| The notorious Edward Teach, also known as "Blackbeard, Scourge of the Seven Seas," was born in Bristol, England, somewhere around 1680. By 1716, he had joined the pirate crew of one Benjamin Hornigold, but he rose quickly through the ranks and soon had his own ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge. For the next two years he was a fearsome pirate captain with a fleet of his own pirate ships in the West Indies and off the eastern coast of the American colonies. He was killed in battle when a British Naval Lieutenant Robert Maynard tracked him down on Ocracoke island near North Carolina and fought a pitched battle with his ship. Blackbeard thought he was winning and ordered his crew to board Maynard's battered vessel, but Maynard had hidden several men below deck and they came as a total surprise to Teach and his crew. After the battle, Teach's body was said to have suffered five musket wounds. Music is about another fateful ship of the seas, "The Flying Dutchman," composed by Richard Wagner. |
