The origin of Lupine, the thief who has inspired so many works of fiction

Arsene Lupine

Before going into talking about the origin of the thief Lupine , it is clear that there are a good number of characters who have already become myths and immovable icons of our cultural landscape and have given rise to all kinds of incarnations. Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Dracula ... all of them have had numerous adaptations to the small or big screen, and some with impressive twists to their main plots, or even asking us what their stories would be like in a completely different setting. 

In the world of robberies and the white glove we also have several star characters, of course. But today in particular we are going to tell you about Lupine, a most interesting thief who has served as inspiration for all kinds of fictional works. In fact, the beginning of the year has been warm for the Lupine myths, since this month both Lupine , the French Netflix series starring Omar Sy, and Lupine III: The First , a new anime film, have arrived in our country based on the manga of the legendary Monkey Punch and which opens today in our cinemas.

To get to the heart of the whole matter we have to go back to 1905, when the adventures of Arsène Lupine , a thief and a gentleman, began to be published in the French magazine Je sais tout by Maurice Leblanc . The character began his literary career with a series of short adventures, which were later compiled into small volumes, giving rise to a good number of novels and longer stories, with up to 24 published books starring Leblanc's Lupine and even several works by theater officers.

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The writer could not choose a better time to introduce his character, since just a few months before the publication of the first Lupine story , the trial took place against Marius Jacob, an anarchist worker who had carried out more than 150 robberies both in Paris and surroundings as abroad. The arrest and trial of Jacobs had French society on edge, with the press spreading more fire and fueling the scandal. This thief became an idol of the masses, since apparently he had a great sense of humor and a lot of empathy and generosity towards his victims. 

Thanks to how popular the figure of Jacob had become, a multitude of people came to demonstrate in his favor, with which the thief managed to escape from the guillotine. Jacob's methods, like his personality, were one of the key points for Maurice Leblanc to create his Lupine , with whom he also tried to replicate the success that Arthur Conan Doyle had had with his Sherlock Holmes by raising the most brainy cases in serialized form.

In fact , the relationship between Lupine and Holmes went further , since Leblanc was a big fan of the British detective so he decided to include him in his own stories, creating the definitive crossover of the moment.  The thing was not very funny on the other side of the English Channel and Doyle appealed legally, with which the name of the detective became " Herlock Sholmes " in the reissue of the first story and in subsequent stories (take legal hole! ).

Besides, Lupine was not a "vulgar" street thief.  He was quite a refined gentleman, with a monocle and a top hat, with notions of fencing, medicine and law, who also knew ancient languages ​​and even sleight of hand and jiu-jitsu and had a superior intellect that allowed him to solve any mystery. Come on, there was nothing Lupine couldn't do.

On this basis, it is not surprising that the character of Lupine made the imaginations of all kinds of creators fly, even giving rise to several authorized sequels. Of course, Lupine has also had his adaptations to theater, comics, manga, video games, television series and movies, the most recent in 2004 with Romain Duris as the thief.

As if the "canon" material was not enough, more than one author has not missed the opportunity to use it in their stories, since Lupine has also appeared as a secondary or making a cameo in all kinds of creations, with an important mention of all those who decide to take advantage of the salseo with Sherlock Holmes and bring the two characters together. Of course, it is very possible that Lupine III , the fictional grandson of Arsène Lupine created by Monkey Punch, is one of the most appreciated derivative works and that he has also managed to carve out his own stellar reputation as a white-collar thief.  

And for you? What is the best version of Lupine?

Edward VIII, commoner for the love of a woman

After only 325 days on the throne, the King of England abdicates to marry his great love, the American Wallis Simpson. Edward VIII is content to be the Duke of Windsor and passes through the vicarage in an intimate ceremony without the assistance of members of the royal family

Wallis Simpson y Eduard VIII en Nassau, Bahamas, en 1942

The British royal house has been distinguished by its intransigence towards those of its members who have departed from the strict and traditional protocol of behavior that is imposed like a stone. Outside doors, not the slightest slip is allowed (Diana is the paradigmatic case). But this intolerance was even suffered by a sitting king, Edward VIII (1894-1972) , George V's eldest son, whose frivolity had set off alarms before he ascended to the throne.on January 20, 1936. His dilettantism and, in particular, his affair with the commoner and divorced American Wallis Simpson, made the royal family and everyone around them uncomfortable, both in Buckingham and Downing Street. His reign imploded when he announced his firm decision to marry "Mrs. Simpson." God save the queen ... Elizabeth.

Edward VIII

You all know the reasons that led me to renounce the throne, but I want you to know that by renouncing my rights I never forget my country and the Empire, that as Prince of Wales and as King I have always served faithfully.

