Pirate: Did you mean...?

Henry Every (b. 1653), also known as Henry Avery, Benjamin Bridgeman, ‘Long Ben’ and (incorrectly) John Avery, was one of the most savage and successful pirates in the Golden Age of Piracy. Capturing a treasure ship of the Mughal emperor...

A pirate ship being careened, that is when a ship is beached and its hull scraped clean of marine encrustations and repaired. From the TV series Black Sails. ©2014 Starz Entertainment

This map illustrates the maritime routes of Spain’s Treasure Fleets and the network of Caribbean ports and pirate havens around 1670. It captures the tension between imperial commerce and maritime raiding, showing both the logistical arteries...

A typical sentence for the most notorious pirate captains during the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730) was to be hanged and then have the corpse hung in a cage to rot. The idea was that mariners passing the shore would see this punishment...

In this article, we look at the lives and deeds of seven notorious women pirates. There is Teuta, the Balkan enemy of ancient Rome; Alwilda, the Scandinavian princess who chose a life of crime on the High Seas; Maria Lindsey, who terrorized...

Takayo Fischer, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, and Ghassan Massoud in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007). The character Mistress Ching is likely based on the famed pirate chief Zheng Yi Sao (d. 1844), widow of Zheng Yi. © Walt Disney Pictures...

A 1921 painting of a boy dressed as a pirate by William Meade Prince (1893-1951). (Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina, USA)

Geena Davis as a female pirate in Cutthroat Island (1995). Photo by Carolco Pictures.

A sketch of an armed pirate from the Golden Age of Piracy by Howard Pyle (1853-1911). From Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates: Fiction, Fact & Fancy Concerning the Buccaneers & Marooners of the Spanish Main, New York, Harper and Brothers.

Captain Keitt, a detail from the frontispiece of The Ruby of Kishmoor, written and illustrated by Howard Pyle (1853-1911). First published in 1908.