154 Fun Facts About Pirates

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

Mary Read and Anne Bonny were both sentenced to hang in 1720 but won a reprieve by 'pleading the belly', claiming to be pregnant; Read died in prison the following spring, reportedly of fever.

Under which name is the pirate Blackbeard usually recorded?

Edward Teach, also written Thatch, is the name in the records, but it may well have been an alias, so his birth name may never be known.

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

Queen Anne's Revenge served him for well under a year: in 1718 he ran her onto a sandbar at Beaufort Inlet, perhaps on purpose to shed crew and keep more loot, and the wreck was found in 1996.

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

To talk terms with an enemy under a truce is to parley, from the French parler, 'to speak'; in Pirates of the Caribbean the heroine invokes it, only for the pirate captain to tell her the code is more guideline than rule.

Which pirate word first meant the Caribbean hunters who slow-smoked meat on a wooden frame?

Buccaneer comes from the French boucanier, a user of the 'boucan', a native American word for the smoking frame; the hunters later took up the richer trade of raiding Spanish ships, and the name went with them.

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

The Jolly Roger was a message as much as a flag: run up as the pirates closed in, it told a merchant crew who was coming and gave them the chance to give up without a fight.

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 came in three waves: raids on Spanish colonies from the 1650s, the Pirate Round of the 1690s, and a final surge after 1713, when peace left thousands of sailors and privateers out of work.

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

A Spanish gold coin: the name comes from doblón, from the Spanish for 'double'. Chests of them belong mostly to fiction, since a real pirate haul was usually everyday cargo to be sold in port.

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.

Alexander Graham Bell wanted people to answer his new telephone with which sailors' cry?

Ahoy was Bell's pick for the standard telephone greeting, but his rival Thomas Edison urged callers to say 'hello' instead, and Edison's word won.

On a ship, what is a gangplank used for?

Boarding or leaving at a pier is all a gangplank is for; the 'walking the plank' of pirate lore 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.

In sailors' legend, which ghost ship is doomed to sail the oceans for ever without making port?

The Flying Dutchman is said to appear in storms off the Cape of Good Hope, its captain condemned to beat against the wind until Judgment Day; sailors took a sighting as an omen of doom.

Which city's baseball team became the Pirates after rivals called its 1891 signing of a disputed player 'piratical'?

Pittsburgh signed second baseman Lou Bierbauer in 1891 after his old club forgot to reserve him; a rival official called the move 'piratical', and the team took the insult as its name.

Which actor plays Captain Barbossa in the Pirates of the Caribbean films?

Geoffrey Rush played Barbossa in all five films, starting as the mutineer who stole the Black Pearl from Jack Sparrow; killed at the end of the first film, he is brought back from the dead in the sequels.

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

Grog is said to be named after Vernon himself, 'Old Grog' to his men for the grogram cloak he wore; he ordered the rum watered down to cut drunkenness in his fleet.

Which disease of long sea voyages made sailors' gums bleed and old wounds reopen?

Scurvy is simply a lack of vitamin C, which months without fresh fruit or vegetables brought on; it is estimated to have killed at least two million sailors between 1500 and 1800.

Which female pirate led the confederation behind the Red Flag Fleet in the early 1800s?

Ching Shih, also called Zheng Yi Sao, took over her husband's pirate confederation when he died in 1807; she ruled it with his protégé Zhang Bao, who became her deputy and her lover.

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

The cutlass was short enough to swing in the crush of a deck fight and heavy enough to double as a tool, hacking through rope and rigging in an emergency.

The Spanish 'piece of eight' of pirate lore was the model for which currency?

The US dollar was defined by Congress in 1792 as equal in value to the Spanish milled dollar, the eight-real coin that Americans already used day to day.

In which 1987 film does farm boy Westley return as the masked 'Dread Pirate Roberts'?

The Princess Bride's twist is that Roberts is a job, not a man: each 'Dread Pirate' hands the name and its fearsome reputation to a successor once he is rich enough to retire, and Westley is the latest.

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

Port Royal, once dubbed the Sodom of the New World, lost much of its ground to the sea; survivors founded Kingston across the harbour weeks later, and it took over the trade and grew into the capital.

