Timetravel

Alcatraz is best known as the infamous island prison a mile offshore from San Francisco, California. But before being used to incarcerate the likes of Al Capone, Robert “The Birdman” Stroud and “Machine Gun” Kelly, it was an army fort, which went into service in 1859 and was later turned into a military prison.

Rising costs saw the army depart in 1933. A year later, after modernisation, it reopened as Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, until closure in 1963. Now a top tourist draw, it gets more than a million visitors a year. If you’re ever in San Francisco it is, as they say, an inescapable experience. NT