Escape Official

In February 1864, a group of Union soldiers escaped from Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. Filthy and starving, the prisoners had set about finding a way out of Libby – which had become an overcrowded hell hole.

For other inmates, the long months spent trying to pass the time as the American civil war raged between the North and South was too much for them to bear.

But there were two captives that felt a deep sense of duty to bre...

In September 1983, the Irish Republican Army planned and executed a mass escape from Her Majesty's Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. 38 prisoners made it beyond the walls of the Maze, which the UK government had boasted was the most secure prison in all of Europe.

The IRA prisoners were hell-bent on embarrassing the UK government and attracting attention to their cause – to form a united Ireland.

But to fully understand these IRA pr...

A few days after his court hearing, Billy was transported in a red panel truck to the Bakirkoy mental hospital prison facility to begin his 17 days of observation. He and a group of other prisoners were unloaded and escorted into a reception area, where hospital attendants in dirty white smocks took Billy's watch and the 100 lira note that he had to be stored securely. He was then escorted into the grounds toward Section 13, the ho...

Billy lay on the old, stained mattress that sat atop the steel frame bolted to the floor. He'd been imprisoned in a Turkish jail cell since October 1970, charged with drug possession.

Although he had lawyers, his faith in their abilities and in the Turkish legal system had dwindled and was now practically non-existent. No one could tell him how long he'd remain a prisoner, no one knew for certain. But one thing he did know, was tha...

It was March, 1849. Henry Brown, a slave working in a tobacco factory in Richmond, Virginia, was 33 years old. He had it better than most other slaves it was true, but he was still a slave all the same. Besides, there was no telling how long that relative comfort would last. He'd watched too many of his companions whipped and humiliated by their masters and the overseers, then grow into old, broken men, with any potential they had ...

On July 11th, 2015, guards at the Federal Social Readaptation Centre No. 1, made their usual rounds. The Federal Social Readaptation Centre No 1, known as the Altiplano prison for short, is a maximum security prison in Almoloya de Juárez in the State of Mexico. Completed in 1990 and with security features that included 1 metre thick reinforced concrete walls, the Mexican authorities boasted that it was impregnable.

Joaquin 'El Chap...

On September 1st, 1939 World War II erupted in Europe after Germany invaded Poland and the United Kingdom and France retaliated by declaring war. Over the course of six years, Europe watched as German forces expanded their territory both east and west, before the Allied forces turned the tide and slowly forced Germany to retreat.

As the war progressed, tens of thousands of men from both sides were captured by the enemy and sent to ...