Stuff You Should Know - How Alcatraz Works

Episode Date: November 15, 2011

Sure, you've heard stories about Alcatraz. From high-profile escape attempts to tales of notorious inmates, the Rock is unique in American history. But how did it actually work? Join Josh and Chuck as they explain the Stuff You Should Know about Alcatraz. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid for it. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. That makes the stuff you should know the podcast, the audio version, because we have a video version, baby. Yeah, we thought videos once a week now. No, no, no. I mean, we have like a video version of our podcast that has rules. It's like a game show. Remember the stupid game show that we hear? Yeah. Yeah, that one. That's coming soon. It'll probably be out by this time on the website.

I think it published in our you and me time right here. I think it publishes next week. Okay. In the time that we're in people's earbuds right now. Yeah. It published already. So go to the video section of how stuff works and search in the video section stuff you should know and you'll be able to find that. And it's not an audio version of what we do. It's a totally different. Yeah. It's like a couple of minutes long new content that you've never heard. Loose, fun. It's not that fun, but it is definitely loose. Yes. You'll like it. And if you don't, again, it's free. Yeah, free. Also, you can find us on Twitter. We have fun on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is syskpodcast. We're front loading this one. Yeah. Okay.

And then on Facebook, we're almost to like 50,000 friends on Facebook buddies. You could call them. And you can listen to us on WFMU in the New York Metro area at 90.1 FM and in the Hudson Valley at 91.1. I believe so. And that's Friday evenings at seven. At seven o'clock. Yeah. We love WFMU and we're very proud to be a part of that station. Yeah. Our buddy Ken over there just takes one classic episode and another classic episode and makes them kiss like Barbie dolls. That's right. And puts them into like an hour long version. All right. Let's get the biz wax. Plugfest out of the way. Oh, we have two audio books. One on the economy, one on happiness. You can find them on iTunes. Yeah. Super stuff guides. Yeah. It's okay. You ready now? Yes. Chuck. Yes. You heard

about this Occupy Wall Street Jam? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're shutting it down here and there. Are they? I thought they were generally keeping it as long as it stayed contained in Zuccotti Park. It was relatively okay. Well, I mean, in different cities, they're like they cleared them out of Atlanta yesterday. Oakland, they teargassed them. Teargassed and stun grenades. Yeah. And apparently when they came back, they teargassed them again, sun-grenaded them, and the Occupy Oakland people are like, we're going to come back every day. And the cops, they're like, we're going to stun grenade you every day. We got lots of stun grenades. Did they clear out Atlanta? What happened? They cleared out Atlanta overnight last night, I think, but I don't know if people are going to

come back or not. That is so shady to clear it out overnight. It happens. Apparently so. Well, Occupy Wall Street in particular is doing pretty well. It started September 17th and as of today, October 26th, it's been going on for 39 days, which is substantial. Sure. I think a lot of people are surprised that it's been going on this long. Yeah. But as long as 39 days seems, it's got nothing on the occupation of Alcatraz that took place starting November 20th, 1969, and lasted 19 months. The Red Power Movement? Yes, Red Power. Basically, this was, you've heard of AIM, the American Indian Movement, the one that Marlon Brando helped out by having, what was her name, Little Feather, except Oscar. Yeah, I think that was her name. This started that. This is largely

credited with starting that. So, on November 20, 1969, a guy named Richard McKenzie, who was a, I think he was a Mohawk. No, I'm sorry. Richard Oaks was a Mohawk. He led an occupation that took over another occupation, basically, that had started like a couple weeks earlier, and basically just sat in with about a hundred people on Alcatraz and said, hey, we think this should be a cultural center for Native Americans, and we think it should be the site of an Indian University as well. And we're going to stay here until you meet our demands. And they did. And one of the key ingredients of this was that it was inner tribal. There was more than one tribe. It wasn't just the Mohawks who were doing this, which made it groundbreaking as far as the Indian