But you must believe me when I tell you that it was impossible for me, without the help and support of the woman I love, to bear the heavy burden of responsibilities and fulfill my duties as king. '

With these words, Edward VIII, King of the United Kingdom, the dominions of the British Commonwealth and Emperor of India announced to his people his decision to abdicate in order to marry the American citizen Wallis Simpson. The determination is still as amazing today as the day he announced it with this speech.

Eduardo was a handsome man, whose rank, jovial demeanor and singleness had made him a very popular character. His irresistible appeal to the opposite sex made him a compulsive womanizer. His love affairs and reckless behavior had preoccupied his father, King George V, and Prime Minister Baldwin in the 1920s-1930s. It was this last year that the king gave Edward a home, Fort Belvedere. This became the scene of his conquests. In December 1933 one of his lovers, Lady Furness, an American of Chilean descent, introduced him to Wallis. Divorced in 1927 from her first husband, she was now married to Ernest Simpson,an Anglo-American businessman. The crush was imminent. A short time later they became lovers. Defined by the famous photographer Cecil Beaton as an “attractively ugly” woman, the power that her strong personality wielded on the prince is undeniable.

Eduardo was the great-grandson of Queen Victoria. From his birth he was known as His Highness Prince Edward of York, until in 1910 his father granted him the title of Prince of Wales when he was 16 years old.

Poorly educated, he had withdrawn from a naval career before graduating and left Oxford after eight terms without receiving any academic credentials. His biographers point out his low intellectual preparation, and his contemporaries already called his conversation innocuous. But his natural rebellion, and independence were undeniable.

After the death of his father George V on January 20, 1936, a day after Edward VIII ascends the throne, he is 42 years old. Deeply in love with Wallis, he breaks royal protocol by seeing her proclamation from a window in St. James's Palace in her company while she is still married.

Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor (1894 - 1972) and Wallis Simpson (1896 - 1986) pose on their wedding day at Chateau de Conde, France.

This is the beginning of the end of his reign. On November 16 of that same year, he announced to the Prime Minister his desire to marry Wallis once she had been divorced. Baldwin, scandalized, informs him that his subjects would not accept the link, given the civil situation of his fiancée: the people would never tolerate Wallis as queen. Keep in mind that Edward as king is the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and it condemns his marriage. Also rejected the possibility of the morganatic marriage, the conflict between Baldwin and Eduardo intensifies. We will never know if the minister took advantage of this situation to get rid of the immature monarch. Finally the spirit of the Victorian society wins, and despite the support of great personalities such as Winston Churchillabdication becomes effective . Eduardo thus goes on to star in one of the shortest reigns in contemporary history, only 325 days on the throne with no time even to celebrate his coronation.

Following his abdication, Edward becomes the Duke of Windsor. On June 3, 1937, he married Mrs. Simpson in a private ceremony. The new King George VI prohibits the royal family from attending it. Relations between them were always tense. The marriage is exiled to France and the new king threatens to cut the economic support to the couple if they return to Britain without prior invitation. The Duchess of is denied the treatment of Royal Highness.

The behavior of the dukes has always been questioned, the seemingly idyllic love story repeatedly censored over time.

They were branded as philonazis following an interview with Hitler in October 1937. As a veteran of World War I, the duke supported the policy of appeasement. After the war the Duke would admit in his memoirs: "The Führer seemed to me a somewhat ridiculous figure with his theatrical postures and his bombastic pretensions". In 1995, a documentary on Channel 4 television, together with the left-wing English press, condemned him without remission, accusing him that his contacts with Hitler stemmed from his desire to regain the throne.

In 1940 Eduardo and Wallis fled France , visiting Spain, (Barcelona) and Portugal. Destined to the Bahamas by Churchill, the Duke of Windsor served as governor there until March 1945. He allegedly conducted illegal currency trafficking deals, with which he amassed a considerable fortune.

After a hectic social life and without being able to reconcile with the royal family, cancer would end his life on May 27, 1972, he was 77 years old. Wallis, his great love, would outlive him 14 years. There is no record that Eduardo ever regretted his decision and, without a doubt, his surprising love story earns him a unique position in the history of twentieth-century royalty.

The Octavius, the legend of the ghost ship that was sailing for 14 years

 

The ghost ship that sailed for 14 years

In the 18th century, the world of navigation began to obsess over a challenge: finding the Northwest Passage . The era of the discovery of continents or lost islands had already come to an end and, at that time, one of the great objectives that remained pending at sea was to find a way that, bordering North America, would connect the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific by a short route . However, this would require crossing the dreaded Arctic Ocean , where ice and icebergs complicated the mission. Many ships embarked on the adventure without success.

Possibly, the best known case is that of the Terror and the Erebus , two vessels that were trapped in the Arctic ice in 1845 and were not located until 2016. The main problem that this route had was crossing the Strait of Lancaster , a very narrow strip of water that could only be crossed in summer because, at the time when the cold entered , the freezing temperatures turned the water into a block, impeded navigation and ended up causing the ships to be stranded in a desert of icewhere its crew members ended up dying due to the lack of drinking water and food, thousands of kilometers away from any civilized point. It is precisely in this context that the legend of the Octavius ​​appeared.

This schooner would begin its journey on September 10, 1761 , when the ship left London for China . Commanded by Captain Hendrick van der Heul - who was a former general of Captain Kidd - it took several months to reach the Asian country. Once there, he loaded his holdings with the aim of returning to the UK ... but he never did. Several months later, when the ship had not returned to London, inquiries began to try to find out what had happened to it, but no one knew anything at all , only that it had reached its destination and that it had departed back to the British Isles.

In this way, the Octavius ​​disappeared sometime in 1762, but no one had managed to find its trace. In principle, the original route of the ship only proposed a round trip from London to China, with no other objectives than to make a commercial exchange quite common at that time . However, the surprise would come 14 years after the boat had disappeared. It was October 11, 1776, when another vessel, the Herald, was fishing in the North Atlantic when, suddenly, their lookout could observe another boat approaching them.

The lookout told the captain, Alex Warren , what he was seeing, at which point the ship's chief executive tried, unsuccessfully, to discover which ship it was. His surprise came when he observed that it was a schooner, a rather unusual boat for the area, as it was a boat with three masts and numerous sails that it was not very common to see in an area where cold and ice were common. Thus, the general decided that his ship would approach, but when they shouted from the deck, they received no response. It was a bad omen for the crew, as 'National Geographic' says .

Practically beside him, both Warren and the rest of the crew could see that a good part of the deck of the ship was frozen , with the hull badly damaged and with broken sails. Thus, they decided to send a small advance on a barge to see up close what had happened. When they arrived at the ship, those fears came true: the 28 sailors who made up the crew were lying on their bunks , covered by numerous blankets, but all of them died from frostbite. They then went to the pantries, where they saw that all food and water supplies had been depleted.

Before leaving the ship, Warren went to the captain's cabin in search of the log book, where some explanation of what had happened could be given. But in that cabin there were four more bodies: a woman hugging her son, a man with a flint and a metal bar, and the captain himself, sitting in a chair in front of his logbook, still with his pen in hand . In view of what had happened, the captain ordered one of his men to pick up that little book to analyze it more calmly from the Herald itself, setting that advance party towards his ship.

But the surprises were not over. When the captain carefully reviewed the notebook, he discovered that it only had the first and last pages , but there was enough information in them: the ship was making the route between China and the United Kingdom, but then what was it doing lost there? Indeed, it was the Octavius, something confirmed by the dates in the logbook: the first page had been written on September 10, 1761, that is, the day he began his trip to China and the last one was written on November 11, 1762 , in which he claimed that the ship had been stuck in the ice for 17 days and that the situation was catastrophic.

Or, put another way, the ship they had just found, that is, the Octavius, had been missing for 14 years . Perhaps they had decided to try to find the Northwest Passage on their way home and, even if they did not know it, they had actually achieved their goal posthumously . To this day, experts debate whether the story is real or just a legend, but, be that as it may, it encouraged numerous boats to later try to find the Northwest Passage. It would not be until 1906 when Roald Amundsen succeeded, opening a route that until now had been impenetrable. Except for the Octavius, though his crew never found out.

I’m an Auschwitz survivor – what happened in the Holocaust must never be forgotten

 My name is Freda Wineman and I survived the Holocaust. I start by sharing my name because the Nazis attempted to take that from me. They tattooed me with the number A.7181, they tried to take everything that made me human. They murdered my parents, my brother and countless other members of my family. But I lived to tell my story.

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. On this day we remember the six million Jewish men, women and children – my friends, family, and neighbours among them – who were murdered simply because they were Jewish. For me the day is especially significant as it marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the place where my life changed forever.  

I was born in 1923, in France. It was a normal, happy childhood with my parents and my three brothers. In 1939, as the Second World War was looming, my entire town near the German border was evacuated and we moved around, settling in St Etienne near Lyon. Life became increasingly difficult, for Jews in particular. In 1944, my mother approached a convent to see if they would hide us. They agreed, but it was too late. We were arrested and sent to Drancy transit camp. 

From Drancy, my entire family was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where we arrived on 2 June 1944. As soon as we arrived, a doctor stood on the ramp and assessed us all to decide who would be sent straight to the gas chambers, and who would be worked for a little longer before being killed. A prisoner came up to us all and started whispering that the older women should take the babies. She told my mother to take the baby of a lady standing next to her – a stranger. She did. She was sent to one side with my brother, Marcel. The baby’s mother and I were sent to the other side. We were told that my mother would be looking after the children, and not to worry. 