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

The Bahamas drew out-of-work privateers to Nassau after the War of the Spanish Succession; they raided shipping from there until a royal governor arrived in 1718 to take the town back.

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

Woodes Rogers broke the pirates' hold on Nassau but bankrupted himself doing it: he spent time in a debtors' prison back in England before being sent out as governor again in 1728.

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

Barbados was where Bonnet had inherited the family plantation; with no need to steal a ship, he simply paid for one and hired a crew, an almost unheard-of way to turn pirate.

Which drawing, made beside his stepson on a rainy holiday, grew into Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 pirate classic?

An island map came first: Stevenson painted it at Braemar while keeping his stepson Lloyd Osbourne amused, liked the look of it, and began writing a pirate story to go with it.

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

The Ottomans' hold was loose: Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli owed the sultan allegiance, yet lived off the tribute that weaker sea powers paid to keep their ships from being seized.

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 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?

Jamaica got him back as its lieutenant governor: shipped to London under arrest because the raid had broken a peace treaty with Spain, Morgan was knighted by Charles II instead of being put on trial.

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

Marooning was a slow death sentence: the victim was put ashore with little more than some water and a loaded pistol, the pistol for when thirst became unbearable.

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

Whydah Gally was a new London-built ship when Bellamy ran her down after a three-day chase; she sank with him only weeks later, and divers have been raising her coins and cannon ever since the wreck was found.

Actor Robert Newton, playing Long John Silver for Disney in 1950, fixed the 'pirate accent' as the speech of which English region?

The West Country was Newton's own home: born in Dorset, he exaggerated his native burr, rolled r's and all, and screen pirates have copied him ever since, which is why Talk Like a Pirate Day calls him its patron saint.

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

The articles were sworn to by every man who joined a crew; Bartholomew Roberts's set banned gambling for money, ordered lights out at eight and set death as the penalty for sneaking a woman aboard in disguise.

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

Piet Heyn's haul came to some 11.5 million guilders, enough for the Dutch West India Company to pay its shareholders a 50% dividend.

Francis Drake, John Hawkins and Tudor England's other licensed raiders of Spanish shipping were known by which nickname?

The Sea Dogs' raids on Spanish treasure ships helped provoke the Armada of 1588, and when it came, veterans such as Drake and Hawkins were among the commanders who fought it off.

Which pirate captain mentored Blackbeard and gave him his first command?

Benjamin Hornigold later took the king's pardon and turned pirate hunter, chasing his former comrades; he died after a shipwreck in 1719.

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

Robert Maynard hid most of his men below deck, so Blackbeard's crew swarmed onto what looked like a beaten sloop and were ambushed; Maynard sailed home with the pirate's head hung from his bowsprit.

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

Charles Town, South Carolina, was bottled up in May 1718 while Blackbeard seized passing ships and held their passengers hostage; he freed them once the town sent out a chest of medicines.

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

William Dampier filled his bestseller with careful notes on plants and animals that later influenced Charles Darwin; its success won the former raider command of a Royal Navy ship.

Which notoriously cruel French pirate was reportedly torn apart by indigenous people in Darién in the late 1660s?

François l'Olonnais, born Jean-David Nau, was feared for torturing Spanish captives; Exquemelin's history of the sea rovers says the people of Darién tore him to pieces and burned the remains so that no trace of him would survive.

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

Ireland is where Johnson set her birth, near Cork, as the illegitimate daughter of an attorney and his maidservant who later emigrated to America; little independent evidence supports any of it.

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

Teuta encouraged her subjects to raid Adriatic shipping; when a Roman envoy sent to protest was killed, Rome declared war in 229 BC and had beaten her within a year.

What was the name of Captain Kidd's 34-gun ship, built with oars as well as sails?

The Adventure Galley could chase a quarry under oars when the wind dropped, unusual for a ship of 34 guns; Kidd's richest prize, the Quedagh Merchant, fell to her off India in January 1698.

Which LucasArts adventure-game series follows the hapless would-be pirate Guybrush Threepwood?