movement was concerned. And it lasted for a while. It had its ups and downs. And basically, it was ultimately co-opted by the dirty hippies in San Francisco across the Bay who started showing up and doing drugs openly in the prison. Now, granted, you don't get too many opportunities to take acid on Alcatraz, but they ended up eroding the occupation severely. That's right. And there was a basis for that, even. The Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 said that all retired, abandoned out-of-use federal land shall be returned to the Native people from whom it was acquired. And since Alcatraz, the prison, had shut down in 1963, it was declared a surplus federal property. And so they said, you know what? We'll give you 47 cents an acre,

which is what you bought it for. So we'll give you $9.40 for Alcatraz. Nice. And they said, no, let's bring in the Coast Guard. Well, for a while, it was tolerated again, 19 months. But then in January, 1971, two oil tankers collided in San Francisco Bay. And although it was clearly established that the lighthouse, which is no longer working on Alcatraz, because of the movement, had no part in this, it was enough so that public sentiment was like, get those guys out of there. So Nixon was like, get them out of there. Yeah. They shut down the power, shut off telephone service, a fire broke out, and then it dwindled down to about 15 people. And that was small enough

to where they could just go in and say, come on. Yep. Five women, four children, six unarmed men. And Richard Oak's 13 year old stepdaughter, unfortunately, fell to her death during the middle of this occupation. Yeah. Three, three stories down, because she probably fell from a cell block because they were three tiers high. That's right. So this is just one major event in the history of Alcatraz, one of many. And Alcatraz itself dates back at least, well, far before this, as far as Europeans are concerned, Alcatraz's origins began in 1775. But let's talk about the Native American use of Alcatraz before then. I got one more interesting fact for you. I want to hear a young Benjamin Bratt was one of the no with his mother and

sisters. No way. Benjamin Bratt of TV's Law and Order fame. Yeah. Wow. He was one of the kids. That's awesome. All right. So taking Alcatraz, let's go back in time to the Native Americans. There was some rumors that it was actually a prison for them as well, where they would exile those who broke tribal law. But historians say that might not be the case. They probably just went there looking for eggs. Right. So a lot of birds there. Pelican eggs specifically, because the word Alcatraz is an Anglicization, I think that's right, of the word Alcatrazis, which means pelicans. Organic. Organic birds, though. That's what I didn't get. Well, we're going with pelicans. That's what I've heard. But Alcatrazis, which was given to the

island by the Spanish explorer Don Juan Manuel de Ayala in 1775 when he sailed into San Francisco Bay. One of the coolest Don Juan's. He was pretty cool because he was like, it is on the site that a decree here and he will eventually play. That's right. Yeah. That was my Don Juan Ayala. Very nice. Very nice. So that was the earliest history that we know of, even though it's not written down. In 1847, there was an official survey of this island, which we should mention is the top of a mountain because San Francisco Bay used to be a valley. Pretty much all islands are tops of mountains. Yeah. When you get down to it. Yeah. But I like how Grabbinowski was like, no, I'm just coming out and saying it in this one. Lieutenant

William H. Warner of the U.S. Army was like, hey, this is a really prime location here in the bay to stage munitions and to have a defense position. So let's construct a building here to guard against the Confederate soldiers. And I don't really think about it. You know, it's your north and south, but forget about San Francisco out there. Yeah. Being a part of the Civil War. Oh yeah. Especially with the gold rush going on out there. Anybody who controlled San Francisco controls substantial amount of gold. Yeah. So it's a big deal. But despite the fortifications that were eventually built there and the guns that were brought there, the Citadel is what they called it. But it is not to be confused with the school. Right. The guns were fired a couple

of times, but never in battle. It was always like a case of mistaken identity. Yeah. Like what was that? Yeah. Or everybody who was stationed on Alcatraz got drunk and just fired him off out of boredom. I suppose that could happen. Eventually, people started being sent to Alcatraz. If you deserted and were caught or you're a court marshal, then it didn't go so well. You might end up on Alcatraz, especially if you were stationed around there. And the guy who was the head of the fort, they're basically was like, well, we have a basement. I guess we can start keeping people in the basement. It's a brig now. Build a couple of cells here or there. And then all of a sudden, it became very apparent. Not only is it a great spot for a garrison, it's a great spot for a

