Captain: Did you mean...?

The Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730) refers to a period when robbery on the high seas and at colonial ports reached an unprecedented level. Although not all historians agree on the precise time frame, it is generally applied to those pirates...

Squanto (l. c. 1585-1622 CE) is the best-known Native American of the pilgrim narrative, famous for helping the Plymouth Colony survive in 1621 CE. He makes up what scholar Charles C. Mann calls the “uneasy triumvirate” of Native Americans...

The story of the pilgrims of Plymouth Colony is well known regarding the basic facts: they sailed on the Mayflower, arrived off the coast of Massachusetts on 11 November 1620, came ashore at Plymouth Rock, half of them died the first winter...

Henry Hudson (c. 1570-1611) was an English navigator and maritime explorer. He is known for his four voyages between 1607 and 1610 in search of a northwest passage via the Arctic Ocean to the Far East. The lure of a northwest passage became...

Bartholomew Roberts, aka 'Black Bart' Roberts (c. 1682-1722), was a Welsh pirate and one of the most successful villains of the Golden Age of Piracy. Roberts plundered over 400 ships on both sides of the Atlantic during his infamous three-year...

Captain Charles Vane was an English pirate active in the Caribbean and off the east coast of North America between 1716 and 1720. The pirate, who infamously refused a pardon and instead fired his cannons at the ship of Governor Woodes Rogers...

The RMS Empress of Ireland was a transatlantic passenger ship that sank early in the morning of 29 May 1914 on the St. Lawrence River killing 1,012 of the 1,477 people on board. It is considered Canada’s worst maritime disaster and one of...

John Paul Jones (1747-1792) was a Scottish-born sailor who served in the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). His raid on the English port town of Whitehaven in 1778 and his victory over the HMS Serapis the...

An audiencia began as a judicial institution in medieval Spain, but in the 16th century, it was applied as the highest form of local government in key cities of the Spanish Empire. An audiencia had a panel of judges made responsible for the...

John Alden (l. c. 1598-1687 CE) was a member of the crew of the Mayflower, serving as the ship's cooper (barrel maker), on the historic voyage of 1620 CE which established the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, North America. Although he was...