Monkey Island began in 1990 with The Secret of Monkey Island, in which Guybrush sets out to become the most infamous pirate in the Caribbean, win the heart of Governor Elaine Marley and face the ghost pirate LeChuck.

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

Cape Coast Castle is where the navy took Roberts's captured crew after his death: 52 were hanged within sight of its walls, while the Africans among them were sold back into slavery.

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?

Fancy was the name chosen after the crew, unpaid for months in a Spanish port, mutinied in 1694 and elected Every captain; he sailed her to the Indian Ocean, and despite a bounty on his head he was never caught.

Unusually for a pirate, Bartholomew Roberts was noted for his constant drinking of what?

Tea was his drink, by Captain Johnson's 1724 account, and he had little patience with drunken crews; his own rules sent anyone still drinking after eight at night up onto the open deck.

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

Royal Fortune was the name Roberts reused each time he traded up to a bigger prize, so several ships carried it in turn; the last was the flagship he died aboard in 1722.

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

Edward Low worked as a rigger in Boston and lost his wife young; he later shot at his captain in a quarrel aboard a timber sloop, the start of one of the cruellest careers in piracy.

What did Stede Bonnet, the 'Gentleman Pirate', name the sloop he paid for to begin his piracy in 1717?

Revenge was the sloop Bonnet paid for from his own fortune, but he was no sailor: within a year another man was captaining her and Blackbeard was keeping Bonnet aboard his flagship as a 'guest'.

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

Colonel William Rhett, sent out by the colony's governor, cornered Bonnet in the Cape Fear River in 1718; Bonnet had been sailing as 'Captain Thomas' to protect his pardon, and was hanged before the year was out.

In J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, what has the crocodile swallowed that warns Captain Hook it is coming?

A clock ticks inside the crocodile that ate Hook's hand and wants the rest of him; the sound gives him time to bolt, but he lives in dread of the day it runs down.

What kind of storm wrecked Sam Bellamy's treasure-laden flagship off Cape Cod in April 1717?

A nor'easter drove the ship onto a sandbar within sight of the Cape Cod shore, snapped her mainmast and rolled her over; of about 146 men aboard, only two reached land alive.

Tradition places Henry Morgan's birth at Llanrumney, an estate now inside which city?

Cardiff's Llanrumney district is the traditional birthplace, though Pencarn near Newport has a rival claim, and almost nothing else is known of Morgan's early life.

On his voyage around the world, Francis Drake claimed which future US state's coast for England in 1579?

California: in June 1579 Drake put in near today's San Francisco to ready his treasure-laden ship for the Pacific, named the land Nova Albion and claimed it for the Crown, a claim England never followed up.

Which treasure port on the Isthmus of Panama did Francis Drake raid in 1572, five years before his voyage round the world?

Nombre de Dios was where Peru's silver was loaded for Spain; after his raid on the town, Drake made the voyage pay by ambushing a mule train loaded with silver on the trail across the isthmus.

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

Elizabeth I sided with her, ordering her governor in Connacht, Sir Richard Bingham, to free O'Malley's captive kin; by tradition the two women met face to face.

Roughly how many pirates sailed in the Chinese confederation led by Zheng Yi and his widow?

About 60,000 sits inside the estimates, which run from 40,000 to 70,000 pirates in hundreds of junks, split into six fleets under different coloured flags; they fought China's imperial navy and European warships alike.

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

She negotiated a surrender to the Qing that left her free: pardoned, she lived on ashore until 1844, running a gambling house.

Which sultan made the corsair Hayreddin Barbarossa his grand admiral in 1533?

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

On which Greek island was Hayreddin Barbarossa born?

Lesbos is where Hayreddin was born, one of four brothers; he went to sea as a corsair under his elder brother Oruç long before he rose to admiral.

Pirate Jean Lafitte and his Baratarians 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.

In pirate lore, what was Black Caesar to do if Blackbeard lost at Ocracoke?

Blow up the ship: the General History puts a crewman in the powder room with a lit match, and tradition names him Black Caesar; two prisoners talked him out of it, and he seems to have escaped the gallows legend gives him.

What was the nickname of French pirate Olivier Levasseur?

