On the smog-filled streets of industrial Birmingham, groups of ‘Peaky Blinders’ earned a reputation as Britain’s most feared gang, terrorizing anybody who stepped in their paths with bats, blades and whatever else they could get their hands on. They ruled the UK’s second city until the turn of the century. Led by Anglo-Irish prizefighter Billy Kimber, what followed them was even more fearsome. The ‘Brummagems’ forged alliances with London crews, robbed the rich and ran Britain’s ultra-lucrative horse racing courses. They couldn’t hold the throne for long. Italian Londoners and a long-suffering Jewish bookmaker helped launch the ‘Racecourse Wars’ of the 1920s, pitting brutalized World War I veterans against each other in mob clashes the likes of which the country had never before seen. Decades later Kimber and his Birmingham boys would be immortalized in the hit TV show Peaky Blinders. But the truth may just be stranger than the fiction.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices