Alcatraz Island Juan Manuel Diaz, who charted San Francisco Bay and named one of the three islands he identified as "La Isla de los Alcatraces," which translates as "The Island of the Gannets" but is commonly believed to translate as "The Island of the Pelicans (Spanish for Pelicans is Pelicanos)," from the archaic Spanish "" ("pelican"). Over the years, the Spanish version "Alcatraz" became popular and is now widely used. In August 1827, French Captain Auguste Bernard Duhaut-Cilly wrote "... running past Alcatraze's (Pelicans) Island ... covered with a countless number of these birds. A gun fired over the feathered legions caused
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary prisons in the country, especially the food, and many volunteered to come to Alcatraz. On December 3, 1940, Henri Young murdered fellow inmate Rufus McCain by running downstairs from the furniture shop to the tailor's shop where McCain worked and violently stabbing McCain in the neck; McCain died five hours later. Young had been sentenced to Alcatraz for murder in 1933, and was involved in an escape attempt at Alcatraz during which the famous gangster Doc Barker was shot to death. He spent nearly 22 months in solitary confinement as a result, but was eventually permitted to work in the