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

The treasure ship Nossa Senhora do Cabo, seized by pirates off Réunion, sailed under which country's flag?

Portugal's great ship was carrying a departing viceroy and his treasure when a storm crippled her; Olivier Levasseur and John Taylor took her at Réunion almost without a fight, one of piracy's richest hauls.

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?

Madagascar had no European colony after English and French attempts to settle it failed, so Pirate Round crews could careen their ships, resupply and trade loot there, above all on the offshore island of Sainte-Marie.

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

Edward England took the Bristol slaver Cadogan in 1718 and handed her to her mate, Howell Davis; two years later his own crew voted him out for letting a captured captain go free.

In sailors' slang, what is Davy Jones's Locker?

The bottom of the sea, the grave of drowned sailors and sunken ships; the phrase was in print by 1726, yet nobody has established who, if anyone, Davy Jones was.

In J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, who is Captain Hook's genial Irish bosun?

Smee is 'an oddly genial man' who stabs 'without offence'; after Hook's defeat, Barrie says, he made a living telling people he was the only man Hook had ever feared.

Emanuel Wynn's black pirate flag of 1700 showed a skull, crossed bones and which other object?

An hourglass joined the skull and bones on the 'sable ensign' that a Royal Navy captain logged after chasing Wynn off the Cape Verde islands; such designs became common only in the 1710s.

On a pirate ship, what did hoisting a plain red flag instead of the black one signal?

No mercy would be shown: the red 'bloody flag' meant no quarter, whereas the black flag was a warning that still left the victim a chance to surrender.

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?

The French conquest of Algeria began in 1830, three years after the dey of Algiers struck France's consul with a fly whisk; it finally closed the corsairs' chief base.

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.

Which Bronze Age raiders, who attacked Egypt under Ramesses III, are the earliest pirates on record?

The Sea Peoples raided shipping in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean from the 14th century BC and attacked Egypt itself, yet historians still cannot say for certain who they were or where they came from.

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.

Which young Roman reputedly crucified the Cilician pirates who held him to ransom?

Julius Caesar, in Plutarch's telling, laughed when the pirates asked 20 talents for him and offered 50 himself; once freed he raised ships, captured them and had them crucified, as he had warned he would.

What does wokou, Ming China's name for coastal pirates, literally mean?

Dwarf bandits: 'wo' was an old Chinese name for the Japanese that can also mean dwarf, and 'kou' means bandit; the raids peaked on China's coast in the mid-16th century.

A General History of the Pyrates (1724), signed 'Captain Charles Johnson', has often been attributed to which English novelist?

Daniel Defoe was put forward as the real 'Captain Johnson' by the scholar John Robert Moore in 1932; the attribution is still argued over, and a rival theory names the publisher Nathaniel Mist.

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 priest Caraccioli, appears only in the General History's second volume 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 settlers spread to the mainland and founded the colony of Saint-Domingue.

Pirates condemned in London were paraded to Execution Dock behind an official carrying what?

A silver oar, carried by the marshal at the head of the procession, was the badge of the court that had condemned them; on the way the prisoners were allowed a last quart of ale.

Why did Execution Dock stand below the low-tide mark?

To symbolise Admiralty jurisdiction over the sea, which in law began at the low-tide line, the gallows stood just below it; the bodies were left there until three tides had washed over them.

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

Cobs were chunks cut from a silver bar and trimmed by hand until the weight was right; the mint cared about weight, not shape, so few came out round.

Legends of Captain Kidd's buried treasure inspired which Edgar Allan Poe story about a cipher and a hidden chest?

The Gold-Bug (1843) has its hero crack a cipher that leads to Kidd's chest; the real Kidd did bury loot on Gardiners Island, but the governor reportedly had it recovered and sent to England.

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 did the castaway Alexander Selkirk live alone from 1704 to 1709?

Selkirk spent four years and four months alone in the Juan Fernández Islands off Chile before a privateering ship rescued him in February 1709; his story is thought to have inspired Robinson Crusoe, and his island now bears that name.

The Victual Brothers were first hired by the Dukes of Mecklenburg to fight which 14th-century queen?