prison. Yeah. Because Chuck, there's a lot of aspects to Alcatraz that make it a very attractive prison location. It's an island. Sure. It's a rock. Yeah. There's a prison on it. And the water is very chilly. Yeah. And it's infested with great white sharks. And that's the word everyone uses as infested. I don't know if that's, is it infested? That's what everyone uses. Even San Franciscans are like infested. They make it sound like you jump in and you will be attacked by a great white shark. Have you ever seen the movie Piranha? Yeah. It's like that, but with great white sharks. I saw the remake the other day, by the way. How is it? It is kind of awesomely, gruesomely awesome and funny. Is it an homage to the first one? Yeah. I mean, it's way

over the top. And it's one of those that's so over the top. It's like, well, this is kind of fun. Have you seen Hobo with shotgun? It's not good. I have a feeling it's sort of like that. Yeah. There's way, way over the top and awesome for that reason, too. But have you seen Piranha 3D? Remember, they fly eventually. Yeah. The spawning? Yeah. You know who wrote that, actually? Benjamin Bratt. No. Amazing writer, filmmaker, John Sayles. Yeah. That was one of his first writing jobs in Hollywood was writing Piranha 3. The spawning, I think. Crazy. Yeah. You know, Roger Ebert wrote... Did we talk about that in the Exploitation films? Yeah. That's my go-to. Well, you should say that. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

All right. Back to Alcatraz. I'm sorry. Back to the Citadel. Post-Civil War, there was a big earthquake in San Francisco in 1906. And so they had to actually bring 200 regular civilian prisoners out to Alcatraz. And, you know, the military at that point was like, you know, it's really expensive. We don't really need a military prison anymore. So let's tear the Citadel down. Jagger Hoover said we need a big deterrent and a big scary place. So why don't we use Alcatraz and make that a regular federal penitentiary? Penitentiary? Well, that was in the 30s. In 1912, they said the Citadel, we do need a military prison. Or if we're going to do it, let's do it right. Oh, right. And they tore the Citadel down and built the

military prison. They built, actually, the technical name was the United States Military Prison Pacific Branch Alcatraz Island. Right. That was in 1912. But then, like you said, they were like, this is really expensive. You got to bring in everything from the San Francisco area. Yeah. Everyone knows how expensive cheese is in San Francisco. Right. And they're like, hey, Mr. Jagger Hoover, look over here. And he did, right? He did. He said, I'm trying to crack down on all these bootleggers and all of these chippies. And I need a prison that's going to just scare people. Just the name of it's going to scare people. And I'm in love with my assistant. And we're going to use Alcatraz because it is, again, a perfect prison.

That's right. So that happened. Ownership was transferred in between 33 and 34. And they brought the first regular civilian prisoners over to stay. In secrecy. Yeah, I wonder why. I think that's a good way to start off the worst prison in the country. Okay. They're secretly transporting prisoners there. That makes you feel like you can be stolen out of your house at any moment. All right. So that is the history of the island and the origins of the prison, aka part one. Now starts part two. Thank you, Chuck. Yes. Part two begins with... Oh, let me stop you first. By the way, did you mention that lighthouse? That's the very first lighthouse on the West Coast.

Is that right? And they rebuilt it and it still operates today. Yeah. They actually had to rebuild it because they started building up San Francisco and the lighthouse is like, I can't see. It's foggy. Yeah. And there's sharks everywhere. Help. And so they tore it down and built it again in 1909. And now it's bigger and it's unobstructed. That's right. All right. So modern day, or more modern day at least, Alcatraz. We mentioned it's a mountain, top of a mountain. It's very rocky and... Well, they call it the rock for a reason. Yeah. There's not a lot of plant life growing there. It's not some beautiful island getaway. No. Almost all the plant life that grows there was brought in by construction crews over the

years who were like, God, we need a tree or something here. We need a boxwood or something. And so they started bringing in soil and shrubs and trees and planted a few things here or there. Yeah. Few of those things found purchase. It's just a dead piece of rock. Yeah. Which just adds to the gloom and the dismalness of it, right? Which actually plays a part in the end of the great, great, great movie, Escape from Alcatraz. That is a good movie. Remember you saw the little flower on the shore? Yeah, that's right. Any new flowers like this here? Yeah. So Alcatraz, Josh, was built to accommodate 600 cons, but it only held about 300. And at the time in 1912, it was really innovative because first you had the island as, hey,

