Who’s the Pirate — Blackbeard or the State of North Carolina? Supreme Court Will Decide

Edward Teach, better known as the pirate Blackbeard, terrorized the Caribbean and the North American East Coast in the early 18th century. Now a documentary filmmaker is claiming that the State of North Carolina is engaging in modern-day digital piracy. … Continue reading

What Did Pirates Read? Blackbeard, Captain Cooke, and Woodes Rogers

A lump of paper wadding found in a cannon from the pirate Blackbeard‘s ship Queen Anne’s Revenge has been identified as containing scraps of paper from a book by Captain Edward Cooke written in 1712.  Researchers were able to identify … Continue reading

Video Piracy and the Pirate Ship Queen Anne’s Revenge

A video producer who produced video of the excavation of a pirate ship is now suing the State of North Carolina and others for piracy. Nautilus Productions, which served as a videographer for the Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck project, is charging … Continue reading

Blackbeard’s Medicine Chest & the Media

Sometimes the way the media reports a story about nautical history can be almost as interesting as the story itself. Near the end of last month, archaeologists examining artifacts discovered on the wreck of the pirate Blackbeard’s flag ship, the … Continue reading

Five Cannons from Blackbeard’s Flagship Queen Anne’s Revenge Raised From Beaufort Inlet

This morning we posted about a new video game, Assassins Creed IV : Blag Flag, which takes notable liberties with history.  One of the characters in the game, Edward Thatch, is based on the historical pirate, Edward Teach, better known as … Continue reading

On the Trail of the Pirate Blackbeard and the Queen Anne’s Revenge

The wreck of the pirate Blackbeard‘s Queen Anne’s Revenge, which sank in 1718, was believed to be discovered in 1996.   After 15 years of excavation, the State of North Carolina and the North Carolina Maritime Museum announced today that they had confirmed that … Continue reading

Raising the Anchor from Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge

Until I saw the video I didn’t grasp just how large this anchor is.  It is believed to be from the pirate Blackbeard‘s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, which ran aground in 1718 while trying to enter Old Topsail Inlet in North Carolina, now known … Continue reading