I am in high school, this is for a history essay contest. While I have a large interest in things like the Vietnam War and the Cold War, I feel like those are pretty common topics, and writing about the Mafia would be a really good niche topic for me to explore. There is a theme every year though, and I think next year's will be about leadership, so I guess I could wrap the idea of a mob boss around that. Thank you for the suggestions above. So far, this is my list (no order):

- Commission trial
- The Mafia & WWII
- Building Las Vegas
- Prohibition (something specific involving prohibition)
- The struggle over the creation of 'The Godfather' plus Joe Colombo and the Italian American Civil Rights League (I am reading an 8 pg article on this now, so it'd be hard not to go word for word...)
- The Kefauver Committee


I forgot to mention that the paper would be between 4-6 pages. Not very long, so that makes things a little more difficult.