On the evening of April 21, 1986 -- 39 years ago this month -- Geraldo Rivera hosted a live, two-hour special from the basement of the defunct Lexington Hotel on the South Side of Chicago called The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults. Rivera and his producers speculated they’d find untold secrets and treasure, perhaps even the corpses of his gangland rivals, in the hidden space beneath the hotel that Capone had made his headquarters. Instead, they found nothing. A few old bottles and a lot of dirt.
HISTORY’s Moment in Media: The Al Capone Vault Special That Changed TV
