Organized crime supremo, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, had just finished talking to his associate, Allen Smiley, when three shots were fired at him through a window on this day. He died instantly.

By the late 1930's, Siegel had set up his "business" on the West Coast of the USA and became a high roller amongst the Hollywood gliterati of the time. His all-night parties became legendary.

But his demise seems to have been related to an investment he made with money from a New York crime syndicate. He built the Flamingo Hotel in what was then just a sleepy little town of Las Vegas in 1945, with $6mn from his New York colleagues. Las Vegas was not the bustling metropolis that it is today, and the hotel was not immediately profitable. The New York syndicate may have been taking measures to get their money back...