More pirate facts

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6. A former king of Sweden became a pirate after he lost the throne.

7. Pirates rarely plundered gold, silver, and jewels. Their most common plunder was trade goods such as bolts of cloth, tanned animal skins, spices, sugar, dyes, cocoa, tobacco, cotton, and wood.

8. PETA had a problem with the whaling segment of Assassins Creed: Black Flag. Ubisoft dismissed it saying they did not condone whaling any more than they condoned a pirate lifestyle.

9. Enterprising Kenyans pretended to be Somali pirates and gave fake interviews to foreign journalists for cash.

10. John Smith was a pirate, beheaded three Turks in jousting matches while fighting for the Holy Roman Army, and was enslaved in Russia until he escaped by killing his master. He did all this before he set sail for present day Virginia, United States

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11. Julius Caesar was kidnapped by pirates, who demanded 20 talents of silver for his freedom, however, Caesar told them to ask for 50. When the ransom was paid and he was released, Caesar raised a fleet, pursued and eventually captured the pirates and had them crucified.

12. The modern day “pirate accent” we know comes from Robert Newton’s portrayal of Long John Silver in the 1950 Disney adaptation of Treasure Island. Before that, there was no universal”pirate accent”.

13. Following the Spanish Inquisition and their expulsion, banished Jews who were once pivotal in advancing Cartography and Ship Navigation during the Age of Exploration sought revenge by becoming some of the most famed pirates

14. Morocco was the first country to recognize the US as an independent country and during the Revolutionary War, the Sultan of Morocco promised safe passage from Barbary Pirates for all merchant American ships traveling across the Atlantic.

15. A Frenchwoman, Jeanne de Clisson, became a pirate in the 1300’s for revenge after her husband was beheaded. Selling her lands to buy 3 ships, they were painted black with red sails. Hunting French ships, when she caught nobles, she personally beheaded them with an axe.

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16. When researchers from Texas State Univ., who were studying the 17th-century pirate Captain Morgan, ran out of funds while attempting to retrieve artifacts from his sunken ships off the coast of Panama, none other than the Captain Morgan rum company granted them money to continue their work.

17. 3 people were hanged for the 1660 murder of William Harrison in the year 1661. In 1662, William Harrison returned on a ship after escaping slavery, having been kidnapped by pirates. This lead to the “no body, no murder” rule.

18. There is a push to replace the skull and crossbones as the international symbol for poison. Because of the popularity of pirates, many children no longer see the symbol as a warning. A proposed alternative is “Mr. Yuk”. –

19. The Vatican City walls were built to keep out pirates.

20. In the 1960’s, Pirate Radio boats in international waters would broadcast pop & rock to 10’s of millions of British listeners. The BBC, which until then mostly catered to classical tastes, was forced to restructure and meet the demand for these genres.

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21. A company called “VessEx” will recover your stolen aircraft and ships, even venturing into war zones and combating pirates to do so.

22. The pirate captain Benjamin Hornigold once attacked a ship just to replace his crew’s hats. They got drunk the previous night and they tossed theirs overboard.

23. Many pirates in the early 1700’s in the Caribbean were escaped African slaves. By some accounts, 70 served with the famous Blackbeard.

24. There’s a guy name Max Hardberger who people hire to steal back boats that got ship jacked by pirates and corrupt governments.

25. On November 22, 1987, two Chicago T.V. stations were hijacked by an unknown pirate dressed as Max Headroom.

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26. The most successful pirate raid in history was Henry Avery’s capture of the Indian treasure ship “Ganj-i-sawai” in 1695. The plunder was £600,000 worth of jewels and precious metals, equivalent to £52.4 million or $81 million today.

27. Due to a lack of historical evidence, the Myth busters deemed it plausible that eye patches were for keeping one eye adapted to the dark so that pirates could see easier below deck.

28. Upon his death, pirate Olivier Levasseur had tossed a cryptogram into a crowd and told them if they could figure out the message, his treasure (now valued at $200,000,000) would be theirs, a treasure that to this day has never been found.

29. Pirates did actually follow a code of conduct (or “Articles of Agreement”), though specific rules varied between crews. Examples include democratic voting, no striking of another crew member while onboard and specific sharing of “prizes” depending on rank.

