Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Now You Know Pirates: The Little Book of Answers
    Now You Know Pirates: The Little Book of Answers
    Now You Know Pirates: The Little Book of Answers
    Ebook86 pages1 hour

    Now You Know Pirates: The Little Book of Answers

    By Doug Lennox

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Shiver me timbers and avast ye hearties! We think we know pirates, from Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow to Errol Flynn as Captain Blood, or literature’s Long John Silver and Captain Hook. But what do we really know? The true Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, Sir Henry Morgan, and lots more, from ancient keelhauling to twenty-first-century buccaneering, are all here in Q & A commodore Doug Lennox’s Now You Know Pirates. Arrrr!

    • What is the origin of the word pirate?
    • Who were the Barbary Corsairs?
    • What did pirates do to St. Patrick?
    • What is the difference between a pirate and a privateer?
    • What is the Oak Island Treasure?
    • How many female pirates have there been?
    • What are "pieces of eight" and "doubloons"?
    • Who were the buccaneers?
    • How old is piracy?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDundurn
    Release dateMar 26, 2008
    ISBN9781459718128
    Now You Know Pirates: The Little Book of Answers
    Author

    Doug Lennox

    Doug Lennox was an internationally acclaimed broadcaster, a veteran character actor, a commercial voice artist, and a bestselling author. He has appeared in more than 60 films and television features, including X-Men, Police Academy, Lonesome Dove, and Against the Ropes, and shared screen time with Meg Ryan, Hugh Jackman, Burt Reynolds, Holly Hunter, Eric McCormack, Gary Oldman, and a myriad of others.

    Related to Now You Know Pirates

    Titles in the series (22)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Games & Activities For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Mouse Trap A Cheesy Classic

      Mar 9, 2023

      Mouse Trap A Cheesy Classic
      6 min read

    • Article

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER

      Jun 10, 2022

      Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
      8 min read

    • Article

      This Is Central America!

      Jan 1, 2021

      This Is Central America!
      3 min read

    • Article

      Horde Mode

      Jan 30, 2023

      Horde Mode
      5 min read

    • Article

      A An Of Z Medieval Childhood

      Nov 24, 2022

      A An Of Z Medieval Childhood
      10 min read

    • Article

      Remarkable Rabbits

      Jan 1, 2023

      Remarkable Rabbits
      2 min read

    • Article

      Pirates

      Feb 25, 2022

      Pirates
      4 min read

    • Article

      Waves Of Fear

      May 28, 2020

      Waves Of Fear
      5 min read

    • Article

      Tudor Pirates

      Jan 25, 2024

      Tudor Pirates
      14 min read

    • Article

      Mermaids And Sea Myths

      Nov 3, 2022

      Mermaids And Sea Myths
      9 min read

    • Article

      Woke The Plank! Were Pirate Ships Actually Beacons Of Diversity And Democracy?

      Apr 4, 2023

      In September 1695, the Plymouth-born “king of pirates”, Henry Avery, seized treasure worth £600,000 (in today’s terms, nearly £100m) from the Grand Mughal fleet in the Red Sea. What happened next is uncertain. The most boring legend has Avery – AKA H

      6 min read

    • Article

      Hell On High water

      Dec 28, 2022

      Hell On High water
      8 min read

    • Article

      Muslim Rulers Of The Waves

      Oct 28, 2021

      Muslim Rulers Of The Waves
      5 min read

    • Article

      Pirates Of The Caribbean

      Oct 13, 2021

      Pirates Of The Caribbean
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Pirate Republic

      Jul 16, 2020

      The Pirate Republic
      7 min read

    • Article

      On The Smugglers’ Trail

      Jun 9, 2023

      On The Smugglers’ Trail
      5 min read

    • Article

      Golds’ Lure

      Jan 1, 2020

      Golds’ Lure
      4 min read

    • Article

      WRECK Ommendations

      Aug 30, 2018

      Florida’s Lost Galleon: The Emanuel Point Shipwreck Edited by Rodger Smith Florida waters have long been considered a treasure hunters’ paradise as there are many Spanish Galleons and other historical vessels that have met their fate and wrecked ther

