Prisons and Convicts Trivia Quiz

Answer: Al Capone

The Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary operated as a maximum high-security prison between 1934 and 1963. Sited on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay, it was thought to be escape-proof and was used to house men who had caused trouble in other federal prisons. Al Capone was transferred to Alcatraz in 1934 and remained there until 1938, when, suffering from syphilis, he was moved to Terminal Island Prison in California.

Answer: Marquis de Sade

Initially built during the Hundred Years' War to protect Paris from the English, the Bastille Saint-Antoine was later used mainly as a state prison by the kings of France. When it was stormed, on 14th July 1789, there were only seven prisoners inside.

The Marquis de Sade, the writer from whose name the words "sadism" and "sadist" are derived, had been transferred from the Bastille only a few days earlier.

Answer: John Bunyan

Bedford County Gaol, now known as Her Majesty's Prison (HMP) Bedford, moved to its current site in 1801. It was previously sited in the centre of Bedford, possibly from as early as 1165, and it was there that John Bunyan is believed to have been imprisoned between 1660 and 1672, and again in 1677, for unlicensed preaching. Bunyan wrote "The Pilgrim's Progress" while in prison.

Answer: Airey Neave

Colditz Castle, situated on a rocky outcrop in Saxony, Germany, was used as a prisoner-of-war camp in World War II for Allied officers who had repeatedly escaped from other camps. Lieutenant Airey Neave was the first British officer successfully to escape from the camp.

He later went into politics and was Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland when he was assassinated by the Irish National Liberation Army in 1979.

Answer: Alfred Dreyfus

Devil's Island was part of the Cayenne Penal Colony, which operated in French Guiana between 1852 and 1953. The island housed French political prisoners, most famously Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who spent nearly five years there, having been wrongfully convicted of selling military secrets to the Germans.

Answer: Ned Kelly

Now a museum, the Old Melbourne Gaol operated as a prison between 1842 and 1929. Convicted of the murder of a police officer, bushranger Ned Kelly was hanged at the Gaol on 11th November 1880, one of 133 executions carried out there.

Answer: Oscar Wilde

Designed by George Gilbert Scott as a new model prison, Reading Gaol opened in 1844. Latterly known as HM Prison, Reading and used to house young offenders, it closed in 2013. Following his imprisonment there for sexual offences, Oscar Wilde wrote "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", inspired by the story of fellow inmate Charles Thomas Wooldridge, hanged there in 1896 for the murder of his wife.

Answer: Nelson Mandela

Situated in Table Bay, Robben Island was used to house prisoners from the 18th century until 1996. Condemned to life imprisonment for conspiracy to overthrow the South African government, future President Nelson Mandela spent 18 years as a prisoner on the island.

Answer: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

Located in the village of Ossining, New York, the Sing Sing Correctional Facility first opened in the 1820s. Over six hundred inmates were executed at Sing Sing by the electric chair. The executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, convicted of espionage for the Soviet Union, were carried out there in July 1953.

Answer: Rudolf Hess

Built in 1876 in western Berlin, Spandau Prison was initially a military detention centre. In the 1930s it housed opponents of Adolf Hitler and after World II convicted Nazi war criminals were imprisoned there. Rudolf Hess, Hitler's former deputy, was Spandau's sole prisoner from 1966 until his death in 1987.

The prison was then demolished so that it could not become a neo-Nazi shrine.