A large group of Jews, escorted by soldiers of the SS, are taken to a concentration camp before the eyes of the crowd at the roadside. Berlin, 1934

It was a lie. My mother and my brother were taken to the gas chamber. My mother carried the stranger’s baby with her.  

I was disinfected, tattooed and sent to work. At first, I was digging trenches before being selected to work in the Kanada Kommando – the work unit that was responsible for sorting through the belongings of the new arrivals. We worked in a large warehouse, very close to the gas chambers. I was later sent to dig trenches outside the crematoria, where I witnessed bodies being burnt, all whilst surviving off a daily diet of thin soup made from rotten vegetables and a crust of bread if we were lucky.

In late 1944, I was taken by cattle train to Bergen-Belsen. From there I was sent with 750 other women to Raguhn, a satellite camp of Buchenwald concentration camp, where I worked in an aeroplane factory.  

As the Allies advanced, I was once again put on a cattle train and sent to Terezín in Czechoslovakia where I was eventually liberated on 9 May 1945.  

After liberation, I learned that my parents and my youngest brother Marcel had been killed at Auschwitz.  

Eventually, I was reunited with two surviving brothers. I was lucky, I was no longer alone. I married in 1950 and made my home here in the UK. I have two daughters, six grandchildren, and seven great grandchildren. I survived to share my story today.  

I know I cannot go on sharing forever, but what happened in the Holocaust must never be forgotten. The world should always know what happened to us. 

When I speak in schools I ask students to tell their friends and family what they have heard. I say that in the future, if they ever hear anyone question what happened, they should tell them that they heard Freda Wineman, and she survived the Holocaust. I ask them to be my witnesses. Today, I ask the same of you. Please share my story. Please be my witness.  

President Biden: the challenge for Trump to hand over the "nuclear suitcase" without meeting him

 

The nuclear briefcase travels everywhere the president of the United States goes.

It is one of the least publicized moments, but one of the most symbolic and important of any presidential transition in the United States.

For almost six decades, during the inauguration of the new president on January 20, overshadowed by fanfare and ornaments, two soldiers in dress uniforms have been waiting behind some pillars for the moment of the swearing-in.

One of them, who has generally accompanied the outgoing president on most of his trips, carries with him a heavy black briefcase which, when the clock strikes noon, he will hand over to the other officer, who will be in charge of loading it for the new commander in chief.

It is the so-called " black box " or " nuclear briefcase ", a metal-reinforced suitcase that accompanies the US president everywhere in case he needs to launch an atomic attack while away from the White House.

Since it was first used during the John F. Kennedy administration, the carry-over of the suitcase has been a key, albeit discreet, part of US inauguration ceremonies.

However, this year the simple process of passing a suitcase from one hand to another implied an unprecedented logistical challenge: for the first time in more than a century, the outgoing president was not at the inauguration of his successor.

According to the protocols, Trump was to have the nuclear briefcase on hand until noon. But at that time he was already 1,500 km away, in South Florida ... Very far from Biden, who should also receive him at that time.

But there is no single case of this type, experts say, and there are others ready in an emergency for exceptional situations.

Shortly before the inauguration ceremony began, a military man was seen entering the Congress headquarters with a nuclear briefcase in hand, as reported by journalist Mike DeBonis, a congressional correspondent for The Washington Post newspaper.

In case outgoing President Donald Trump still had his, his access to the nuclear codes was also disabled at noon on Wednesday, January 20.

Most of the time, the briefcase is no more than ten feet away from the President of the United States.

An unusual solution

Concerned about how the handover of the nuclear codes would take place, the Pentagon recently responded that it had a plan for "Inauguration Day," but declined to provide details.

However, several experts and scholars explained the possible scenarios in which such an unusual situation in the history of the United States could be resolved.

During a Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation event, Stephen Schwartz, an expert on the nuclear briefcase for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, explained that, contrary to what many people think, there are actually at least three such suitcases. .

One is the one that accompanies the president, but there is another list to be given in an emergency to the vice president or the "designated survivor" (the cabinet member who is appointed to take office if for some reason all the leaders in the line die presidential succession).

Schwartz considered that the Pentagon could use one of these briefcases - or prepare a new one - to hand it over to Biden and activate it the moment he took possession.

At that time, Trump's nuclear command and control authority expires, so his card that gives way to the nuclear codes would be deactivated.

"If an aide with the briefcase accompanies Trump on Air Force One to Florida, that aide will leave Trump's presence at noon and return to Washington with the briefcase," Schwartz told CNN.

How is the actual process?

And it is that while the issue of the nuclear briefcase and its uses have fascinated millions of people over the years, what many do not know is that the nuclear codes and the keys that allow the president to be identified as such to give the order of an attack are not in the suitcase.