      6 min read

    • Article

      The West Africa Squadron

      Dec 19, 2017

      The West Africa Squadron
      8 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Now You Know Pirates

    5/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Now You Know Pirates - Doug Lennox

      Today

      PREFACE

      The current popularity of actor Johnny Depp’s incorrigible Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films is just the latest example of the public’s long-standing fascination with tales of swashbuckling adventure on the high seas. Movies like The Sea Hawk and Captain Blood made Errol Flynn a Hollywood star. Robert Newton’s Long John Silver in Treasure Island and Long John Silver gave moviegoers the quintessential pirate — a one-legged scoundrel with a salty vocabulary held together by exclamations of Arrr! Other Hollywood stars who made memorable appearances as pirates were Tyrone Power (The Black Swan), Yul Brynner (The Buccaneer), Burt Lancaster (The Crimson Pirate), and Anthony Quinn (A High Wind in Jamaica). One of the most dastardly villains ever seen in animated film is Peter Pan’s arch-enemy, Captain Hook. Even before the coming of motion pictures, writers from William Shakespeare to Robert Louis Stevenson found in the pirate the classic example of a colourful but thoroughly bad ne’er-do-well.

      But there was a time when pirates weren’t just characters on a movie screen or figments of a writer’s imagination. They were real people who posed a genuine threat to commerce and to the lives of honest mariners and other people who ventured out on the sea in ships. They stole, they murdered, and at times they struck at the very foundations of nations and empires. Some pirates were little more than seagoing vagabonds who plundered any small vessel that fell into their hands. Other pirates sailed under leaders who commanded entire fleets of ships and dealt as equals with monarchs.

      The names of some pirates are well known even today: Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, Black Bart, and Jean Lafitte, for example. However, they represent but a few of the many men who sailed under the black flag and for whom piracy was more than just a criminal activity; it was a way of life. One of the earliest books about piracy was A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, published in 1724 under the pen name Captain Charles Johnson. (Some believe that Daniel Defoe was the real author of this book, but not all historians accept the theory.) Since then hundreds of books have been written on the topic. The information in this book has been thoroughly researched. I hope you’ll find it an informative and entertaining look into the incredible world of pirates.

      EARLY PIRACY

      What is the origin of the word pirate?

      Pirate comes from the Latin word pirata, which means to attack or assault. The word can be a noun, a verb, or an adjective. To pirate something is to steal it.

      How old is piracy?

      Piracy is as old as navigation. Pirates robbed the ships of the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians. The ancient Greeks were pirates before the rise of city states like Athens and Sparta. Pirates raided the supply ships of Alexander the Great, waylaid the grain ships of Rome, and kidnapped Roman aristocrats like Julius Caesar to hold them for ransom. However, the Romans didn’t always take this lying down. Julius Caesar returned with a force of soldiers to the pirate island where he had been held captive. He sacked the pirate stronghold and crucified every single pirate. In 67 BC the Roman general Pompey the Great swept the Mediterranean Sea clear of pirates. Instead of crucifying the survivors, he established them in colonies — all at least eighty kilometres from the sea.

      What did pirates have to do with St. Patrick?

      In the fourth century the person now known as St. Patrick was the son of an aristocratic family in the Roman province of Britannia, which by that time was Christian. The teenage boy was kidnapped by Irish pirates who carried him off to Ireland, where he was made a slave. The boy’s real name has been lost to history. Because he was a Roman aristocrat, or patrician, his captors simply called him padraig, their word for patrician. The name has been anglicized to Patrick. After six years of captivity, Patrick escaped and returned home. He went back to Ireland as a missionary and converted the pagan Irish to Christianity.

      Why were the Vikings called pirates?

      The Vikings, also called Northmen or Norsemen, were both traders and raiders. These fierce warriors, who were also superb sailors, swept down from their homelands of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries to pillage the British Isles and western Europe. Travelling by sea and by the great rivers of Europe, they traded in centres as far off as Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), often dealing in merchandise they had acquired in their plunders. There was a story about a prince who

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1