In the first 72 hours after the kidnapping, the radio networks issued 300 bulletins — giving birth to the new profession of news broadcasting. Police forces across the nation mobilized to help. Less helpfully, hundreds of bogus sightings of the baby poured in every day — along with phony ransom demands and letters from cranks and con men offering to help locate the victim.

Of course, the baby was dead from the beginning — either deliberately killed by the kidnapper or dropped when he descended the ladder from the Lindbergh home’s second story. The suspected kidnapper, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, would be tracked down to the Bronx in 1934 by his spending of ransom bills. He was executed in 1936.

The Norwegian oil tanker Varanger was just 28 miles off Wildwood when a German U-boat, the U-130, fired five torpedoes at it. The ship exploded in a roar heard as far away as Atlantic City and sank to the bottom in minutes. Amazingly, all crewmen survived.

By the time the great German sub blitz of 1942 was over, however, 19 vessels had been sunk and 360 people killed off the Jersey Shore. Most, like the Varanger, were easily spotted because they were silhouetted by brightly lit coastal towns, and easily targeted because they failed to sail in protective convoys.  

That didn’t stop rumors from spreading about Nazi spies serving as spotters from the roofs of Asbury Park and Atlantic City hotels, or careless crewmen giving away their position by telling girlfriends of their destination. During this suspicious era, a new slogan came into vogue: “Loose lips sink ships.”

The former New Jersey state senator had vanished while scuba diving in September 1985, not long before he was to be sentenced for his crimes. While authorities investigated a presumed drowning, Friedland had actually fled to Europe with his girlfriend and was living in luxury off money he ripped off from the Teamsters pension fund.

 Friedland’s last-chance offer to avoid justice by converting to Islam (the Maldives will not extradite a Muslim citizen) failed. He ended up serving 15 years in prison.

On Dec. 1, 1933, a federal jury found the Paterson-based bootlegging baron guilty of tax evasion — the second big mobster to be found guilty of that offense after Al Capone.

On Dec. 5, Prohibition was repealed — the end of the golden era for organized crime,

The same day, Waxey’s son, Theodore — the white sheep of the family, then attending medical school — was killed in a car accident.

On Dec. 6, Gordon was sentenced to seven years in prison.

The Republican official had been convicted earlier that year of stealing $140,000 from his partner in a gas-station business and abusing his office by shaking down convicts in drug-forfeiture cases. While awaiting sentencing at home in Montgomery Township, he cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet and went on the run.

Eight days later, Bissell was found by the marshals pointing a gun at his head. After several minutes of negotiations, he finally declared: “I can’t do 10 years,” and blew his brains out.

The erratic Dutchman brought on his own demise with his plan to assassinate prosecutor Thomas Dewey, a move the rest of the crime syndicate feared would bring undue heat upon themselves. To protect themselves, the mob whacked Schultz instead.

Schultz died at Newark City Hospital 22 hours after being shot. Among his last words, spoken in delirium to a police stenographer: “Oh, oh, dog biscuit, and when he is happy he doesn’t get snappy!”