Frank Sinatra is born

Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, the only child of Italian/Sicilian immigrants Natalie Della (née Garaventa) and Antonio Martino Sinatra.

He left high school without graduating, having attended only 47 days before being expelled due to his rowdy conduct. His mother, known as Dolly, was influential in the neighborhood and in local Democratic Party circles, but also ran an illegal abortion business from her home; she was arrested several times and convicted twice for this offense.

Frank, himself, was arrested for carrying on with a married woman, an illegal offense at the time. Frank's father Tony served with the Hoboken Fire Department. During the tough years of the 1930s, when the Great Depression hit North America very hard, Dolly nevertheless provided ready pocket money to her son Frank, the family's only child, for outings with friends and fancy clothes. Frank then worked for some time as a delivery boy at the Jersey Observer newspaper, and as a riveter at the Tietjan and Lang shipyard. It was in the early 1930s that Sinatra began singing in public.

Singer and actor Frank Sinatra is born in Hoboken, New Jersey. The son of an Italian fireman, Sinatra formed a singing quartet in his teens.