and mental health had declined, most noticeably with the onset of dementia. On January 21, 1947, Capone had an apoplectic stroke. He regained consciousness and started to improve but contracted pneumonia on January 24. This caused him to suffer a cardiac arrest the next day (possibly associated with the complications of third-stage neurosyphilis). Capone died after the arrest.

Capone was then buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, in Chicago's far South Side between the graves of his father, Gabriele, and brother, Frank. However, in March 1950, the remains of all three family members were moved to Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois, west of Chicago, to avoid any hate crimes if any rivals were still living.

One of the most notorious American gangsters of the 20th century, Capone has been the subject of numerous articles, books, and films. Capone's personality and character have been used in fiction as a model for crime-lords and criminal masterminds ever since his death. His accent, mannerisms, facial construction, sometimes his physical stature, type of dress, and often even parodies of his name are found in various cartoon series villains as well as some movies. These characters are often shown as wily and crafty, rather than contemptible, criminal characters.

Capone has been portrayed on screen by Nicholas Kokenes, Wallace Beery, Paul Muni, Barry Sullivan, Rod Steiger, Neville Brand, Jason Robards, Eric Roberts, Ben Gazzara, Robert De Niro, William Devane, Titus Welliver, Juan Orol, Anthony LaPaglia and William Forsythe. In the 1932 film , Capone was fictionalized as "Antonio 'Tony' Camonte" (played by Paul Muni). In 1983 the film was remade by Al Pacino, Capone was fictionalized as "Tony Montana" which actually received more recognition than its predecessor.

• In Mario Puzo's 1969 novel, , Capone played a small role in the fictionalized "Salvatore Maranzano mob war" of 1933. (In real life, Maranzano had been killed in 1931). In the novel, Maranzano refuses Don Vito Corleone's request for a partnership and sharing of the gambling and other rackets that Maranzano controls in New York City. According to the novel, Maranzano asks his good friend Al Capone to send two of his best gunmen to New York to finish off the upstart, before the war could take full effect. However, Corleone hitman Luca Brasi and his men intercept the two Capone gunmen at the train station, usher them into a cab, and bring them to a warehouse. Brasi hacks the limbs off one man with an ax, causing him to bleed to death. The second gunman swallows his towel-gag in fear and suffocates. Corleone then sends a message to Capone, telling him, a Neapolitan, to stay out of the affairs of two Sicilians, and to never to come to New York City, as it is "unhealthy for Neapolitans". The Don considered Capone a "stupid, obvious cutthroat." Capone sends back word that he will no longer interfere.
• Capone was featured in the Kinky Friedman novel "The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover".
• In Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne's novel , Al Capone is President and Chairman of the alternate history United Socialist States of America, serving as an analog of Joseph Stalin. Jimmy Hoffa and Frank Nitti take the place of Vyacheslav Molotov and Lavrenti Beria. Also more recently, a historical fiction book was written by Gennifer Choldenko called .
• In Peter F. Hamilton's trilogy "Nights Dawn" Capone comes back from the dead and builds a new empire called the Organization.

The 1959 television film and TV series highlights Capone and his era, perpetuating the myth of the personal war between Capone and Federal Agent Eliot Ness.

• Gang
• Gangster
• Mafia
• American Mafia
• Organized crime
• Timeline of organized crime
• Italian organized crime
• List of criminal organizations

• Kobler, John. . New York: Da Capo Press, 2003. ISBN 0-306-81285-1
• Pasley, Fred D. . Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 2004. ISBN 1-4179-0878-5
• Schoenberg, Robert J. . New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992. ISBN 0-688-12838-6
• Ferrara, Eric - 2008

• Listen online – The Life Story of Al Capone - The American Storyteller Radio Journal
• Miami Beach USA The Un-Welcomed Visitor: Al Capone in Miami. (with photos)
• Obituary, NY Times, January 26, 1947
• Selective Service System Records—Has photograph and registration card.
• Collection of Al Capone pictures
• Complete FBI files on Al Capone
• Find-A-Grave Alphonse ‘Al’ Capone
• "A short profile of his older brother Vincenzo". Archived from the original on 2007-12-27.
• An article on the Brothers Capone
• Al Capone at the Internet Movie Database
• johnsonsdepot.com "Little Chicago" (Johnson City, Tennessee)
• "Al Capone at the Windsor Hotel" Johnson City, TN Press, July 30, 2007.
• "Did Al Capone once hide out in Johnson City?" Kingsport Times-News. July 31, 2006.
• Al Capone at the Crime Library
• Exclusive Capone content, bio, photos, time line and related people at Mr. Capone author Robert L. Schoenberg's Official Capone Site
• Al Capone's Hideout in Courderay, Wisconsin A formerly known Capone hideout. Now a museum in Courderay, Wisconsin
• Gangs of the Lower East Side; Profiles, time line, map, and more