The key to triggering a nuclear attack is on a small plastic card that the incumbent president keeps in his pocket.

It is known as "code of gold" or "cookie".

The president must tear it in half to verify his identity when he contacts the War Unit at the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Defense Ministry, to authorize an attack.

On the morning of the inauguration, the new president and vice president receive instructions on how to use the briefcase and the future president receives the car.

Kennedy was the first president to have a nuclear briefcase at his disposal.

According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , the Pentagon generally deactivates the outgoing president's cards at noon on inauguration day, while the new president's card goes live.

Thus, at 12:01 PM on January 20, in the hypothetical case that Trump wanted to launch a nuclear attack, he could not do so, whether or not he had the briefcase, and neither could Biden at 11:59 AM.

Fears that Trump could launch a nuclear strike prior to his departure from government raised concerns following the uprising on Capitol Hill earlier this month.

Then, the leader of the House of Representatives Nacy Pelosy, contacted the headquarters of the Department of Defense to ask them not to follow Trump's orders in case he activated the codes before leaving the White House.

What does the briefcase actually contain?

As Bruce Blair, a retired member of the US nuclear launch team, previously explained to the BBC, contrary to popular belief, the nuclear briefcase does not contain a button or codes to automatically launch a nuclear weapon, but protocols For the attack and the team you need to communicate with the higher-ranking advisers.

"In the briefcase there is also a graphic war plan, in a single sheet the objectives, the number of dead and the weapons at disposal are specified. So it is easy to understand the dimension of the situation in a few seconds", said Blair.

Biden's inauguration will differ greatly from traditional ceremonies, including the handover of the nuclear briefcase.

Inside the briefcase are not only the codes to launch an attack of mass destruction, there are also two books.

One contains a detailed explanation of the types of nuclear attack that can be carried out and another a list of " safe places " for the US president and his family to take refuge.

Many of the times that the briefcase was seen, an antenna was noticed coming out of it: it is the telecommunication system to establish a direct line with the Pentagon.

Trump’s last day in office perfectly immortalised in this brutal cartoon

 

President Donald Trump’s term has come to an end and his departure from the White House is imminent.

The New Yorker magazine’s latest cover has bid goodbye to the outgoing president with a depiction of Trump being carried away by a bald eagle, which is a national symbol of the US.

President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration is taking place today.

Trump leaves office as the only president to be impeached twice.

The most recent vote in the House of Representatives, on the incitement of insurrection, was taken a week after the US Capitol building was stormed by his supporters.

Congress had been in the process of certifying Biden’s victory at the time.

The outgoing president has repeatedly disputed, without evidence, the results of the 2020 election.

Artist Barry Blitt’s illustration for The New Yorker is called: “A Weight Lifted”.

Many social media users praised the new issue’s cover and shared memes in response.

It follows Blitt’s previous illustrations documenting the president’s administration for the magazine.

The Terrifying History of Russia’s Nuclear Submarine Graveyard

 

In the icy waters north of Russia, discarded submarine nuclear reactors lie deteriorating on the ocean floor—some still fully fueled. It’s only a matter of time before sustained corrosion allows seawater to eat its way to the abandoned uranium, causing an uncontrolled release of radioactivity into the Arctic.

 

For decades, the Soviet Union used the desolate Kara Sea as their dumping grounds for nuclear waste. Thousands of tons of nuclear material, equal to nearly six and a half times the radiation released at Hiroshima, went into the ocean. The underwater nuclear junkyard includes at least 14 unwanted reactors and an entire crippled submarine that the Soviets deemed proper decommissioning too dangerous and expensive. Today, this corner-cutting haunts the Russians. A rotting submarine reactor fed by an endless supply of ocean water might re-achieve criticality, belching out a boiling cloud of radioactivity that could infect local seafood populations, spoil bountiful fishing grounds, and contaminate a local oil-exploration frontier.

 

“Breach of protective barriers and the detection and spread of radionuclides in seawater could lead to fishing restrictions,” says Andrey Zolotkov, director of Bellona-Murmansk, an international non-profit environmental organization based in Norway. “In addition, this could seriously damage plans for the development of the Northern Sea Route—ship owners will refuse to sail along it.”

THE TRUTH YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN TOLD ABOUT ALCATRAZ

 Alcatraz prison was and is one of the best known in the world. It was a maximum security prison where they took very dangerous prisoners or that generated many conflicts in other normal prisons. It was an impregnable fortress on an island and many have been those who have tried to flee from it without success, even perishing in the attempt. But what nobody knows is that one day in June 1962, there was an escape of three prisoners that could be fruitful.

