Events January 11 – Carlo Tresca, editor of the Socialist Italian-language newspaper Il Martello, is murdered in Manhattan after seeking political asylum in the United States. Tresca's assassination, supposedly carried out by mobster Carmine Galante, was said to have been arranged by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's fascist government. January 25 – New York mobster Gaetano "Tommy" Lucchese becomes a naturalized US citizen despite efforts of the U.S. government to thwart it. February 2 – Chicago's "Queen of the Dice Girls" and Outfit-associate girlfriend, Estelle Carey, is found brutally murdered and burned, possibly in connection to The Outfit – Hollywood extortion scandal then under federal investigation. March 18 – Several high-ranking members of the Chicago Outfit including Francesco "Frank 'The Enforcer' Nitti" Nitto, Felice "Paul 'The Waiter' Ricca" DeLucia, Phil D'Andrea, Charles "Cherry Nose" Gioe, Lou Kaufman, Louis "Little New York" Campagna and Filippo "John 'Handsome Johnny' Roselli" Sacco are indicted by a federal grand jury in connection to extortion operations against Hollywood movie studios by Outfit turncoat William Morris "Willie" Bioff. March 19 – Shortly after being indicted for extortion, Outfit boss Francesco "Frank 'The Enforcer' Nitti" Nitto commits suicide near a Riverside, Illinois railroad yard. Nitti kills himself because underboss Paul Ricca insists that Nitti take responsibility for the Hollywood extortion operation and serve the prison term, because Nitti brought the likes of Outfit turncoat William Morris "Willie" Bioff into the Hollywood scheme. However, Nitti suffers from severe claustrophobia. Antonino "Tony," "Joe Batters" Accardo succeeds Nitti as the day-to-day boss of the organization, while Ricca gets a prison sentence. July 9–10 – The Allied invasion of Sicily (Operation Husky) ends August 17 in an Allied victory. Sicilian Mafia boss Calogero Vizzini allegedly helps the American army during the invasion. In the US, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) had recruited Mafia support to protect the New York waterfront from Axis Powers sabotage since the US had entered the war in December 1941. The ONI collaborated with Charles "Lucky" Luciano and his partner Meyer Lansky, a Jewish mobster, in what was called Operation Underworld. The resulting Mafia contacts were also used by the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) – the wartime predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – during the invasion of Sicily. Popular myth has it that a US Army airplane had flown over Vizzini’s home town Villalba on the day of the invasion and dropped a