125 Fun Facts About Pirates

Which famous female pirate sailed alongside Calico Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny?

Both women escaped the gallows in 1720 by 'pleading the belly'; Read died in prison in Spanish Town, Jamaica, the following year, probably of fever.

What was the birth name of the infamous pirate Blackbeard?

Blackbeard was born Edward Teach (also spelled Thatch), probably in Bristol around 1680; he was killed in a boarding action off Ocracoke, North Carolina, in November 1718.

What did Blackbeard rename La Concorde, the French slave ship he captured and armed with 40 guns?

He renamed La Concorde the Queen Anne's Revenge; she ran aground in Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina, in June 1718, and divers located the wreck there in 1996.

In pirate lore, what does it mean to 'parley'?

To parley is to talk terms with an enemy under a truce; the word comes from the French 'parler', to speak, and Pirates of the Caribbean turned it into a joke clause of the Pirate Code.

Which pirate word originally meant the Caribbean hunters who slow-smoked meat on a wooden frame, from an Arawak word for that frame?

Buccaneer comes from the Arawak 'buccan', the wooden frame on which Tainos and Caribs smoked meat, often manatee; the name moved to the Anglo-French raiders of Spanish shipping.

What iconic symbol commonly associated with pirates features a skull and crossbones?

The Jolly Roger with a skull and crossbones was flown in the 1710s by captains such as Samuel Bellamy, Edward England and John Taylor, and has stood for pirates ever since.

Historians give what name to the 1650s–1730s, when pirates were a real force in the North Atlantic and Indian Oceans?

The Golden Age of Piracy had three waves: a buccaneering phase, the Pirate Round of the 1690s, and a final surge after the War of the Spanish Succession left thousands of sailors jobless.

What was a 'doubloon' in the context of pirate treasure?

A doubloon was a Spanish gold coin: the name means 'double', a two-escudo piece worth about four Spanish dollars, minted in Spain and its American viceroyalties.

What exactly is a 'sea shanty'?

Work songs sung by sailors hauling on ropes, sea shanties belong to 19th-century merchant ships far more than to pirates; the shantyman called and the crew heaved on the chorus.

What is the pirate-speak phrase 'Ahoy, matey!' roughly equivalent to?

Alexander Graham Bell wanted 'ahoy' as the standard way to answer a telephone; Thomas Edison's 'hello' won.

On a ship, what is a gangplank used for?

A gangplank is the movable board for boarding or leaving a ship at a pier; the pirate-lore 'walking the plank' is almost entirely fiction, with only a handful of recorded cases.

Which pirate began with a 1695 royal commission to hunt pirates and French ships, only to hang at Execution Dock in 1701?

Captain Kidd's rope broke on the first attempt at Execution Dock in 1701, and his tarred body was then left on display over the Thames for years as a warning.

Which sea was the main hunting ground for pirates in the early 1700s?

The Caribbean: bases such as Port Royal in Jamaica and New Providence in the Bahamas sat beside the Spanish treasure routes, and Nassau ran as a pirate republic from about 1706 to 1718.

What was the most common form of capital punishment for captured pirates?

Hanging: sailors called it 'dancing the hempen jig', and in England most pirate hangings took place at Execution Dock in Wapping, with crowds watching as at a sporting event.

Which pirate reportedly wore lit fuses under his hat to terrify his prey?

Blackbeard tucked lit slow-match fuses under his hat to wreath his face in smoke; for all the theatre he relied on that fearsome image, and no record shows him killing a captive before his final fight in 1718.

What was sailors' rum ration called once mixed with water, as Admiral Vernon ordered in 1740?

The name is said to come from Vernon's nickname 'Old Grog', after the grogram cloak he wore; the ratio was four parts water to one of rum.

Which disease, brought on by months at sea without fresh fruit or vegetables, made gums bleed and old wounds reopen?

Scurvy is simply a lack of vitamin C, and it is estimated to have killed at least two million sailors between 1500 and 1800 before citrus rations solved it.

Which female pirate commanded the Red Flag Fleet in the early 1800s?

Ching Shih (also known as Zheng Yi Sao) was a formidable pirate queen who commanded the Red Flag Fleet, an armada of over 1,200 ships and tens of thousands of pirates, dominating the South China Sea.

Which short, broad slashing sword was the favoured pirate weapon for fighting on a crowded deck?

The cutlass descended from the medieval falchion, and being short and robust it was as handy for hacking through rigging as through opponents.