you can't escape from the island. So why bother trying? Then they had cell blocks within the concrete wall. So it was for the first time, cells within cells almost. Right. You didn't have a window looking out to the outside from your cell. No, no, no. So yeah, if you wanted to get your way out of there, you had to make it through the wall of your cell and then the outer wall. That's right. They also had metal detectors, which were pretty much new, brand new at the time. And rather than the key, like they had the green mile, they had the levers, the lever system to open cell blocks, like they had an escape from Alcatraz. Yeah, which was a big deal because you could do that remotely. You didn't have to go to the cell

where you're vulnerable. They also reinforced all the iron with hardened steel. It was called tool-resistant because you couldn't cut through it. Just slur it a little bit. It was like me because you couldn't cut through it with a hacksaw. And apparently it cost as much to install those as did to build it in the first place in 1912. Yeah, 200K. Just for the steel bar. So the average, the typical cell was something like five feet wide by nine feet deep. And there were concrete walls. How big is this in here? Oh, this is like two cells. I think if you go like this, it's like two cells going that way. Yeesh. All three, three of the four walls were made of concrete. And then the fourth wall was the steel tool-resistant bars. That's right. The fourth

wall, you didn't want to break that. People thought you were corny. You had a little bed, you had a little turlet. You had a couple of shelves in the back to put your stuff. You had a little, they call it a desk. It was really just a sort of a little fold down. It was very small. Obviously, everything was small. And that was it. That was it. No duvets, no breakfast in bed. You can imagine this is pretty bad in and of itself. But that's A block, B block, and C block, right? That's right. There was also D block. And D block was where, if you were in trouble, they sent you. They called that the treatment unit. Yeah, it was the inhumane treatment is what they should have called it. Yeah, they had, I think, 14 or 15 cells in D block. And that was

solitary confinement. And then you had cells nine through 14 was the hole. And those were the ones with the iron doors where you had no light. And then they had a one cell that apparently was the worst of the worst that just had a hole in the floor to go poo poo and pee pee. And you were usually naked if you were in there. And not for any good reasons. That's where the Birdman stayed the whole time. Really? Yeah, he's on D block. Really? Yeah, apparently you couldn't be in the hole for more than 19 days. But the Birdman, Robert Stroud was in prison for 54 years and 42 years of that were in solitary confinement. Can you imagine, dude? I can't. They're not rehabbing that guy. And I'm not making a big political statement, but 42 years in solitary.

That was just straight up punishment. I think that that was the best Alcatraz movie ever, Birdman and Alcatraz. No way. Yeah, have you seen it? Yeah, dude, Bert Lancaster. Yeah, it was good. He didn't have any birds in Alcatraz though. Did he really spend? Yeah, he did. What are you talking about? It's like you're crazy. He had, there were no animals all out there. He had that came from Leavenworth prison. And when he got to Alcatraz, there were like no more birds for you. Oh, I thought he ended up keeping birds anyway. No. And that's probably why he was in D block the whole time. Let's go with that. Okay. Well, then why would they call him the Birdman of Alcatraz? Because he was already a Birdman when he went to Alcatraz? It's a movie. The same

reason they fictionalized Murder in the First with Kevin Bacon. We'll get to that. Yeah. In prior to the construction of D block, you would just be held in the dungeon, which is in the basement of the original Citadel, which is where the first prisoners ever to be kept on Alcatraz were kept. It's probably not a fun place. No. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy, number one, is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes,

they can do that. And I'm the prime example. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil asset for it. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. From Wall Street to Main Street and from Hollywood to Washington, the news is filled with decisions, turning points, deals, and collisions. I'm Tim O'Brien, the senior executive editor for