The letter In January 2018 the San Francisco Police Department received a shocking letter. They did not know if it was an absurd joke or if it was real, but they could not ignore it as if nothing, they had a duty to investigate it in case it was true what that surprising note said. This forced an investigation to be reopened together with the FBI. The letter began by saying: "My name is John Anglin, in June 1962, my brother Clarence, Frank Morris and I escaped from Alcatraz ..."

An unexpected turn Everyone at the police station was stunned. Was what that letter said was real? For years the case of the three men who escaped from Alcatraz has been a mystery to the police and to the people. At that time the guards declared that that night the three brothers died in the icy waters while trying to escape. So who was that letter from? Was it fake? Did the guards lie? Perhaps now the whole truth of what happened that night would be revealed.

A stronghold Alcatraz was designed so that no one who entered there could leave. It was an impregnable fortress and anyone who tried to escape died trying. There they held the most dangerous criminals in the world, those who were dangerous even to other criminals. So the slightest possibility that three of those criminals could have been free since 1962 was a fact that no one liked or thought about. That letter was to be taken very seriously. The truth is that it was actually received in 2013 but it was not until 2018 that the police gathered enough evidence to reopen the case.

The escape Many inmates had tried this before and none were able to escape from Alcatraz prison. They devised all kinds of stratagems and plans to achieve it but no case was successful. Except, it seems, this one by the Anglin brothers and Frank Morris, how would they do it? Would they have someone from within on their team? The master plan was premeditated and more than studied but they risked being shot or drowned ... perhaps anything was better than being in there.

Who were The Anglin brothers, John and Clarence along with Frank Morris were serving life sentences at Alcatraz for murder and multiple armed bank robberies. Before reaching Alcatraz, they were together in an Atlanta jail from which they were transferred for bad behavior. There was a fourth man, Allen West, with whom they planned the escape. The four men had adjoining cells and they spent a lot of time together planning everything.

Frank Lee Morris Frank Lee Morris was orphaned at the age of 11, since then he was bouncing from one home to another, no one loved him because of his bad behavior and he committed his first crime at age 13. Since then, his criminal record has not stopped growing and growing, armed robberies, assaults, drug trafficking, etc. He has been through many prisons until he ended up on Alcatraz. He was the mastermind of the escape, he devised absolutely everything with his brilliant mind, since Frank had an IQ far above average. He really was a genius, but he misinvested his greatness.

Recidivist Frank committed all kinds of crimes before reaching Alcatraz, violent robberies, drug trafficking, assaults and a long etcetera. For all this, he stepped on many different prisons in different States of America, and from one of them he managed to escape. They did not catch him and he was in hiding for a decade without committing a crime, but it seems that Frank had it in his blood and he could not avoid robbing a bank again. From there, they locked him in Alcatraz, what they did not know is that from there he would also escape.

John and Clarence Anglin John and Clarence Anglin were two brothers in a family of 14, born in Georgia and later moved to Florida with the whole family to work as temps in the fields with their parents. From a very young age, they began robbing gas stations and later banks. They have been through the Florida jail and the Atlanta jail, where they met Frank Morris and Allen West. The four were transferred to Alcatraz together. The team was already complete

Survival Skills From a very young age, they have been able to take chestnuts out of the fire by themselves. In such a large family, everyone had to work and contribute their bit, either in the field or at home doing the chores. John and Clarence have always been the rebels of the family and they went their way. When the family went north to pick cherries, both brothers would escape to Lake Michigan for a swim. This made them great swimmers, what they did not know is that this would help them later escape from the most hermetic prison in the world.

The Full Team The four criminals coincided serving sentences in a federal prison in Atlanta. Each had their own abilities and all four had matched each other perfectly. The best thing he had was the brain described as super gifted by Frank Morris, with an IQ of 133 and which the same police called "Artist of escapism", since he had already achieved it on 2 other occasions. The group devised a plan to escape from Atlanta but this time they were caught and sent to Alcatraz. From there they would devise a new plan to escape from what is known as "The Rock"

Materials Needed It was time to begin collecting the necessary material to carry out the plan. They had to be very meticulous in their actions, stealthy and skillful so as not to arouse suspicions among the guards or among other inmates who could sneak in. They began to save all kinds of instruments that came to their hands doing jobs in the prison factory such as hooks, picks, pieces of raincoats and even hair from the barbershop ... Why would they want hair?

Rompers Everything had to be perfect and calculated with great precision since Alcatraz was not like other prisons. They did not beat around the bush there and if you tried to escape you would receive a guaranteed bullet. For this reason, no one should be suspicious and when leaving someone should take their places in bed. Someone or something ... The four prisoners were taking hair from the barbershop to make some dolls with plaster of the wall and water! They would leave these dolls in their beds and if someone looked out they would think they were still there.