What was a 'piece of eight'?

A piece of eight was a Spanish silver coin worth eight reales; it was legal tender in the United States until 1857 and is the ancestor of the dollar sign.

Which Welsh pirate took over 400 prizes before dying in battle with HMS Swallow in 1722?

Bartholomew Roberts, 'Black Bart', took more than 400 prizes, many of them small fishing boats, before a broadside from HMS Swallow killed him off Cape Lopez on 10 February 1722.

Which Jamaican pirate haven was largely destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami on 7 June 1692?

Port Royal, once called the wickedest city on Earth, sank partly into the harbour; the disaster led directly to the founding of Kingston, which took over its trade and became Jamaica's capital in 1872.

The 1710s Republic of Pirates was based at Nassau on New Providence, in which island group?

New Providence is in the Bahamas; unemployed privateers flooded into Nassau after the War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1713, and the 1715 Spanish treasure fleet wrecked off nearby Florida.

Which former privateer became governor at Nassau in 1718 and drove the pirates out of the colony?

His first term ruined him financially, and he was jailed for debt on his return to England before being reappointed in 1728.

Stede Bonnet, the 'Gentleman Pirate', was a wealthy planter on which island?

Bonnet was a sugar planter on Barbados; he inherited the family estate in 1694 and, unusually for a pirate, bought his ship rather than stealing one.

Which author wrote Treasure Island, the 1883 novel that introduced the one-legged cook Long John Silver?

Robert Louis Stevenson serialised Treasure Island in Young Folks in 1881-82; Cassell & Co. published it in book form on 14 November 1883.

The Barbary corsair ports of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli fell under which power's sovereignty?

The Barbarossa brothers, Hayreddin and Oruc Reis, seized Algiers for the Ottomans in the early 16th century.

What government licence let a privateer legally attack and capture enemy ships?

A letter of marque licensed a privateer to seize enemy ships; the same act without the paperwork was piracy, so the document could be the difference between a hero's welcome and the gallows.

Francis Drake was knighted by Elizabeth I in 1581 aboard which ship?

The Golden Hind, originally the Pelican, was renamed mid-voyage in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton, whose crest featured a golden hind; Drake was knighted aboard her at Deptford on 4 April 1581.

Henry Morgan sacked Panama City in 1671 and was later appointed lieutenant governor of which colony?

Morgan was knighted in 1674 and made lieutenant governor of Jamaica in 1675; a former shipmate's memoir later accused him of torture at Panama, and Morgan sued its English publishers for libel.

Pirates punished some offenders by abandoning them on a deserted island or a bare sand bar; what was this sentence called?

Marooning usually meant death on a low sand bar, though the pirate Edward England survived it by escaping.

Sam Bellamy's flagship, wrecked off Cape Cod in 1717 and found in 1984, was which captured slave ship?

The Whydah Gally, a London slave ship Bellamy seized in February 1717, sank in a storm off Wellfleet on 26 April 1717; Barry Clifford found the wreck in 1984, the first authenticated pirate ship recovered.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day, a joke holiday invented by two friends in Oregon in 1995, falls on which date?

19 September was picked by John Baur and Mark Summers of Albany, Oregon, in 1995, and the joke holiday spread worldwide from there.

What did pirate crews call the written code setting out loot shares and punishments?

Pirate articles: breaking them could mean being whipped or marooned, and Bartholomew Roberts's code prescribed death for smuggling a woman aboard in disguise.

Which Dutch privateer captured the entire Spanish silver fleet at Matanzas Bay, Cuba, in 1628?

Piet Heyn, commanding for the Dutch West India Company, took the whole Spanish silver fleet in Matanzas Bay, Cuba, in September 1628, a prize worth about 11.5 million guilders.

Which buccaneer was acquitted of piracy in 1682 after presenting Charles II with captured Spanish charts?

Bartholomew Sharp had seized a Spanish derrotero, a book of Pacific coast charts, on his 1680-81 raid; its value to the crown got him acquitted at his 1682 piracy trial.

Which pirate captain made Blackbeard his second-in-command around 1716?

Hornigold's crew later voted him out for refusing to attack British ships.

Which Royal Navy lieutenant led the force that killed Blackbeard at Ocracoke in November 1718?

Lieutenant Robert Maynard of HMS Pearl, sent by Virginia's governor Spotswood, boarded Blackbeard's sloop at Ocracoke on 22 November 1718; Blackbeard had accepted a royal pardon at Bath, North Carolina, only months earlier.

