Every year, thousands of inmates escape from prisons around the world. Of these, most just walk away from minimum-security corrections facilities, but other inmates implement complex, ingenious, and often violent schemes in order to make their getaway. Whether the work of notorious outlaws, WWII G.I.s, or 18th century writers, the following are the top 10 most incredible prison escapes.

10.Gerard's Tower Of London Escape

John Gerard was a sixteenth century Jesuit priest who is remembered as one of the only people to ever escape from the notorious Tower of London. Gerard was put in the Tower for carrying out his religious missions during a time when the Catholic Church was under persecution in Elizabethan England. He endured frequent interrogations, and despite never breaking even under torture, he was eventually sentenced to death. Gerard immediately began planning an escape, and was able to communicate with allies on the outside via smuggled notes written in an invisible ink made from orange juice. After one failed attempt, Gerard was able to make his escape when some accomplices rowed a boat into the Tower's moat and managed to get a rope up to him. Gerard almost fell to his death because his hands were so injured from torture, but he managed to climb down to the boat and was smuggled out of England to live out the rest of his life in Rome.

9.Dillinger's County Jail Escape

Legendary 30s outlaw John Dillinger was involved in a number of often violent prison escapes. In 1933, he and his gang engineered a daring escape from a prison in Lima, Ohio after they used smuggled rifles to gun down two guards. But Dillinger's most famous escape of all came in 1934, after he was arrested on the heels of a number of famous bank heists. Dillinger was put in the “escape-proof” Lake County Jail, a prison that was guarded by an army of policeman and National Guard troops. In what has become something of a legend, Dillinger is said to have fashioned a phony gun out of a bar of soap and used it to force his way out of the jail. In his typical brash style, he then stole the Sheriff's brand new Ford and made his escape to Illinois. Ironically, it was this move–driving a stolen vehicle across state lines– that got the FBI on his trail and eventually led to his demise.

8.The Libby Prison Escape

Richmond, Virginia's Libby Prison was one of the most infamous jails of the Civil War, but it's also the site of one of the conflict's most daring escapes. In 1864, a group of 15 Union soldiers under the direction of Col. Thomas E. Rose and Major A.G Hamilton managed to tunnel through the prison's basement to a nearby vacant lot. This was no easy task, as Libby's basement was a dark and vermin-infested cellar known to the men as “Rat Hell,” but after seventeen days of digging, they reached a nearby tobacco shed. From here, 109 soldiers managed to escape into the city of Richmond and make a run for the nearby Union lines. 48 of the men were recaptured, and 2 drowned in a nearby river, but 59 managed to make it to the safety of the Federal army. Their escape remains the most successful prison break of the Civil War. Photo by civilwarbattlefields

7.Casanova's Escape from the Leads

Venetian writer and adventurer Giacomo Casanova is best remembered for being a ladies' man, but he is also responsible for one of the all time great prison breaks. In 1753, after gaining a reputation for debauchery and adultery, Casanova was arrested and confined to the Leads prison, so named because it was outfitted with a lead roof that was designed to encourage stifling heat and make escape impossible. After smuggling a metal spike into his cell, Casanova and a renegade priest confined nearby managed to tunnel through the ceiling of their cells. Once through, they pried open the lead plates on the roof and broke into another room through a dormer window. Using a combination of ladders and ropes, the duo managed to make it to the ground floor, and after breaking a lock and sneaking through the prison corridors, they escaped by gondola into the city's network of rivers. Casanova would later write about the escape in a popular memoir, and though many have speculated that the story may be embellished, evidence from scene of the jailbreak seems to back up his account.

6.Pascal Payet's Helicopter Escapes

Many European prisons have exercise yards on their roofs, a feature that French criminal Pascal Payet has repeatedly used to his advantage. Payet was originally jailed for a murder that occurred during a botched robbery on a security van, and was sentenced to thirty years in France's Luynes Prison. In 2001, he managed to make a daring escape when an accomplice simply picked him up from the prison's roof with a hijacked chopper. Payet even returned to the prison two years later with another helicopter and proceeded to help three other prisoners make their escape, but all four men were re-captured, and Payet was given another seven-year sentence for his role in the jailbreak. Amazingly, in 2007 Payet again escaped via helicopter, this time from Grasse prison in southeast France. He was lifted off the roof by four masked accomplices who had hijacked a chopper from a nearby airport by threatening to kill the pilot. After landing near the Mediterranean Sea, the pilot was released, and Payet and his accomplices have since disappeared.

翻译：郭瑞 来源：前十网