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So Chuck, you said that there was no breakfast in bed. There was breakfast, and that came every day after you swept yourself. Then you lined up for inspection, and you went down for breakfast. That's right. Then after that, you went to work. 20 minutes. 20 minute breakfast, huh? 20 minute for each meal. I could do 20 minute breakfast, that's leisurely. That is true, it is leisurely. So you'd be sent to the laundry, maybe if you were the book guy, you would be sent to the library. A lot of dock work, lots of unloading and loading of things. And also, they manufactured stuff on Alcatraz. They manufactured brushes and brooms, but little known fact, these things by law could not be sold on the open market, only to federal

agencies, because the government didn't want to flood the broom and brush markets with cheaply made goods. So government buildings were swept with Alcatraz brooms? Yeah, interesting. Yeah. Did not know that. The walkways they named, the central walkway was between the cell blocks, was Broadway, because they had a flare for the dramatic. They named them after New York streets, Park Avenue, Michigan Avenue, and Broadway. And then Times Square was between the mess hall and the cell blocks. Right. And overlooking all this on either end was a very important station called the gun gallery. And it was enclosed in bars and mesh, and there's where you will find some of the only guns, aside from the towers in Alcatraz, where these armed dudes had a very

clear shot and line of sight of the whole place. Yeah. But the guards didn't carry guns, or keys, or handcuffs, because that was a risk. But they illegally carried these things called saps. It was like a metal baton and a leather strap. It's a blackjack. Yeah. And they weren't supposed to have those, but they had those. Yeah. And then after a hard day of work of being eyed by guys in the gun gallery, you would have dinner, lights out at 9 30. 20 minutes. And then ovens, mowers. And then the thing is, Alcatraz, thanks to J. Edgar Hoover, had a really crazy reputation for being like the hardest place ever. Yeah. But everything we just described, you're going to go through generally in any prison in the 30s through the 60s. Sure. But Alcatraz did differ in some

ways. Specifically, it was extremely, especially at its beginning, it was extremely rigid in its discipline. Like there was literally no talking for most of the time. Prisoners weren't allowed to speak out loud. Yeah. Except for designated times, I think like 20 minutes a week. I don't know. That sounds about right. And they, if you did speak out loud, you went to the dungeon or deblock later on. Did you have no talk in school, elementary school? I don't remember if we did. They would do that in the cafeteria. Sometimes we had these flags. And if things were getting rowdy or they were, whatever, they were mad at us, they would say, you know, you're on no talk and they'll put up the red flag. And it was the worst. It was awful. Yeah. Especially for me,

I was just like, I'm to say things to my friends. Yeah. Yeah. They actually said the dining room's the most dangerous place in Alcatraz. I would imagine. Because you got all the cons in there and they had, have you ever been? No, I'd like to go. They have on the wall in the dining room, they have a, where they kept the knives, the knife rack. They had silhouetted outlines in the shape of each one. So if one of them was missing, you would see what's missing immediately. So there's no sneaking out of butcher knives, even though they had that stuff there. John Lithgow on Dexter had that for his tools. Oh yeah. That was a great season. Yeah. They did have visiting hours. Or should I say visiting hour? You got one visit a month. Had to be immediate family or an approved

visitor. And you could only talk about personal matters. You can talk about the prison or life there. And there was of course no contact whatsoever. Like they wouldn't like put you in a room with them. Yeah. They'd be like, no touching. Yeah. No touching at all. Alcatraz also was a little different in that people lived on the island, which isn't all that different. I think most prisons have an area around them where the guards live. I didn't know this. But with Alcatraz, it was like you live on the island. Your family lives on the island. Your kids take a boat to school every day. Crazy. And back. If you want a grocery shop, if you want some smokes, whatever, you take a boat and back. If you use up your razor and you need to shave, you throw your old razor in the bay.

Yeah. Same with used utensils. I'm sure after they're worn out, not from washing. Like every time they just throw their fork in the bay or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah. And the kids weren't allowed to have toy guns for really good reasons because they didn't want a convict getting their hands on one and then pretending that they were going to shoot a guard with a cap gun. Yep. And magazines had to be carefully patrolled because they didn't want prisoners looking at sexy things or reading about current events at all. Or sex or crime. Those are two things that the prisoners were not allowed to read about, which came into play with your buddy Robert Stroud. What? The Birdman? Yeah. What do you mean? He was not allowed to read his biography because it had

