Sanitation aboard a pirate ship was far from ideal. Bathing was a rarity, and clean clothes were scarce, often stolen from other ships. Hot baths were a luxury reserved for the sick, usually onshore...
During the Golden Age of Piracy danger was constant. Facing bullets, splinters, and diseases like scurvy, yellow fever, malaria, and smallpox, skilled surgeons were a necessity. 18th-century pirate...
Today bagels are a staple snack for many of us, but did you know that hundreds of years ago a Chinese variation helped win a war? This remarkable creation, known as the guang-bing, holds the key to...
Caribbean cuisine was certainly founded by pirates. Images of filibusters as ragamuffins gnawing bugs in some cell, or perhaps scraping the bottom of some barrel adrift in the Caribbean, hunting for...
Henry Every, also known as John Avery, was one of the most notorious pirates of the 17th century. He terrorized the seas, attacking and plundering numerous ships in the Indian Ocean and beyond,...
Pirates have captured our imagination for centuries with their tales of adventure, daring raids, and hidden treasure. From the Caribbean to the South China Sea, pirates have prowled the high seas,...
Since its foundation in 1775 the United States has become well known for its tendency to intervene in foreign countries when its national security is threatened. But while much has been written and...
We all love a good mystery, and what’s better than a treasure hunt? This has led many historians to an obsession with finding lost shipwrecks. Some of them do it in the hope of finding lost Spanish...
When it comes to pirates, most people think of iconic names like Blackbeard , Calico Jack, or William Kidd . But what about female pirates? Although female pirates are less well-known, they did exist...
The origins of a rare sword discovered in a Greek monastery has baffled Greek archaeologists. However, it’s thought that the weapon might have belonged to Mediaeval Turkish pirates raiding the Greek...
The popularity of trashy romance fiction with pirates abducting beautiful virgins and selling heroes as slaves, mistaken identities, shipwrecks, lust, lost lovers reunited and happy-ever-after-...
We raise the sails as we delve deep into the archives of Perast, a maritime jewel of Montenegro facing Boka Bay. Once a great ally of the Venetian Republic, seemingly tiny Perast has huge history and...
The goal of a pirate of the West Indies was to capture his prey, with as little damage as possible, so that he could resell the vessel, including its cargo and crew. Therefore generally, the...
The history of piracy has always held the imagination captive, both for what concerns the nautical and its techniques and for the geopolitical landscape it occupied. Its origins spring from the times...
Much attention and condemnation has been directed towards the tragedy of the African slave trade , which took place between the 16th and the 19th centuries. However, another equally despicable trade...
Between 1700 and 1725, the Caribbean was a relatively lawless place with numerous merchant ships traversing the high seas with no authorities to protect them. These factors helped to make this period...
The ancient history of Korea is one of the more enigmatic historical periods of Asia and is still a subject of very active research by scholars. The surviving writings of the early medieval period...
The island of Rhodes which now forms part of Greece, has a long and dramatic history dating back 12,000 years to the Neolithic era. In the medieval period it was the headquarters of The Order of...
In 1512 Portuguese navigator Pedro Mascarenhas, identified a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar as the Mascarene islands (modern-day Mauritius, Réunion and Rodrigues). The...
Pirates, maybe even more than mermaids and sea serpents, are the most fascinating and misunderstood entities of maritime history and while it is known today that mermaids were seals and giant...
Sark , the tiny Channel Island with a deeply criminal pirate history is once again “awash” with crooks, according to a police report. At a mere 2.10 square miles (5.44 square kilometers), with only...
The Dutch have had a long presence in the Caribbean and Latin America and a form of Dutch is still spoken in parts of the region. The European nation has left many architectural and archaeological...
Puerto Rico is a unique island with stunning scenery as well as a complex history and fascinating culture. It was part of the Spanish Empire for approximately 400 years and there are many reminders...
Top quality cigars and contagious rhythm have long been associated with the Caribbean’s largest island. Cuba, though, has also played a significant role in the Caribbean and, indeed, world history...