Escapes
How 38 IRA Members Pulled Off the UK’s Biggest Prison Escape
During the height of Northern Ireland’s “Troubles” in the 1970s and ‘80s, the British government incarcerated hundreds of Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) paramilitaries inside the notorious Maze Prison. Touted as Europe’s most secure penitentiary, the Maze was thought to ...read more
‘The Great Escape’: The Audacious Real Story of the WWII Allied Prison Break
The mass escape of 76 Allied airmen from a Nazi POW camp in March 1944 remains one of history’s most famous prison breaks. Although the German Luftwaffe designed the Stalag Luft III camp to be escape-proof, the audacious, real-life prison break immortalized in the 1963 movie The ...read more
7 Infamous Alcatraz Inmates
A list of the most renowned inmates at Alcatraz federal prison reads like a who’s who of 20th-century criminals. They range from Prohibition-era gangsters like Al “Scarface” Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly to ‘70s Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger and Harlem drug ...read more
Alcatraz Escapes: 14 Breakout Attempts from the Island Prison
Ever since Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary opened as a maximum-security lockup in 1934 on a desolate island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, officials touted it as “America’s most secure prison.” During its nearly 30 years of operation, inmates put that reputation to the test ...read more
How Al Capone Spent His Time in Alcatraz
To Americans of the 1920s and ‘30s, he was the notorious gangster Scarface Al, Public Enemy No. 1. But when he arrived at Alcatraz in late August of 1934, Alphonse “Al” Capone took on a more humbling name: Prisoner 85. As Prisoner 85, Al Capone led a very different life from his ...read more
Was the Escape from Alcatraz Successful?
It was one of the most ingenious prison breaks of all time—if it worked. In 1962, inmates and bank robbers Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin vanished from Alcatraz, the federal island penitentiary off the coast of San Francisco. They had used sharpened spoons to bore ...read more
8 Remarkable Prison Breaks
1. The inmates who fled The Rock in a raft made from raincoats From 1934 to 1963, the U.S. penitentiary on Alcatraz Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay housed some of America’s most notorious criminals, including Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly and James “Whitey” ...read more