chapters of his criminal past. So his biography came out and he wasn't ever allowed to read it. That's sad. He had a pretty sad life. What did he do? He moved to Alaska and took up in the pimping industry with one particular lady of the night. He went to go protect her at one point from this dude who didn't pay her. A scuffle broke out and he was killed and he turned himself in with the gun and said, here I did this, but took the money from his wallet, which I think trumped it up to a more serious charge. But it was originally manslaughter. So he probably would have been okay if he hadn't gone to prison and been such a jerk. When he got to prison, he was one of the most violent inmates anywhere he went. Oh really? And that just kept adding time and adding time

and he kept shuffling them around until he ended up in Alcatraz. But Bert Lancaster says that he wasn't like that. One thing the Gravster did not mention was the wreckyard where you could go, I think, for an hour a day if you're a good boy and an hour a week if you're in solitary. And they had handball and horseshoes and chess and checkers and backgammon. And you were allowed to play hearts, cribbage, and that is it for card games, even though it says they played bridge using dominoes. And you could see from the wreckyard, you could see San Francisco, which they said it was the biggest psychological crippler of all is you could see the stuff going on. And they said every New Year's at the yacht club would have a party, a big, big party. And if the winds were

blowing right, you'd actually hear like music and ladies laughing and stuff like that, which was just torture or a lot of fun. Yeah. Like listening to something at least spirit. Yeah. You know, Al Capone was there. Did you know that? That's what I hear. So Al Capone was there. You got the Birdman of Alcatraz and it has the reputation of being the worst of the worst. The worst prison where the worst of the worst are housed. That was, you know, Al Capone was a pretty big criminal. He was a pretty big nab for the G men. But it was a federal prison. And it was early on in the history of the federal prison system. So people who really probably didn't belong there sometimes ended up in Alcatraz. You could be sent there for shoplifting in a store that had a post office

branch. Made it a federal crime. If like, you know how like you like to bring fireworks into Georgia a lot. Oh yeah. Well, had that been bootleg liquor and had you been caught, just, just bringing in like a fifth. Yeah. You could have gone to Alcatraz. So it wasn't all murderers and gangsters? No, it wasn't. It had a very surprisingly normal history as far as prisons go, federal prisons go for the time. Yeah. But it also had a very fearsome reputation and some of it was earned. Yeah. Capone didn't have a very good time there though. No, he had syphilis and he was crazy and used to cry like a baby. Plus he had it made in the prison before apparently he was still running his ops. Yeah. And they got to Alcatraz. No, no, no, no. It's not happening here. So you want to

talk about escaping from Alcatraz? Yeah, I did want to mention too. You did get cigarettes. You got packet smokes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, whether you smoked or not. Oh, yeah. That's a currency right there. Yeah. I would smoke I think if I was in prison. Would you? Yeah. Something to do, man. Yeah. And you're like, I don't know. I think at that point I tried to be, I tried to shorten my life. Yeah. Anyway, I could. There's faster ways than smoking. That's true. More efficient ways as well. So escape. Yeah. It happened. Yeah, there have been plenty of attempts, but at least two were possibly successful, right? So the first attempt was two years after the prison started. I think when you still weren't allowed to talk, this guy was like, I can't take it anymore.

And he ran and jumped on the fence and was shot and killed. So that was pretty easy. That was the first escape attempt. Yeah. What, two years after that? No, the next year, two prisoners got out and they escaped and they think that they drowned, but they're not sure. Because they never got bodies. Yeah, right. But the place is infested with great white sharks. That's right. I'm sure they were eating alive. Yeah. Then Henry Young, we talked about the movie Murder in the First with Kevin Bacon. 1939, he tried to escape with three other ones, three other inmates. They were found on the beach. So they did get out. One was shot and killed. Another one was wounded and young and Rufus McCain were probably near hypothermia and were collected back into prison. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think Young, Stab, McCain, the next year to death in the workshop. But if you see the movie Murder in the First, it is highly, highly fictionalized. Yeah, Kevin Bacon was never in prison. It's not very close to the real story. So don't take it. It's a good movie though. No. And the trial of Henry Young definitely brought attention to the treatment of prisoners in Alcatraz and the public outcry. He may still be out there. He broke parole. He was released in Washington and skipped parole and just disappeared. He's probably not out there because he was in prison in 1939. They said he'd be in his 90s. Crazy. My grandmother lived to be 101. Well, if you're Henry Young, we want to hear from you. Yeah. Please let us know.