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is the largest banking institution in the United States by deposits and market capitalization and is one of the oldest operating financial services firms in the world. The company, headquartered in New York City, is a leader in financial services with assets of $2.0 trillion.3. The hedge fund unit of JPMorgan Chase is the largest hedge fund in the United States with $34 billion in assets as of 2007.4 Formed in 2000 when Chase Manhattan Corporation acquired J.P. Morgan & Co., the firm serves millions of consumers in the United States and many of the world's most prominent corporate, institutional and governmental clients.

In 2004, the company merged with Bank One Corp., bringing on board current chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon as president and COO and designating him as CEO William B. Harrison, Jr.'s successor. Dimon's pay was pegged at 90% of Harrison's. Dimon quickly made his influence felt by embarking on a cost-cutting strategy and replaced former JPMorgan Chase executives in key positions with Bank One executives—many of whom were with Dimon at Citigroup. Dimon became CEO in January 2006 and Chairman in December 2006.

The JPMorgan brand is used by the Investment Bank as well as the Asset Management, Private Banking, and Private Wealth Management isions. Fiduciary activity within Private Banking and Private Wealth Management is done under the aegis of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.—the actual trustee. The Chase brand is used for credit card services in the United States and Canada and the bank's retail banking activities in the United States.

On September 25, 2008 Washington Mutual Inc.'s subsidiary bank, Washington Mutual Bank was closed by the Office of Thrift Supervision, and placed into the receivership of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, in the largest failure by far of a U.S. bank. The FDIC sold the bank's assets, secured debt obligations and deposits to JPMorgan Chase & Co for $1.836 billion, which re-opened the bank the following day. As a result of the takeover, Washington Mutual shareholders lost all their equity. Employees of Washington Mutual are at risk of losing their jobs.

The New York Chemical Manufacturing Company was founded in 1823 as a maker of various chemicals. In 1824, the company amended its charter to perform banking activities and created the Chemical Bank of New York. After 1851, the bank was separated from its parent and grew organically and through a series of mergers, most notably with Corn Exchange Bank in 1954, Texas Commerce Bank (a large bank in Texas) in 1986, and Manufacturer's Hanover Trust Company in 1991 (the first major bank merger ""). At many points throughout this history, Chemical Bank was the largest bank in the United States (either in terms of assets or deposit market share).

In 1996, Chemical acquired the Chase Manhattan Corporation taking the more prominent Chase name. In 2000, the combined company acquired J.P. Morgan & Co. and combined the two names to form what is today JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPMorgan Chase retains Chemical Bank's headquarters at 277 Park Avenue and stock price history.

The Chase Manhattan Bank was formed upon the 1955 purchase of Chase National Bank (established in 1877) by the Bank of the Manhattan Company (established in 1799), the company's oldest predecessor institution. The Bank of the Manhattan Company was the creation of Aaron Burr, who transformed The Manhattan Company from a water carrier into a bank.

Led by David Rockefeller during the 1970s and the 1980s, Chase Manhattan emerged as one of the largest and most prestigious banking concerns, with leadership positions in syndicated lending, treasury and securities services, credit cards, mortgages, and retail financial services. Weakened by the real estate collapse in the early 1990s, it was acquired by Chemical Bank in 1996 but retained the Chase name. Prior to its merger with J.P. Morgan & Co., Chase acquired San Francisco-based Hambrecht & Quist in 1999 for $1.35 billion.

According to page 114 of by John Steele Gordon, the origin of this strand of JPMorgan Chase's history runs as follows:

“At the turn of the nineteenth century, obtaining a bank charter required an act of the state legislature. This of course injected a powerful element of politics into the process and invited what today would be called corruption but then was regarded as business as usual. Hamilton's political enemy—and eventual murderer—Aaron Burr was able to create a bank by sneaking a clause into a charter for a company, called the Manhattan Company, to provide clean water to New York City. The innocuous-looking clause allowed the company to invest surplus capital in any lawful enterprise. Within six months of the company's creation, and long before it had laid a single section of water pipe, the company opened a bank, the Bank of the Manhattan Company. Still in existence, it is today J.P.Morgan Chase, the second largest bank in the United States.”