Which port did Blackbeard blockade in 1718, ransoming its inhabitants for medical supplies?

Blackbeard blockaded Charles Town, South Carolina, for about a week in May 1718, threatening to send prisoners' heads to the governor unless he received a chest of medicines, which he got.

Which buccaneer circumnavigated the world three times and wrote A New Voyage Round the World?

William Dampier, a buccaneer turned naturalist, circumnavigated the globe three times; A New Voyage Round the World (1697) made him famous and won him command of HMS Roebuck's 1699 voyage to Australia.

Which cruel French buccaneer was reportedly killed and eaten by indigenous people in Darién c.1668?

François l'Olonnais, born Jean-David Nau, sacked Maracaibo in 1667 and tortured Spanish captives; Exquemelin's Buccaneers of America reports that Darién natives tore him apart and ate him around 1668.

According to Charles Johnson's 1724 account, in which country was Anne Bonny born?

Johnson placed her birth near Cork, Ireland, as the illegitimate daughter of attorney William Cormac and his maidservant; the family emigrated to Carolina, though little independent evidence supports the story.

Which queen's Adriatic pirates provoked Rome into the First Illyrian War of 229 BC?

Queen Teuta of the Ardiaei encouraged Illyrian piracy in the Adriatic; after her men killed a Roman envoy, Rome launched the First Illyrian War in 229 BC and forced her to pay tribute.

What was the name of Captain Kidd's 34-gun ship, fitted with oars for calm-weather manoeuvring?

The Adventure Galley, 34 guns and 287 tons, was built at Deptford in 1695 with oars for rowing in calm weather; Kidd's greatest prize, the Quedagh Merchant, was taken in January 1698.

Which Royal Navy captain's ship, HMS Swallow, killed Bartholomew Roberts in February 1722?

Captain Chaloner Ogle of HMS Swallow caught Roberts off Cape Lopez on 10 February 1722; Roberts died in the opening broadside, and Ogle was knighted for the victory in 1723.

At which Gold Coast fort were 52 of Bartholomew Roberts's crew hanged after a 1722 trial?

The Royal Navy tried Roberts's surviving crew at Cape Coast Castle in March-April 1722; 52 were hanged, twenty were sent to hard labour in the Royal African Company's mines, and the rest acquitted or shipped to London.

What was Henry Every's nickname among his crewmen?

Every was known to his men as Long Ben; contemporaries dubbed him the Arch Pirate, and he vanished with his share of the Ganj-i-Sawai loot in 1696, never caught.

What did Henry Every's crew rename the ship Charles II after electing him captain?

The crew renamed the Charles II the Fancy after mutinying at A Coruña in May 1694; a £1,000 bounty, half from the Privy Council and half from the East India Company, never caught Every.

What was Black Bart's birth name?

He was born John Roberts at Casnewydd-Bach, Pembrokeshire, around 1682 and adopted the name Bartholomew at sea; as Black Bart he took over 400 prizes between 1719 and 1722.

What name did Bartholomew Roberts give to several of his ships?

Roberts gave the name Royal Fortune to several successive flagships; the last, a 40-gun former French ship, was captured by HMS Swallow off Cape Lopez after he was killed in February 1722.

Which notoriously cruel pirate was born poor in Westminster and later lived in Boston?

Edward Low, born in Westminster and later a Boston rigger, turned pirate in 1721; The New York Times later wrote that his tortures 'would have done credit to the Spanish Inquisition'.

What was the name of the ship the Gentleman Pirate bought to begin his piracy in 1717?

Bonnet bought the ten-gun sloop Revenge in Barbados in 1717 and, unusually for a pirate, paid his crew wages rather than shares of plunder.

Which colonel captured Stede Bonnet on the Cape Fear River in 1718?

Colonel William Rhett of South Carolina cornered Bonnet in the Cape Fear River in September 1718; Bonnet had been sailing as 'Captain Thomas' to protect his pardon, and was hanged in Charles Town that December.

About how many ships did Sam Bellamy's crew capture in a career of little more than a year?

Bellamy's crew took at least 53 ships between 1716 and April 1717, which with the Whydah's cargo of gold and silver made him one of the wealthiest pirates of the Golden Age.

What kind of storm sank the Whydah Gally in April 1717?