It'd be great. We want your deathbed confession. That'd be sweet. Did I ever tell you that I wrote about D.B. Cooper? I wrote an article, a brief article about him. One of the guys who I cited as possibly having been D.B. Cooper, his widow emailed me. It was not him. It wasn't him. I'm like, that is pretty cool. People have asked for that podcast. Is it media enough, your article? Yeah. And there's enough research and stuff that's happened since. It was like a five-minute podcast. Do you want to redo that one? We actually did that one. No, no, I didn't see it. It was pretty you. I'm sorry. I know. Cheater. Do you want to? Yes. Okay. We will. That brings us to the most famous escape attempt and possibly escape from the great, great movie, Escape from Alcatraz,

which was really pretty accurate. Clint Eastwood. I don't know. No, man. It was pretty accurate. The paper mache job that they did. Have you ever seen the real head? Yeah. It was nowhere near. So we're talking about Clarence and John Anglin, two brothers and played by Fred Ward and some other guy. And Frank Morris, played by Clint Eastwood, worked a couple of years on their plan to get out of Alcatraz. And they chipped away at the wall, which was at that point rotting somewhat from salt water and salt air. Yeah. Well, probably not water. And they chopped away holes big enough to get out. They made a little false facade that looked like the grate in there anyway. It was like painted cardboard that they would pull to behind them when they went out in the

conduit area behind the walls. So they go behind the walls, which is where they kept all their stuff. They fashioned raincoats together to make a crude sort of a life raft that they could blow up. They made paper mache heads that they put in the bed every night so they could go work. And think about how tired they were because they couldn't sleep the next day. Yeah. They must have gotten them. I wonder how they figured out a schedule like, okay, we can do this X number of hours every night or else we're going to lose our minds. Yeah. But I imagine it's like, should I be tired or should I escape from Alcatraz? Well, when you escape from Alcatraz, you want to take your time. Do it right. As they proved, though, because one night,

finally, everything was finished and they went up to the roof through this little conduit area and hopped the fence and made their way out into the night and were never heard from again. That's right. And they found, apparently, these mythbusters, have you heard of them? Yeah. They apparently did in the first season. They tried to recreate it because they live in San Francisco, right? Yeah, they're up there somewhere. So they tried to recreate the escape and they did it, which I guess kind of shows that it is possible. Sure. Especially if you were going to go back. I can imagine they had all the incentive in the world to make that happen. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Eight months after that escape, there was a Norwegian ship

discovered a body that they said resembled Frank Morris. But years later, they found this body, dug it up, did DNA testing and found it wasn't him. And the FBI closed the case in 79. And then years later, I'm sorry, this year on a station called Nat Geo, they had a special called Vanish from Alcatraz and there was new evidence where they discovered a raft on Angel Island with footprints leading away and a report of a stolen car in the area that night, which could have been those guys. Crazy. And they confirmed these facts and that they were hidden from officials for a long time. And as a result, the U.S. Marshals Office said, you know what, we're going to keep the case open until these guys are supposedly 100 years old and then we'll close the case.

Well, that's great. Good for the Marshals. If they live to be 101, we'll just give it to them. Yeah, you know, then they can come out. Exactly. Yeah. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy, number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss y'all.

The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. Cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. From Wall Street to Main Street and from Hollywood to Washington, the news is filled with decisions, turning points, deals and collisions. I'm Tim O'Brien, the senior executive editor for Bloomberg Opinion. And I'm your host for Crash Course,

a weekly podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart Radio. Every week on Crash Course, I'll bring listeners directly into the arenas where epic upheavals occur. And I'm going to explore the lessons we can learn when creativity and ambition collide with competition and power. Each Tuesday, I'll talk to Bloomberg reporters around the world, as well as experts in big names in the news. Together, we'll explore business, political and social disruptions and what we can learn from them. I'm Tim O'Brien, host of Crash Course, a new weekly podcast from Bloomberg and iHeart Radio. Listen to Crash Course every Tuesday on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So what else you got?