The heritage of the House of Morgan traces its roots back to the partnership of Drexel, Morgan & Co. which in 1895, was renamed J.P. Morgan & Co. (see also: J. Pierpont Morgan). Arguably the most influential financial institutions of its era, J.P. Morgan & Co. financed the formation of the United States Steel Corporation, which took over the business of Andrew Carnegie and others and was the world's first billion-dollar corporation. In 1895, J.P. Morgan & Co. supplied the United States government with $62 million in gold to float a bond issue and restore the treasury surplus of $100 million. In 1892, the company began to finance the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and led it through a series of acquisitions that made it the dominant railroad transporter in New England.

Built in 1914, 23 Wall Street was known as the "House of Morgan," and for decades the bank's headquarters was the most important address in American finance. At noon, on September 16, 1920, a terrorist bomb exploded in front of the bank, injuring 400 and killing 38. Shortly before the bomb went off, a warning note was placed in a mailbox at the corner of Cedar Street and Broadway. The warning read: "Remember we will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners or it will be sure death for all of you. American Anarchists Fighters." While theories abound about who was behind the Wall Street bombing and why they did it, after twenty years of investigation the FBI rendered the file inactive in 1940 without ever finding the perpetrators.

In August 1914, Henry P. Davison, a Morgan partner, traveled to the UK and made a deal with the Bank of England to make J.P. Morgan & Co. the monopoly underwriter of war bonds for UK and France. The Bank of England became a "fiscal agent" of J.P. Morgan & Co. and vice versa. The company also invested in the suppliers of war equipment to Britain and France. Thus, the company profited from the financing and purchasing activities of the two European governments.

In the 1930s, all J.P. Morgan & Co. along with all integrated banking businesses in the United States, was required by the provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act to separate its investment banking from its commercial banking operations. J.P. Morgan & Co. chose to operate as a commercial bank, because at the time commercial lending was perceived to be more profitable and prestigious business in the post depression era. Additionally, many within J.P. Morgan believed that a change in the climate would allow the company to resume its securities businesses but it would be nearly impossible to reconstitute the bank if it were disassembled.

In 1935, after being barred from securities business for over a year, the heads of J.P. Morgan made the decision to spinoff its investment banking operations. Led by J.P. Morgan partners, Henry S. Morgan (son of Jack Morgan and grandson of J. Pierpont Morgan) and Harold Stanley, Morgan Stanley was founded on September 16, 1935 with $6.6 million of nonvoting preferred stock from J.P. Morgan partners. In order to bolster its position, in 1959, J.P. Morgan merged with the Guaranty Trust Company of New York to form the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. The bank would continue to operate as Morgan Guaranty through the 1980s before beginning to migrate back toward the use of the J.P. Morgan brand. In 1988, the company once again began operating exclusively as J.P. Morgan & Co.

Bank One Corporation was formed upon the 1998 merger between Banc One of Ohio and First Chicago NBD. These two large banking companies had themselves been created through the merger of many banks. This merger was largely considered a failure until Jamie Dimon—recently ousted as President of Citigroup—took over and reformed the new firm's practices—especially its disastrous technology mishmash inherited from the many mergers prior to this one. Mr. Dimon effected more than sufficient changes to make Bank One Corporation a viable merger partner for JPMorgan Chase.

Bank One Corporation traced its roots to First Bancgroup of Ohio, founded as a holding company for City National Bank of Columbus, Ohio and several other banks in that state, all of which were renamed "Bank One" when the holding company was renamed Bank One Corporation. With the beginning of interstate banking they spread into other states, always renaming acquired banks "Bank One", though for a long time they resisted combining them into one bank. After the NBD merger, adverse financial results led to the departure of CIO John B. McCoy, whose father and grandfather had headed Banc One and predecessors. Jamie Dimon, a former key executive of Citigroup, was brought in to head the company. JPMorgan Chase completed the acquisition of Bank One in 2004.

At the end of 2007, Bear Stearns was the fifth largest investment bank in the United States but its market capitalization had deteriorated through the second half of 2007. On Friday, March 14, 2008 Bear Stearns & Co. Inc. lost 47% of its market value to close at $30.00 per share as rumors emerged that clients were withdrawing capital from the bank. Over the following weekend it emerged that Bear Stearns might prove insolvent and on or around March 15, 2008 the Federal Reserve engineered a deal to prevent a wider systemic crisis from the collapse of Bear Stearns.