A nor'easter with winds near 70 mph and 30-foot seas drove the Whydah onto a sandbar off Wellfleet on 26 April 1717; only two of the roughly 146 men aboard survived.

Henry Morgan was born in Monmouthshire in an area now part of which city?

Morgan was born around 1635 at Llanrumney, Monmouthshire, an area now part of Cardiff; he later bought three large sugar plantations in Jamaica with his plunder.

On what date did Francis Drake's circumnavigation begin?

Drake left Plymouth on 13 December 1577, after a false start in November, and returned on 26 September 1580, the first English expedition to circle the globe.

Which town did Drake set out to capture in 1572 with 73 men in two small ships?

Nombre de Dios, on the Isthmus of Panama, was where Peruvian silver was loaded for Spain; Drake's July 1572 raid failed when he was wounded, but he later ambushed a mule train nearby.

In 1593, Grace O'Malley sailed to England to petition which monarch at Greenwich Palace?

Grace O'Malley met Elizabeth I at Greenwich in September 1593, seeking the release of her sons and half-brother held by Sir Richard Bingham, English governor of Connacht; the two reportedly conversed in Latin.

Roughly how many pirates did Zheng Yi's confederation command in 1805?

Estimates put Zheng Yi's confederation at 40,000 to 70,000 pirates in about 400 junks by 1805; after his death in 1807 his widow Zheng Yi Sao took control.

How did Zheng Yi Sao's pirate career end in 1810?

In April 1810 Zheng Yi Sao negotiated a surrender to the Qing governor-general at Canton; she and her lieutenant Zhang Bao kept part of the fleet, escaped prosecution, and Zhang Bao was given a rank in the Qing navy.

Which sultan appointed Hayreddin Barbarossa grand admiral of the Ottoman Navy in 1533?

Suleiman the Magnificent made Hayreddin Barbarossa Kapudan Pasha, grand admiral, in 1533; five years later he beat the Holy League fleet under Andrea Doria at Preveza.

On which Greek island was Hayreddin Barbarossa born?

Hayreddin was born at Mytilene on Lesbos, son of a sipahi and a Greek Christian mother; his naval victories secured Ottoman dominance of the Mediterranean in the mid-16th century.

Pirate Jean Lafitte and his Barataria Bay fleet helped which general defend New Orleans in 1815, in return for a pardon?

Andrew Jackson, who would ride the victory to the White House, accepted the help of Lafitte's Barataria Bay pirates at the Battle of New Orleans in exchange for their pardon.

Which of Blackbeard's crew was ordered to blow up the sloop at Ocracoke if Maynard boarded?

Black Caesar was stationed in the powder magazine with orders to blow up the Adventure if Maynard's men took her; two prisoners stopped him, and he was later hanged at Williamsburg, Virginia.

What was the nickname of French pirate Olivier Levasseur?

Olivier Levasseur was called La Buse, the Buzzard, for the speed of his attacks; born in Calais, he turned pirate after the War of the Spanish Succession and was hanged on Réunion in 1730.

Which Portuguese galleon did Levasseur's pirates seize after it dumped its 72 cannons in a storm?

The Nossa Senhora do Cabo, dismasted and disarmed by a storm, was taken at Réunion in April 1721 with the Archbishop of Goa and the Viceroy of Portuguese India aboard; their treasure was among the richest pirate hauls ever.

Which pirate, known as the Rhode Island Pirate, pioneered the Pirate Round?

Thomas Tew of Newport, Rhode Island, sailed the 70-ton sloop Amity, backed by Bermudian investors, to the Red Sea in 1693, the voyage that opened the Pirate Round; he was killed attacking a Mughal ship in 1695.

The Pirate Round led from the Atlantic around Africa to a base on which island?

Targets lay along the coasts of Yemen and India; the route mirrored East India Company voyages.

Which Irish pirate captured the slave ship Cadogan in 1718, launching Howell Davis's career?

Edward England, born Edward Seegar in Ireland, took the Bristol slaver Cadogan off Sierra Leone in 1718 and gave command of her to her mate Howell Davis; England's own flag was the classic skull and crossbones.

How long did Welsh pirate Howell Davis's career last before he was ambushed and killed?

Davis, born in Milford Haven, turned pirate in July 1718 and was shot in an ambush on Príncipe in June 1719, a career of about 11 months in which he took some 15 ships.

What was the name of Blackbeard's mentor's heavily armed ship in 1717?