That was it. I mean that escape and the deterioration of the prison physically pretty much meant the end of Alcatraz. They're like, it's really expensive to operate if dudes can escape from here. Kind of the whole point of being here in the first place was it was escape proof. So it's just a drain on our funds. So let's just shut it down. Nice. And now it's a tour. Yeah. It's starting in the 70s, right? 71, 72, something like that. Yeah. Well worth your time.

And Alcatraz is not alone. There are other Alcatraz islands or Alcatraz-like islands throughout the world. South Africa has Robin Island, Tasmania has Port Arthur, and there's one that- Tim Quentin, right? Isn't that an island? Rikers Island? Yeah, you got Rikers Island. There's a bunch of them. The one that I found that was really interesting though is in Norway and it's called Bostøy or however you pronounce the O with the slash through it. The Nullset?

Yeah. Bostøy is- it doesn't have any bars. No doors are locked. There's no guns on the island, so the guards aren't armed. The guys farm their own food. There's a little grocery store. When they get there, they're given 500 Kronen. I believe it's Kronen. Kroner to spend at the supermarket and basically get themselves started. And that's it. That's the prison. It's basically like a little commune where you're free to live your own life and hopefully undergo some sort of reformation. But there's guards? There are, but they're not armed. The only gun on the whole island is in the warden's office

and it's a statue of a bronze statue of a pistol. And the warden says he has no idea where it came from. It predates him. I kind of like the Escape from New York plan. Yeah, that's a good one. Where you just throw them on the island and build up big walls and just leave them to work it out. That's kind of what they're doing with Bostøy, but it's a little more hippy than Escape from New York. Are they drug offenders?

Probably. Well, they're Norwegian, so not too much violence there, and if it is, it's just like one guy, you know? That's it. That's Alcatraz, baby. Scary place. It's chilling. There's ghosts, apparently. Yeah, I didn't look into that. I didn't either. I'm sure there's, you know, I'm sure there's ghosts there. Dozens.

If you want to know more about Alcatraz, see a picture of Robert Stroud, who is a little birdlike himself in appearance. And well, this is just a good article all around. If you want to go over it, you can type in Alcatraz. Not Alcatraz, this is Alcatraz in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com, which means now it's time for listener mail, friends. Yeah, this is an old one. It's been sitting in the queue. It's about ethnobotany. Remember that one? Yeah. That's a good one. Guys, I'm an undergraduate chemistry student who has been a long time listener to your

awesome podcast. You guys asked about synthesis versus extraction in the Ethnobotany podcast, so I thought I'd clear it up for you. Extraction is often more difficult than synthesis, because when one extracts something from a plant, one also has to worry about separating the desired component from the rest of the plant, since a plant is an organic material. Separating, he wrote that by the way, separating one organic compound from another is often very difficult. Whereas if you use synthesis, one could use polar and nonpolar solvents to manipulate the process for easy separation, kind of like how oil and vinegar will separate

one left alone. And lastly, syntheses are constantly being updated because of more efficient and faster reactions. The less steps in a synthesis, the better the end yield, the better the yield, the happier your boss is. And that is from Evan, and he says, PS, I forgot to mention that an extracted product and a synthetic product will show no chemical difference. Very interesting. That's excellent. Thank you for clearing that up. That was Evan? Yeah, very interesting. Thanks a lot, Evan. Is he an anthropologist and ethnobotanist? I think he's a gym teacher. Chuck, we got a pretty good response from our call out for

autumn treats, whether they be cocktails, hot toddies, desserts, breads. What have you? That was nice. I think we should do it again. And I think we should compile them eventually once we get enough into like maybe a stuff you should know, autumn cookbook or something like that. That sounds great. I will undertake that with forward by Paula Deen. Anyway, if you have a great autumn treat, whether that be drink or food, we want it, you can email it to us at stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com.

Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join How Stuff Works staff as we explore them as promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Or are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil answer.

Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola, qué tal mi gente. It's Chiquis from Chiquis and Chill Podcast. Welcome to the show. I talk about anything and everything. I did have a miscarriage when I was 19 years old. And that's why I'm a firm believer and an advocate of therapy and counseling. The person that you saw on stage, the person that you saw in interviews, that was my mother, offstage.

Apple bagname every Monday on my podcast, Chiquis and Chill, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.