Ingenuity And Dexterity And it is that when one wants something, one manages in any way to get it. They made the dolls in the most realistic way possible, using pieces of plaster from the wall, toilet paper, wax, and water, plus real human hair stolen from the barbershop. They built an inflatable raft with pieces of raincoat glued together and modified an accordion to be the inflator. A whole display of manual skills. Each had their mission and their tasks were perfectly distributed among them.

The First Works Everything was ready to begin the work to escape from La Roca. Each of the members of the escape group removed the cover of the ventilation duct and began to dig with picks or whatever they had on top to enlarge the hole and sneak each one through the duct of their cell. Every night, very stealthily, they repeated the same operation until the hole was big enough to get into.

Bad Conditions In Your Favor There were many conditions that worked in favor of the four prisoners and that is that the prison was already very old and was quite run down. Being located on an island above the sea, humidity and saltpeter were very present everywhere. Sea water was used for showers and to clean with the consequent deterioration of pipes and walls. It was easy for them to dig as the walls had become brittle and were falling apart on their own.

Music Teacher The excavation work was not done at night as it usually appears in the movies, no, it was done in the middle of the day, since at night the noise of scratching and removing debris would be heard too much. They worked during the day but how did they do it so as not to be discovered by the noise? Well, very simple, the prisoners were entitled to one hour a day to listen to music or play an instrument. Well, Frank Morris played the accordion at full volume for an hour while his cronies dug.

The Gallery Behind Just behind their cells there was a series of galleries that were not used and that could lead them without much problem directly to the roof of the prison. They only had to go through the wall of their cell through the hole they had dug in the ventilation ducts. Once there they would only have to climb three floors stealthily to reach the top and from there access the roof.

The big day The most desired moment had arrived, for months they had been digging in the wall to make a hole large enough to fit through there, they had also made a raft and some life jackets with raincoats and raincoats to avoid drowning in the icy waters of the river. sea. A very hard work that was finally going to pay off. If they could get to the third floor, there they could access the roof.

All prepared It was time, everything was ready to start the escape, everyone had to give themselves a signal in code that meant that their hole was ready and they could leave that night. The four criminals gave each other the respective signal and the escape began. Everything was planned to the millimeter, they had calculated everything so that nothing failed, once they were out of the cell they did not know exactly what they were going to find but before they got there, something failed ...

Fears and Insecurities The plan was underway, when the lights went out they had to wait exactly one hour for everyone to be sleeping and they would go out through their respective holes. They were a moment of great tension and insecurity since everyone who had tried before them had died in the attempt. In Alcatraz the guards did not beat around the bush and if they saw you running away they would shoot you without thinking. That was why they were very nervous and scared but he had a life sentence, and it was well worth the try.

Something is wrong They had all made their respective signal that they had finished their hole to escape. The moment arrived, the lights went out and after an hour the escape began. John, Clarence and Morris left without any problem, they were already on the other side and only West was yet to appear, but something was wrong ... West did not appear, they did not understand what was happening and after waiting a few minutes, they decided to leave him behind. Apparently West thought his hole was big enough for him but he had miscalculated and it wouldn't fit.

Sacrifice for Others West could have started digging what was missing from the hole quickly but then he would give himself away and betray the others, so he did nothing, resigned himself to having done it wrong and stayed in his cell. On his part, it was very hard for the rest of the team to leave one of their own behind, but what could they do for West? The smart thing to do was get out of there as soon as possible.

Leaving at last The remaining three of the escape team began to climb the gallery pipes to reach the ceiling, it did not take much work. Once upstairs they had to open a skylight window to go outside, once outside, they had to go through the entire roof of the prison without making a single noise until they reached the exterior pipes that lead to the ground. They descended through them and once down they positioned themselves strategically so as not to be seen and to be able to inflate the raft to leave the island.

Escaped It wasn't until the morning that the alarm was raised when three prisoners were missing. By then John and Clarence Anglin and Frank Morris might already be miles apart and no one had noticed that they had escaped. Fran Morris, the aptly named "Artist of Escapism" had done it again, and also had been crowned with the escape from the toughest prison in the world and from which no one had ever managed to escape.

Did not give up Despite being left behind, Allen West did not give up and began to dig when he calculated that his companions would no longer be in danger, he finally managed to get out of there but unfortunately his companions had already left on the raft and jumped into the sea without her it was to die for sure. So he gave up and turned around, he returned to his cell as if nothing had happened, assuming that he was going to be there for life, and also now without his companions, with the uncertainty of whether they managed to escape or they would be dead.

Alarms Sounded In the morning all the inmates of the jail awoke from a boat upon hearing the deafening alarms. The news had already been given that three prisoners had escaped. The guards turned the entire prison upside down looking for them in case they were still inside. All this of course, without success. When they realized that there was one who did not succeed, they interrogated him until they got all the information, Allen West collaborated and told the agents everything.

