Spartan Gold: King Francois I

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At the bequest of King Francois I, Chateau d'If began its life in the 1520s as a fortress to defend the city against attacks friom the sea...

Francis I   (12 September 1494 – 31 March 1547) was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch. His permanent rivalry with the Emperor Charles V for hegemony in Europe was the origin of a long and ruinous military conflict that gave rise to the Protestant revolution.

Francis was an ally of Suleiman the Magnificent, with whom he formed the Franco-Ottoman alliance. His great rivals were King Henry VIII of England and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

Much like San Francisco's Alcatraz, Chateu d'If's location and its deadly offshore currents gave it a reputation as escape proof.

Alcatraz Island is located in the San Francisco Bay, 1.5 miles (2.4 km) offshore from San Francisco, California, United States. Often referred to as "The Rock," the small island was developed with facilities for a lighthouse, a military fortification, a military prison (1868), and a federal prison from 1933 until 1963. Beginning in November 1969, the island was occupied for more than 19 months by a group of American Indians from San Francisco who were part of a wave of Indian activism across the nation with public protests through the 1970s. In 1972 Alcatraz became a national recreation area and received designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

Today, the island's facilities are managed by the National Park Service as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area; it is open to tours. Visitors can reach the island by ferry ride from Pier 33, near Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco. Hornblower Cruises and Events, operating under the name Alcatraz Cruises, is the official ferry provider to and from the island. Hornblower launched the nation's first hybrid propulsion ferry in 2008, the Hornblower Hybrid, which now serves the island.

 "Capetian" refers to the dynastic line King Francois I came from

The House of Capet, or The Direct Capetian Dynasty, (French: Les Capétiens, la Maison capétienne), also called The House of France (la maison de France), or simply the Capets, which ruled the Kingdom of France from 987 to 1328, was the most senior line of the Capetian dynasty – itself a derivative dynasty from the Robertians. As rulers of France, the dynasty succeeded the Carolingian dynasty. The name derives from the nickname of Hugh, the first Capetian King, who was known as Hugh Capet and was a cognatic descendant of the Carolingians.
The direct House of Capet came to an end in 1328, when the three sons of Philip IV all failed to produce surviving male heirs to the French throne. With the death of Charles IV, the throne passed to the House of Valois, the direct descendants of Charles of Valois, a younger son of Philip III. It would later pass again, to the House of Bourbon descended from Louis IX, and to its cadet branch, the House of Orléans, always remaining in the hands of agnatic descendants of Hugh Capet.