Margaret I of Denmark had captured her rival Albert of Mecklenburg, King of Sweden, and was besieging Stockholm; the hired captains ran supplies through her blockade, then stayed on as Baltic pirates.

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?

Philip VI of France had her husband Olivier de Clisson executed for treason in 1343; Jeanne took to the Channel against French ships and is said to have left a survivor each time to carry the news back to the king.

The 'pirate queen' Sayyida al-Hurra sent corsairs against Spain from Tétouan, a city in which present-day country?

Morocco's port of Tétouan was governed for some thirty years by Sayyida al-Hurra, whose family had fled Granada when it fell to Spain; she answered with corsair raids until a relative deposed her in 1542.

Kanhoji Angre, whose fleet seized European merchant ships, commanded which Indian power's navy until 1729?

The Maratha Empire's navy was his command from about 1698; he seized European merchantmen off India's west coast and insisted that East India Company ships pay him a tax to sail there.

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

Massachusetts hanged Rachel Wall in Boston on 8 October 1789 for trying to steal a bonnet; at her trial she asked to be tried as a pirate instead, insisting she had never killed anyone.

The pirate Cheung Po Tsai is remembered by a legendary treasure cave on an island in which city?

Hong Kong's island of Cheung Chau has the Cheung Po Tsai Cave, where legend says he hid his loot, though none has been found; seized by pirates at 15, he ended his days as an imperial navy officer.

In 2009, Somali pirates fled the Maersk Alabama with Captain Richard Phillips in what?

The lifeboat was the ship's own covered 28-footer; a US destroyer shadowed it for days with Phillips held aboard, until Navy SEAL snipers shot three of the pirates on 12 April.

Which actor earned an Oscar nomination as the Somali pirate leader in the 2013 film Captain Phillips?

Barkhad Abdi was a Minneapolis limousine driver with no film credits when he was picked from more than 700 hopefuls at an open casting call to play Abduwali Muse opposite Tom Hanks.

Who directed the 2013 film Captain Phillips?

Paul Greengrass shot much of Captain Phillips at sea off Malta, spending nine weeks aboard a container ship identical to the real Maersk Alabama; the film earned six Oscar nominations.

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 kept his artists at work when Disney chief Michael Eisner tried to shut the film down, and executives later feared Johnny Depp's slurring Jack Sparrow was ruining it; it grossed $654 million.

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

Dead Man's Chest was shot back to back with At World's End so Disney could keep the same cast and crew; it reached $1 billion in a then-record 63 days and finished on about $1.07 billion.

The Pirates of the Caribbean ride first opened at which park?

Disneyland, Anaheim, opened the ride on 18 March 1967, three months after Walt Disney's death; he had first imagined it as a walk-through wax museum rather than a boat ride.

Treasure Island opens at which inn, kept by Jim Hawkins's parents?

The Admiral Benbow is where the old pirate Billy Bones lodges with his sea chest; the Spy-glass, by contrast, is Long John Silver's own tavern in Bristol, where Jim first meets him.

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 Treasure Island, what does the blind beggar Pew deliver to Billy Bones?

Blind Pew presses the black spot, the pirates' summons, into Billy Bones's hand; Bones drops dead of a stroke soon after, and Jim and his mother find the 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 film Muppet Treasure Island?

Tim Curry's Long John Silver was one of the few human roles: Kermit commanded the ship as its captain and Miss Piggy played a castaway queen, a part the novel gives to a man.

Which Starz drama, set among the pirates of Nassau, was written as a prequel to Treasure Island?

Black Sails (2014-17) imagines Long John Silver's rise some twenty years before the novel, alongside real pirates such as Charles Vane and Jack Rackham.

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

Taika Waititi, who also directed the pilot, plays Blackbeard as the love interest of Rhys Darby's Stede Bonnet, turning the two pirates' real partnership of 1717 into a romantic comedy.

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

Edward Kenway is a Welsh privateer turned pirate who kills an Assassin, steals his robes and bluffs his way into the plot; the series makes him father of Haytham and grandfather of Connor.

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; it was the first game with his name in the title, an idea publisher Bill Stealey credited to a dinner-table suggestion from Robin Williams.