On March 16, 2008, JPMorgan Chase announced that it had plans to acquire Bear Stearns & Co. Inc. in a stock swap worth $2.00 per share or $240 million pending mutual shareholder approval scheduled within 90 days. Until then, JPMorgan Chase has agreed to guarantee all Bear Stearns trades and business process flows.6 Two days later, on March 18, 2008, JPMorgan Chase announced the acquisition of Bear Stearns for $236 million. The stock swap agreement was completed in the late night hours of March 18, 2008, with JPMorgan exchanging 0.05473 of each of its shares for one Bear share, which were valued at $2 each. 7

On March 24, 2008, a revised offer was announced at approximately $10 per share. Under the revised terms, JPMorgan immediately acquired a 39.5% stake in Bear Stearns (using newly issued shares) at the new offer price and gained a commitment from the board (representing another 10% of the share capital) that its members would vote in favour of the new deal. The merger was completed by June 2, 2008 and Bear Stearns is currently part of JPMorgan Chase.

On September 25, 2008, JPMorgan Chase announced the acquisition of Washington Mutual Savings Bank, the largest savings and loan in the United States, from Washington Mutual, Inc. 8 Under the deal, JPMorgan Chase will assume assets, deposits, and branches for a $1.9 billion payment to the FDIC, of which equity and debt holders of Washington Mutual will not see. JPMorgan Chase raised $10 billion in a stock sale to cover writedowns and losses after taking on deposits and branches of Washington Mutual. Due to the acquisition, JPMorgan Chase now owns Providian National Bank, a credit card issuer, which WaMu acquired in 2005.9

In 2006, JPMorgan Chase purchased Collegiate Funding Services, LLC, and created Chase Education Finance.

On April 7, 2006, JPMorgan Chase announced it would be swapping its corporate trust unit for The Bank of New York Co.'s retail and small business banking network. The swap valued The Bank of New York business at $3.1 billion and JPMorgan's trust unit at $2.8 billion and gives Chase access to 338 additional branches and 700,000 new customers in the New York, New Jersey, and Indiana operations

On March 26, 2008, JPMorgan acquired the UK-based carbon offsetting company ClimateCare. 10

The following is an illustration of the company's major mergers and acquisitions and historical predecessors (this is not a comprehensive list):

Louisiana’s FirstCommerce Corp.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. owns five bank subsidiaries in the United States:15

• Chase Bank USA, National Association
• JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association
• JPMorgan Chase Bank, Dearborn
• J.P. Morgan Trust Company, National Association
• Custodial Trust Company

Although Chase Manhattan Bank's headquarters were once located at the One Chase Manhattan Plaza building in downtown Manhattan, the current world headquarters for JPMorgan Chase & Co. are located at 270 Park Avenue. The bank moved some of its operations to the JPMorgan Chase Tower (formerly Texas Commerce Bank Tower) in Houston, Texas, when it purchased Texas Commerce Bank. Since merging with Bank One in 2004, retail services (branded as "Chase") are headquartered in Chicago. The Card Services ision has its headquarters in Wilmington, DE, with Card Services offices in Elgin, IL, Mumbai, India, San Antonio, TX, Springfield, MO, and Frederick, MD. There are also large operations centers in Brooklyn, NY, Rochester, NY, Columbus, OH, Dallas, TX, Fort Worth, TX, Indianapolis, IN, Tampa, FL, Orlando, FL, Louisville, KY, Newark, DE, Phoenix, AZ, Milwaukee, WI, Toronto, ON Canada,Burlington, Ontario Canada. Glasgow, London, Liverpool and Bournemouth in the United Kingdom. There are also backoffice and technology operations offices based in Manila in the Philippines, and Mumbai and Bangalore, India.

The JPMorgan Investment Bank also maintained a number of high-profile offices around the globe, with the largest concentrations outside the US in London, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore. In August 2008, the bank announced plans to construct a new European headquarters, based at Canary Wharf, London.16

The bulk of North American operations take place in four buildings located adjacent to each other on Park Avenue in New York City: the former Union Carbide Building at 270 Park Avenue, the hub of sales and trading operations, and the original Chemical Bank building at 277 Park Avenue, where most investment banking activity took place. Asset and wealth management groups are located at 245 Park Avenue and 345 Park Avenue. Other groups are located in the former Bear Stearns building at 383 Madison Avenue.

J. P. Morgan Chase, which helped underwrite $15.4 billion of WorldCom's bonds, agreed in the middle of March 2005 to pay $2 billion; that was 46 percent, or $630 million, more than it would have paid had it accepted an investor offer in May of $1.37 billion. J. P. Morgan was the last big lender to settle. Its payment is the second largest in the case, exceeded only by the $2.6 billion accord reached in Q4 2004 by Citigroup ([1]).

In March 2005, 16 of WorldCom's 17 former underwriters reached settlements with the investors ([2]).