Lied West told the agents all the details of the plan, that they would go to the island of Los Angeles in the raft, there they would steal clothes and a car and then they would separate. But officers did not report any vehicle theft in the days after the escape, so one in two, either West lied in his statement, or the three inmates had failed. At that time, a Federal investigation was opened to clarify the facts and find the fugitives.

Hot showers During the time they spent in prison, they realized that the water in the showers was much hotter than usual, and it was all designed on purpose so that the inmates were not used to bathing in cold water in case they escaped. The water in the California bay was very cold and the distance would prevent them from reaching the shore without first dying of hypothermia. During the investigation, several of the three prisoners' belongings were found, but not their bodies.

Investigation Closure After many years of investigation, without any type of relevant evidence, no one could find any clue or any body or the escaped prisoners, in December 1979, 17 years after their escape, the FBI closed the investigation concluding that the prisoners had been drowned in the bay of California. What nobody knows is that there are indications that this was not the case and the three managed to escape.

Letters To your Family For years, the Anglin family claims to have been receiving anonymous letters and postcards. Researchers and experts have collated the handwriting on these letters and postcards and determined that the handwriting is theirs. In them, the place of referral or anything similar is not specified, so it is not known if they really belong to the Anglin brothers. In 2015, History Chanel released a documentary about the Alcatraz escape with the help of the Anglin brothers' nephews, who were trying to find their uncles.

Confessions Before the release of the documentary, the family was discouraged from continuing to search for the prisoners as the burden of the law could fall on them even though the case was closed, but the family did not give up. Another proof that the group managed to escape is the confession made by one of the 12 Anglin brothers on his deathbed, claiming to have had contact with his brothers until 1987. They even had a photograph of them in Brazil, which was examined by experts and concluded that it was most likely them.

Where were you? But although there was evidence that they were alive, the whereabouts of the three fugitives was a mystery that was finally revealed in the letter that John Anglin wrote to the police in 2013 and that caused the case to be reopened. In it, Anglin assures that he was in many places but most of the time he lived in Seattle, that Frank Morris was buried in Alexandria under another name and that his brother had also died. In that letter he also explained that he was very ill with cancer and that he would give himself up in exchange for medical assistance.

I was next door One of the most shocking things about the letter is that John claimed that his last years until the day of writing the letter, would have been living in California, he was right in the State where he escaped and no one had noticed, but of course, they had passed Many years old, John was 88 at the time and would be an old man who no longer had anything to do with the young criminal who achieved the feat of escaping from Alcatraz.

He proposed a deal John Anglin claimed that he was very ill with cancer and proposed a deal to the police to give him medical assistance. In the letter he said that if they assured him that he would only go to jail for one year and they gave him medical assistance, he would tell them exactly where he was. But the agents had to first make sure that the letter was real and was not a joke. The matter was serious and should be previously investigated.

Inconclusive The letter was automatically sent to be examined in search of any trace of DNA or fingerprints, and the writing of that letter was also checked against other letters that the prisoner wrote during his time in prison. After many tests, the content of the results was revealed and they determined that they were not conclusive. The FBI gave no further explanation and it could not be verified whether the letter was actually from John Anglin.

Without truce As the results were not conclusive, the letter was not validated and it was published in many newscasts that it was false, but it seems that the letter led to the investigation into the whereabouts of the three prisoners and that the police finally found him. place where John Anglin died at 99 years of age, but this is just urban legends that run around. There is no legitimate evidence that this was so.

Five years later The alleged letter from John Anglin was received in 2013, but this was not known until 5 years later when the police decided to make it public and aired it on television on a CBS channel in San Francisco, the KPIX. But why had the police been hiding it? Could it be that they really found John thanks to the letter and deceived him and did not accept his treatment? Or that they published it when John finally passed away and they knew exactly where he was? All of this will always be an unsolved mystery.

Unknowns With the technological advances, a series of studies were made of how the three prisoners could have escaped and if they could have survived in the conditions of the sea that night and with the homemade utensils they carried. The study concluded that the currents that night would have been very favorable for the three prisoners and that it was highly probable that they had survived. They even made simulations of what they would be like at that time, in case someone saw them.

Closing Alcatraz Alcatraz prison, known as "The Rock" was closed just a year after the escape of John and Clarence Anglin and Frank Morris. The last man to leave there was Jim Albright, who gave an interview for a local San Francisco channel in which they asked his opinion about whether they had survived or not. Jim said it was clear to everyone at Alcatraz that they had drowned and that the letter was from someone desperate for medical treatment.

Day by day Nowadays Alcatraz prison has become a tourist attraction due to the amount of legends and stories that are told about it, it has even been taken to the cinema on numerous occasions and even the story that we have told has its own movie entitled La Leak, starring Clint Eastwood. Today the truth about what happened that night and whether the three fugitives survived or not is still unknown. A story that will stay told forever.