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 two Oregon friends yelped 'Aaarrr!' in pain; it stayed 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 went to the unknown Errol Flynn only after Robert Donat turned the part down; its success made him a star and began a run of eight films opposite Olivia de Havilland.

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

Brittany was her birthplace; tradition says she drew a pistol on the pirate Laurens de Graaf, who was so impressed that he married her in 1693.

In which 1985 film do children follow an old map to the treasure ship of the pirate One-Eyed Willy?

The Goonies reach One-Eyed Willy's ship, the Inferno, in a sea cave, hoping its treasure will save their homes from foreclosure; in the end a small bag of jewels does it.

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

Lafitte took over Galveston Island in 1817 and ran a smuggling colony he called Campeche until the US Navy ordered him out a few years later, when he sailed away rather than fight.

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

Eiichiro Oda launched One Piece in Weekly Shōnen Jump in July 1997 expecting it to run five years; it was still going when it passed 500 million copies in circulation in 2022.

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 raid on Fajardo, Puerto Rico, led to his court-martial.

Which future saint was seized from Roman Britain by pirate raiders at sixteen and taken into slavery overseas?

Patrick spent six years as a herder in captivity before escaping home, then went back as a Christian missionary to the land of his captors.

In Peter Pan, which animal trails Captain Hook everywhere after getting a taste for him from his severed hand?

A crocodile was fed the hand by Peter Pan himself; luckily for Hook it also swallowed a clock, so the ticking always warns him when it is near.

Which cartoon's theme song is sung by a talking painting of a pirate, answered by a chorus of children?

SpongeBob SquarePants opens with Painty the Pirate bellowing 'Are ya ready, kids?' before a singalong adapted from 'Blow the Man Down'.

Which city's baseball club got its nickname after rivals called its signing of Lou Bierbauer 'piratical'?

Pittsburgh's club, then the Alleghenys, was never found guilty of wrongdoing, but newspapers took up the taunt from 1891 and the Pirates name stuck.

Which 1985 adventure film sends a gang of Oregon kids after the lost fortune of the pirate One-Eyed Willy?

The Goonies ends aboard One-Eyed Willy's ship, a full-sized replica built for the film on one of the largest sound stages in the United States.

Which actor played the cargo-ship captain taken hostage by Somali pirates in the 2013 film Captain Phillips?

Tom Hanks spent much of the shoot at sea: nine weeks were filmed aboard the Alexander Maersk, a container ship identical to the hijacked one.

Which US armed service's hymn recalls its 1805 fight against the Barbary states in the line 'to the shores of Tripoli'?

The Marines sing of the Battle of Derna; their hymn, set to a tune from an Offenbach comic opera, is the oldest official song in the US armed forces.

Off Nova Scotia, where is the 'Money Pit' that has lured hunters of supposed pirate gold since the 1790s?

Oak Island's hunt began, the story goes, with a hollow in the ground found in 1795; Franklin D. Roosevelt followed the digs for decades, yet the alleged treasure has never been found.

Which comic-book hero hunts for Red Rackham's Treasure aboard a trawler with his friend Captain Haddock?

Tintin finds the wreck with help from a stowaway: the story introduced Professor Calculus, who smuggles his shark-shaped submarine aboard.

In Peter Pan, what is the name of Captain Hook's genial, bespectacled boatswain, who survives the final battle?

Smee 'stabbed, so to speak, without offence', in Barrie's words, and ends up wandering the world claiming to be the only man Hook had ever feared.

Which Australian children's band counts a 'friendly pirate' called Captain Feathersword among its regular characters?

The Wiggles hired Paul Paddick as a five-week stand-in; he stayed on full-time from late 1995 and came to be known as 'the fifth Wiggle'.

The corsair brothers Oruç and Hayreddin of Algiers were known across Europe as Barbarossa, Italian for what?

Red beard was first the nickname of the elder brother, Oruç; after he died in 1518 Hayreddin inherited it, and it is the name history remembers him by.

Which Australian actor played the scheming Captain Hector Barbossa opposite Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow?

Geoffrey Rush invented his own backstory for Barbossa and saw him as the first film's unsung hero, a rogue who only wanted his curse lifted.