Hornigold's sloop Ranger, mounting about 30 guns, was among the most powerful pirate ships in the Caribbean in 1717; he helped found the Republic of Pirates at Nassau before taking Woodes Rogers's pardon in 1718.

An early skull-and-crossbones black flag with an hourglass is attributed to which captain in 1700?

A 1700 report from HMS Poole described the French pirate Emanuel Wynn flying a black flag with a skull, crossed bones and an hourglass off the Cape Verde islands, the earliest recorded Jolly Roger.

When did the documented instances of walking the plank actually take place?

The few documented cases came well after the Golden Age ended: in 1822 Spanish pirates forced the master of the British sloop Blessing to walk the plank, and an 1829 case involved the Dutch brig Vhan Fredericka.

The Barbary corsairs' raids on European coasts even reached which northern island in the 'Turkish Abductions'?

In the 1627 Turkish Abductions (Tyrkjaránið), corsairs from Algiers and Salé raided Iceland's east coast and the Westman Islands, carrying off about 400 people to be sold in North African slave markets.

What finally subdued the Barbary corsair threat in 1830?

US payments to the Barbary states had reached 20% of federal spending in 1800.

Which captured US frigate did Stephen Decatur burn in Tripoli harbour in 1804?

Decatur led a raid into Tripoli harbour on 16 February 1804 and burned the USS Philadelphia, which had run aground and been captured the previous October; Nelson reportedly called it the most bold and daring act of the age.

In which century did the Sea Peoples, the earliest documented pirates, raid the Aegean?

The Amarna letters of the 14th century BC record Lukka raiders, counted among the Sea Peoples, attacking Cyprus and Egyptian shipping; narrow channels that funnel shipping have created piracy opportunities ever since.

Which Roman general suppressed the Cilician pirates in 67–66 BC?

Pompey, given sweeping powers by the Lex Gabinia of 67 BC, cleared the Mediterranean of the Cilician pirates in about three months and resettled many of them in Cilician towns such as Soli.

On which islet did Cilician pirates hold Julius Caesar prisoner in 75 BC?

Pharmacusa (modern Farmakonisi), off the Carian coast near Miletus, is where Plutarch says the pirates held Caesar for 38 days in 75 BC; after paying his ransom he returned and had them crucified.

What does the term wokou literally mean?

Wokou is written with 倭, an old Chinese name for Japan that also reads 'dwarf', and 寇, bandit, hence 'dwarf bandits'; the raids on China's and Korea's coasts peaked in the mid-16th-century Jiajing era.

Which scholar argued in 1932 that Daniel Defoe wrote A General History of the Pyrates?

John Robert Moore of Indiana University made the case in 1932 that Defoe wrote the General History; Furbank and Owens rejected the attribution in 1988.

What name did the General History give Captain Misson's utopian pirate colony?

Libertalia (or Libertatia), supposedly founded by the French captain Misson and the defrocked priest Caraccioli, appears only in the 1728 second volume of the General History and is widely regarded as fiction.

The 17th-century pirate haven of Tortuga is today part of which country?

Tortuga (Île de la Tortue) lies off the northwest coast of Hispaniola and belongs to Haiti; its French buccaneers were the nucleus of the colony that became Saint-Domingue.

For roughly how many years was Execution Dock used to hang pirates on the Thames?

Execution Dock at Wapping hanged pirates and mutineers for over 400 years, from the early 1400s until the last executions, of George Davis and William Watts, in December 1830.

Why was Execution Dock sited just beyond the low-tide mark?

The gallows stood below the low-tide mark to symbolise Admiralty jurisdiction, which covered crimes committed at sea and in law began there; bodies were often left until three tides had washed over them.

What were the crude, irregular silver coins hand-struck at Spain's colonial mints called?

Cobs, a name said to derive from the Spanish cabo de barra, 'end of the bar', were crude hand-struck coins cut from silver bars at colonial mints such as Potosí and Mexico City.

Which pirate was accused of burying part of his wealth on Gardiners Island?

Real buried pirate treasure was rare; 19th-century fiction popularised the myth.

The name hardtack comes from 'tack', British sailor slang for what?

Hardtack takes its name from 'tack', British sailor slang for food; the dense flour-and-water cracker was a standard ration alongside salt pork and corned beef because it kept for years.

Which elected officer on a pirate ship divided the plunder and checked the captain's power?