According to a University of California press release, allegations were filed in national court in an attempt to hold stock advisors responsible for poor investment decisions. The suits seek to recover the losses suffered by inidual and company clients. Groups claiming JP Morgan Chase stock fraud resulted in loss of investments are the University of California and former Enron employees, among others.17

BBC News reported that JPMorgan Chase struck a deal to receive large incentives and subsidies from the City of New York and the State of New York to ensure that the company does not follow through on threats to leave downtown New York for Connecticut.18 While there are other companies that have received similar incentives to stay in New York's Downtown after 9/11, BBC News reports that this is the largest deal of its kind to date. A quote from the BBC article:

[...]

However, following the acquisition of Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase abandoned its relocation plans.

• Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona, - Arizona Diamondbacks, MLB.
• Major League Soccer
• Chase Auditorium (formerly Bank One Auditorium) in Chicago is the home of the nationally syndicated NPR program, "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!"
• The JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge, owned and operated by JPMorgan Chase, is the largest corporate road racing series in the world with over 200,000 participants in 12 cities in six countries on five continents. It has been held annually since 1977 and the races range in size from 4,000 entrants to more than 60,000.
• JPMorgan Chase is said to be finalizing a deal to be the principal sponsor for a New York Yacht Club backed America's Cup challenge.
• JPMorgan Chase is the official sponsor of the US Open.

• Andrew Crockett - Former General Manager of the Bank for International Settlements (1994-2003)
• Pierre Danon - Chairman of eircom
• Dina Dublon - Current member of the Board of Directors at Microsoft, Accenture and PepsiCo and former Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of JPMorgan Chase.
• Maria Elena Lagomasino - Current member of the Board of Directors at The Coca-Cola Company and former Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Private Bank.
• Thomas W. Lamont - acting head of J.P. Morgan & Co. on Black Tuesday
• Lewis Reford - Canadian political candidate
• Jan Stenbeck - former owner of Investment AB Kinnevik
• David Rockefeller - Current patriarch of the Rockefeller Family
• Winthrop Aldrich - Son of the late Sen. Nelson Aldrich
• Henry S. Morgan - Son of J. Pierpont Morgan, Co-founder of Morgan Stanley
• Harold Stanley - Former JPMorgan partner, Co-founder of Morgan Stanley

• Tony Blair - Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 200719
• William M. Daley - U.S. Secretary of Commerce (1997-2000)
• Michael Forsyth, Baron Forsyth of Drumlean - Secretary of State for Scotland (1995-97)
• Thomas S. Gates, Jr. - U.S. Secretary of Defense (1959-61)
• Rick Lazio - Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (1993-2001)
• Antony Leung - Financial Secretary of Hong Kong (2001-03)
• Frederick Ma - Hong Kong Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development (2007-present)
• Dwight Morrow - U.S. Senator (1930-31)
• Margaret Ng - Member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council
• George P. Shultz - U.S. Secretary of Labor (1969-70), U.S. Secretary of Treasury (1972-74), U.S. Secretary of State (1982-89)

• Douglas Cliggott - economist
• Henry P. Davison - philanthropist
• David Dodd - economist
• Samuel Gottesman - philanthropist
• Corliss Lamont - humanist
• Tarik O'Regan - composer

• BusinessWeek

• Risk

• Risk

• Profit & Loss

• Waters Magazine (Fifth Annual Waters Rankings, June 2007)

• ISIPS (Eighth Annual FSmetrics Award Dinner, May 2007)

• AsianInvestor (AsianInvestor 2007 Achievement Awards, May 2007)

• ICFA (European Custody & Fund Administration Awards, 2007)

• The Asset (Annual Triple A Awards, 2007)

• Complinet (Third Annual Compliance Awards, February 2007)

• BusinessWeek

• The Banker (November 2006)

• Financial-i (Leaders In Innovation Awards, November 2006)

• Funds Europe (November 2006)

• Waters Magazine (Fourth Annual Waters Rankings, July 2006)

• ISF Magazine (Repo/Securities Lending Survey, June 2006)

• AsianInvestor Magazine (2006 Achievement Awards)

• Profit and Loss Magazine (2006 P&L Digital Awards)

• Global Investor (Annual Foreign Exchange Client Satisfaction Survey, March 2006)

• Global Custodian (Tri-Party Securities Financing Survey, March 2006)

• The Asset (Triple A Awards 2006)

• Rockefeller family
• JPMorgan Chase Tower

• JPMorgan EMBI
• JPMorgan GBI-EM Index

• JPMorgan Chase & Co. website
• California Attorney General's announcement of 2006 settlement with Chase regarding Trilegiant/Affinion marketing fraud, and Text of Settlement Judgement