French privateer François Le Clerc, wounded attacking Guernsey in 1549, was known by a nickname meaning what?

Peg Leg, 'Jambe de Bois' to the French and 'Pie de Palo' to the Spanish, lost his left leg at Guernsey yet went on to sack Santiago de Cuba in 1554.

After a black flag offered the chance to surrender, what did pirates signal by raising a plain red 'bloody flag'?

No mercy shown, or 'no quarter': if a ship ignored the black flag's offer to spare those who gave up, the red one meant its cargo would be taken by force.

Which LucasArts adventure game series follows hapless would-be pirate Guybrush Threepwood against the undead LeChuck?

Monkey Island began in 1990 with a hero whose opening line is 'I want to be a pirate!'; creator Ron Gilbert left LucasArts after two games.

In The Pirates of Penzance, apprentice Frederic must serve until his 21st birthday; on which date was he born?

29 February comes round only in leap years, so Frederic, at 21, has had just five birthdays and owes the pirates another 63 years.

Which Spanish writer was captured at sea by Barbary pirates in 1575 and held for ransom in Algiers?

Miguel de Cervantes had already lost the use of his left hand at Lepanto; ransomed after five years and repeated escape attempts, he went on to write Don Quixote.

What did sailors call beaching a ship on its side to clean the hull, as pirates did without dry docks?

Careening scraped away the marine growth that dragged on a wooden hull; Las Tres Marías off Mexico became a pirate haven after Charles Swan careened his ships there in 1686.

Which British king's 1717 proclamation promised a pardon to any pirate who surrendered before a set deadline?

George I backed the carrot with a stick: the same Act of Grace put a bounty of £100 on every pirate captain who failed to come in.

A pirate bellowing 'Avast!' is using a 1680s sailors' word, probably worn down from Dutch, to give which order?

Stop is the whole meaning: 'avast' is probably a worn-down form of the Dutch 'houd vast', or 'hold fast'.

The pirate insult 'landlubber' has nothing to do with loving land; what did 'lubber' first mean in medieval English?

A clumsy, lazy lout was the first sense, aimed at idle monks called abbey-lubbers; sailors took the word up in the 1500s for anyone inept at sea.

Sailors' slang since the 1720s, 'Davy Jones's locker' is a grim nickname for which place?

The bottom of the sea got an owner in print by 1726; a 1751 novel gave Davy Jones saucer eyes, horns, a tail and three rows of teeth.

What do sailors call the lookout platform high on a ship's mast, which Arctic whalers rigged from a barrel?

Crow's nest: the whaler William Scoresby Sr. rigged a barrel lookout for Arctic voyages, and his son credited him with inventing it, though he may only have improved older designs.

Which part of a sailing ship, the roof of its rear cabin, takes its name from the Latin for 'stern'?

Poop deck comes through the French 'poupe' from the Latin 'puppis', which simply meant stern; high above the rear cabin, it was an ideal place for keeping watch.

Which sailors' word for a ship's right-hand side comes from the Old English for 'steering side'?

Starboard recalls the steering oar that early ships carried on the right; with the oar in the way, they docked on the left, which became 'port'.

Which pirate-speak word for a rascal was also the insult for white Southerners who backed Reconstruction in the 1860s?

Scalawag is American slang first seen in the 1830s, a century too late for the pirates of the early 1700s; an early sense was an undersized, ill-fed or worthless animal.

Which English actor's West Country accent as Long John Silver in a 1950 Disney film became the model for pirate-speak?

Robert Newton grew up in Cornwall and exaggerated his native accent for the part; he is now the 'patron saint' of International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

On a naval ship, the order 'Splice the mainbrace' rewards the crew with what, as it once followed a dreaded repair?

An extra drink of rum was the customary thanks for mending the mainbrace, one of the hardest emergency repairs on a sailing ship; the order outlived the job.

Which US president refused the pasha of Tripoli's demand for more tribute, bringing on the First Barbary War in 1801?

Thomas Jefferson had argued against paying for years; once in office he refused Tripoli's demand for $225,000 and sent a squadron of frigates instead.