The quartermaster, elected by the crew, distributed food and loot, led boarding parties and could overrule the captain except in battle; Bartholomew Roberts's articles gave him the same two shares as the captain.

On which Pacific island group was Alexander Selkirk marooned from 1704 to 1709?

Selkirk spent four years and four months alone on Más a Tierra in the Juan Fernández Islands, 670 km off Chile, until a privateering expedition picked him up in February 1709; the island was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.

The Victual Brothers were first hired in 1392 by the Dukes of Mecklenburg to fight which queen?

Margaret I of Denmark was besieging Stockholm, held by Albert of Mecklenburg's supporters; the Victual Brothers were hired to run her blockade, their name coming from the Latin victualia, 'provisions'.

The 13th-century French pirate Eustace was known by what epithet?

Eustace the Monk, born Eustace Busket near Boulogne, had been a Benedictine before turning to piracy in the Channel; he fought for both English and French kings and was beheaded after the Battle of Sandwich in 1217.

Jeanne de Clisson turned to privateering to avenge her husband's execution by which king?

The 'Lioness of Brittany' left one sailor alive on each ship to spread her message.

Which woman governed Tétouan from 1515 to 1542 and ran a corsair fleet against Spain?

Sayyida al-Hurra, widow of Tétouan's governor, ruled the city from 1515 and allied with Hayreddin Barbarossa to raid Spanish and Portuguese shipping; she married the Wattasid sultan of Fez in 1541 and was deposed a year later.

Which Maratha admiral seized European East Indiamen and taxed them until his death in 1729?

Kanhoji Angre, Maratha admiral from 1698, ran a fleet from Vijaydurg and Kolaba that levied passes on European shipping; British and Portuguese expeditions failed to subdue him before he died in 1729.

Rachel Wall, an early American-born female pirate, was the last woman hanged where?

Rachel Wall, born Rachel Schmidt in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was hanged in Boston on 8 October 1789 for robbery, the last woman executed in Massachusetts.

At what age was Cheung Po Tsai abducted and pressed into piracy by Cheng I?

Cheung Po Tsai, a Tanka fisherman's son, was seized by Cheng I at 15 and adopted as his heir; after the 1810 surrender he became a colonel in the Qing navy.

The Somali pirates who seized the Maersk Alabama in 2009 were how many in number?

Four Somali pirates boarded the Maersk Alabama on 8 April 2009, the first pirate seizure of a US-flagged ship since the early 19th century; Navy SEAL snipers killed three of them on 12 April.

Who was the ringleader of the Maersk Alabama pirates, later played by Barkhad Abdi?

Abduwali Muse, the pirates' leader, was overpowered by chief engineer Mike Perry in a darkened engine room and later sentenced to 33 years in a US prison; Barkhad Abdi played him in Captain Phillips.

Who directed the 2013 film Captain Phillips?

Paul Greengrass directed Captain Phillips (2013), with Tom Hanks as the captain, from Phillips's memoir A Captain's Duty; it earned six Oscar nominations, including one for Barkhad Abdi.

Which rock star was a model for Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow?

Johnny Depp based Jack Sparrow on Keith Richards, who later played Sparrow's father Captain Teague in At World's End, with a dash of the cartoon skunk Pepé Le Pew.

Who directed Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl?

Gore Verbinski directed The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) and its two sequels; it grossed $654 million and earned Depp an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.

Which Pirates of the Caribbean sequel was the top-grossing film of 2006 with almost $1.1 billion?

Dead Man's Chest (2006) took about $1.07 billion worldwide, the year's top-grossing film and only the third ever past $1 billion; the franchise grew out of a Disney theme-park dark ride.

The Pirates of the Caribbean ride opened at Disneyland in which year?

The ride opened at Disneyland on 18 March 1967, three months after Walt Disney's death in December 1966, and was the last attraction he personally oversaw.

Under what pseudonym was Stevenson's pirate novel first serialised in Young Folks?

Stevenson signed the Young Folks serial 'Captain George North' when it ran from October 1881 to January 1882 as Treasure Island, or the Mutiny of the Hispaniola; his working title had been The Sea Cook.

What is Long John Silver's parrot called?

Silver's parrot is called Captain Flint, after the dead pirate captain whose treasure the Hispaniola seeks; it squawks 'Pieces of eight!' and, Silver claims, is two hundred years old.

In Stevenson's novel, what does the blind beggar Pew deliver to Billy Bones?

