August 11, 1934
The first federal prisoners arrived at Alcatraz Island, a former military prison, housed in the treacherous waters of San Francisco Bay. The island would be home to more than 1,500 prisoners over the next three decades, including gangsters Al Capone and James “Whitey” Bulger, George "Machine Gun" Kelly and Robert Stroud, the "Birdman of Alcatraz" before closing in 1963.