8 of the world’s most amazing real-life jailbreaks (and what to learn from them)

Today, Alcatraz Island is a National Historic Landmark that serves as a tourist attraction, but was a prison at the time. beast— a seemingly inevitable prison on a rocky island in the middle of San Francisco Bay.

Back in 1962, three die-hard criminals escaped “The Rock” in what is perhaps the most famous prison escape in American history. Whether they gained their freedom or died in the attempt is an open question.

On the night of June 11, 1962, after months of silent preparation, the four prisoners placed a lifelike head made of toilet paper and paste on the bunk, pulled the grate from the cell wall, The service slipped into the hallway and climbed the stairs. Climb the ventilation shaft to the roof of the prison, down the drainpipe to the ground, climb two razor wires over his fence, travel to the blind spot of the prison’s searchlights, where they inflate their homemade raft, San Francisco. I paddled out into the bay. I saw it again.

Guards didn’t realize they were gone until morning.The gypsum heads bought them time.And after an extensive search in which the remains of their raft and lifejackets were discovered, the FBI They concluded that the man most likely drowned. , there were numerous other semi-credible but unconfirmed sightings of the man.

lesson: The importance of planning ahead cannot be overestimated.