Blind Pew hands Billy Bones the black spot, the pirates' summons, at the Admiral Benbow inn; Bones drops dead of a stroke, and Jim and his mother find Flint's map in his sea chest.

What is Captain Hook's first name in J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan?

Barrie has Hook sign himself 'Jas. Hook', short for James; the novel says he was Blackbeard's bosun and the only man Long John Silver ever feared.

Who played Captain Hook in Steven Spielberg's 1991 film Hook?

Dustin Hoffman took the hook, opposite Robin Williams as Peter Banning and Bob Hoskins as Smee, with Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell.

Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance officially premiered on 31 December 1879 in which city, to protect its American copyright?

New York's Fifth Avenue Theatre hosted the premiere, an opera about pirates staged in America partly to beat the copyright pirates; London's Opera Comique followed the next April.

Who played Long John Silver in the 1996 Muppet adaptation of Stevenson's novel?

Tim Curry played Long John Silver opposite Kevin Bishop's Jim Hawkins in Muppet Treasure Island, the fifth Muppet feature film, directed by Brian Henson in 1996.

The Starz series Black Sails was written as a prequel to which novel?

Black Sails (2014-17) is a prequel to Treasure Island, set on New Providence around 1715 and mixing Stevenson's Captain Flint and Long John Silver with real pirates such as Charles Vane and Jack Rackham.

Who plays Blackbeard in the comedy series Our Flag Means Death?

Taika Waititi plays Blackbeard opposite Rhys Darby's Stede Bonnet in Our Flag Means Death, which premiered on HBO Max in March 2022; Waititi also directed the pilot.

Who is the Welsh pirate protagonist of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag?

Edward Kenway, a Welsh privateer turned pirate, is the playable protagonist of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013); the game's three main cities are Havana, Kingston and Nassau.

Which studio developed the 2018 multiplayer pirate game Sea of Thieves?

Rare, the British studio behind Banjo-Kazooie, developed Sea of Thieves for Microsoft, released in March 2018; the team cited emergent play in Eve Online, DayZ and Rust as inspiration.

Sid Meier's Pirates! (1987) was first released for which computer?

Sid Meier's Pirates! came out for the Commodore 64 in 1987 before ports to the Apple II, Amiga and PC; it was the first game to carry Meier's name in its title.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day was born from an injury during which sport?

The idea came during a racquetball game on 6 June 1995, when one of the Oregon founders, hit by the ball, yelped 'Aaarrr!'; the pair kept it as a private joke until columnist Dave Barry publicised it in 2002.

Which 1935 swashbuckler, adapted from a Rafael Sabatini novel, made Errol Flynn a star?

Captain Blood (1935), directed by Michael Curtiz, cast the unknown Errol Flynn as Sabatini's physician-turned-pirate Peter Blood opposite Olivia de Havilland; it earned a Best Picture nomination.

The Piracy Act 1698 aimed to correct which earlier English statute?

The Offences at Sea Act 1536 required pirates to be tried in England before Admiralty commissioners; the Piracy Act 1698 let vice-admiralty courts in the colonies try them, ending the costly shipping of prisoners home.

Anne Dieu-le-Veut, one of the few female buccaneers, came from which French province?

Anne Dieu-le-Veut was born in Gourin, Brittany, in 1661 and may have been deported to Tortuga as a criminal; there she married the Dutch-born buccaneer Laurens de Graaf in 1693.

Near which Algerian city was Oruç Barbarossa killed fighting the Spanish in 1518?

Oruç died in 1518 fighting a Spanish force near Tlemcen, which he had seized the year before; his brother Hayreddin took over Algiers and placed it under Ottoman protection in 1519.

On which island did Jean Lafitte base his smuggling colony Campeche from 1817?

Lafitte moved to Galveston Island in 1817 and ran a smuggling colony he called Campeche until the US Navy forced him to abandon it in 1821.

Which pirate manga, following Monkey D. Luffy and the Straw Hats, is the best-selling manga series ever?

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece has run in Weekly Shōnen Jump since July 1997 and had more than 500 million copies in circulation by 2024, far ahead of any other manga series.

Which US commodore led the West Indies Squadron against Caribbean pirates from 1823?

Commodore David Porter took command of the West Indies Squadron in 1823, using shallow-draft schooners and the steamer Sea Gull to hunt pirates in Cuban waters; his unauthorised 1824 raid on Fajardo, Puerto Rico, led to his court-martial.