Hello, I'm Mister Q and welcome back to A Kid Explains History. You know what I like? Pirates. So today's episode is about them.
The word Pirate comes from the Latin word Pirata, which means attacker, or robber. Eventually, (uiteindelijk) that came to mean doing those things on the water. There have been pirates for as long as there have been boats. I mean, the first guy who had a boat was probably minding his own business, fishing or something and another guy swam out to him with a club (knuppel) and took his boat.And his fish. Since then, there have been pirates all over the world, all throughout history. There were lots during the Roman times, some even kidnapped Julius Caesar. Vikings could be considered (beschouwd)
pirates and there were lots of them in China too. There are even still pirates today. Somali pirates have been known to take people hostage.
(Somalia is a country in Africa) Then they demand money to give them back. Not exactly something people want to make movies about.
Well, except for this one. But that's not the point. (niet belangrijk) These movies are way more fun. (veel leuker) And why? Because they deal with something that we know as the Golden Age of Pirates. This was roughly (ongeveer) between 1680 and 1730 and it's where the most popular myths about pirates come from. Made popular by books like (zoals) 'Treasure Island', musicals like 'Pirates of Penzance' and a guy called Johnny Depp. With help from his friend 'the Kracken'.
European countries were spending a lot of time (tijd doorbrengen) traveling to the New World to set uptheir Empires. And that meant carrying money back and forth. So the Caribbean became a popular place to attack ships. Now the interesting thing about the Golden Age of Pirates was even though (alhoewel) they were outlaws, (vogelvrijen) there was a lot to admire about the way they ran their ships.In fact, while those European powers were busy taking people from Africa to be slaves and taking land from people already living in the Americas, basically acting like 'Bad Guys,' pirate crews (bemanningen) were quite democratic. They would vote (stemmen) for their captain and could vote him out if he wasn't doing a good job. They had a form of health insurance to help their fellow pirates if they got hurt in battle. And they shared whatever treasure they took.But, of course there was a bad side. (slechte kant) At times, they were more interested in stealing foodso they wouldn't starve. The battles at sea were vicious (gemeen) and lots of people died. Not to mention the fact that everybody wanted to hang you if you were captured. (gevangen genomen) Some of the more famous pirates of this period were Calico Jack Rackham, Bartholomew Roberts, even women like Mary Read and Ann Bonney. But as far as I'm concerned, (wat mij betreft) the most piratey-pirate of them all was a man called Blackbeard. This guy had style. His real name was Edward
Teach and he was a big, tall man who enjoyed his reputation. Carrying six pistols in specially designed holsters (houders) around his chest. (borst) And he put slow burning fuses (lonten)in his beard to scare people when he fought (vochten) them. That would work.This is what his flag looked like. It's a variation on the classic 'Jolly Roger.' It was smart for pirates to use flags like this, because ships were usually so scared when they saw it, they'd give up without fighting.
Blackbeard was finally killed in a sword fight with British soldiers in 1718. He refused to surrender, (overgeven) throwing himself into the battle, right 'till the end.England had had enough of losing money to the pirates and they spent more time hunting them down. The British Royal Navy built (bouwden) a lot more ships and they thpassed thee PiracyAct (namen een piratenwet aan) in 1698, which made it easier to arrest and punish (straffen) them The most famous buccaneers were killed or captured and chased out of pirate towns like 'Port Royal' and 'Tortuga.' The Golden Age of Pirates faded into history.
Lesson duration is: 50 min