30. Grace O’Malley, an Irish pirate queen became rich by “taxing” ships passing by her lands in western Ireland, killing those who resisted. She met Queen Elizabeth I but was usually a rebel against English rule in Ireland during the 1500s.

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31. One unofficial method of defending merchant vessels against Somali pirates is to blast Britney Spears music. And it has been reported to be effective.

32. Shaolin monks were called in to fight off Japanese Pirates when nobody else could.

33. The word plagiarism comes from plagiarii. In the ancient Mediterranean world, plagiarii were pirates who kidnapped young children, among other misdeeds. When plagiarists claim someone else’s ideas as their own, they steal someone else’s brainchild.

34. A 10-year-old boy was captured and sold into slavery by the King of Algiers in the 16th Century, and he rose to become one of the richest, most influential, and well-liked Barbary pirates and his name was Ali Bitchin.

35. During the “Golden Age of Piracy”, famous pirates often had distinctive “Jacks” flags, which identified them to their friends and foes.

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36. Congress can hire pirates to attack foreign enemies. It’s in Clause 11.

37. The world’s only pirate cemetery is located on Ile Sainte-Marie, an island off the east coast of Madagascar. It is said to be the final resting place of infamous pirates such as William Kidd and Thomas Tew. –

38. Pirates stole internet cable and sold it as scrap causing most of Vietnam to get far slower internet access.

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Roman pirates


Pirates have been around since humans first built boats. Julius Caesar was twice captured by a group of Mediterranean pirates. He treated them with utter contempt and promised to crucify them when they let him go. They thought he was joking. Several days after his release, he returned and carried out his promise.

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The Golden Age


During the Golden Age of Piracy, from the early 17th to the mid-18th century, the boundary between legitimate sacking of enemy ships – called privateering – and piracy wasn't clear. Sir Francis Drake was more ruthless than most pirates, but sailed under the Queen's protection. William Dampier (1651-1715) was a pirate, but his journals were so rich in natural history and geographical detail that Charles Darwin based his travels on them a century later.

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Buccaneers

Dampier also introduced many new words into English, including avocado, breadfruit, caress, cashew, chopsticks, petrel, posse, snug and barbecue, from the Arawak Indian word barbacoa. By odd coincidence, the French version of this word was boucan, which became "buccaneer". The early French settlers on the island of Hispaniola were nicknamed boucaniers because they had lived by hunting and smoking pigs in the native style until the invading Spaniards drove them out and forced them to take up piracy.

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Pirate lore

The most important source of pirate lore is the 1724 book A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates by a "Captain Charles Johnson" (who was probably Daniel Defoe). The other source of popular pirate myths was Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883). Stevenson's novel introduced the pirate map (with X marking the spot), buried treasure and the ineluctable pirates' curse, the Black Spot. Stevenson also introduced several piratical expressions including "Avast!", "Yo-ho-ho" and "matey" – though "Shiver my timbers!" came from the pen of another Victorian novelist, Captain Frederick Marryat (1792-1848).

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Jolly Roger

The 1724 book mentions the pirate's flag, the Jolly Roger, for the first time. It didn't always carry a skull and crossbones – Blackbeard's had a skeleton and a bleeding heart. Nor was it the most feared flag – that was the "Bloody Red", which signified "no quarter" i.e. that no life would be spared. No one knows where the term "Jolly Roger" originated, although it might be a parody of the French privateers' red ensign, known as the Jolie Rouge.

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Buried treasure

Only one pirate, William Kidd (c.1645-1701), is ever recorded as having buried any treasure. It is known that Kidd buried some of his wealth on Gardiners Island, off the coast of Long Island. He had hoped to use it as a bargaining tool to clear his name. However, he'd given the details to one of his backers, who dug it up and used it in evidence against him. Kidd was found guilty of piracy and murder and was hanged in Wapping. His body remained on show in a cage over the Thames for 20 years.

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Booty

Hardly any pirate booty was "treasure". Most was food, water, alcohol, weapons and clothing. People were also "pirated" – during the 17th century, more than a million Europeans were captured and sold into slavery by "Barbary" pirates from Algiers.

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Galleons

Few pirates (or privateers) sailed in galleons. Most used galleys (with banks of oars rather than sails). Unlike the sailing ships that were their prey, these could be rowed against the wind and in any direction.