Portal:Piracy
Introduction
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, and vessels used for piracy are called pirate ships. The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilisations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding.
Historic examples of such areas include the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, and the English Channel, whose geographic structures facilitated pirate attacks. The term piracy generally refers to maritime piracy, although the term has been generalized to refer to acts committed on land, in the air, on computer networks, and (in science fiction) outer space. Piracy usually excludes crimes committed by the perpetrator on their own vessel (e.g. theft), as well as privateering, which implies authorization by a state government.
Piracy or pirating is the name of a specific crime under customary international law and also the name of a number of crimes under the municipal law of a number of states. In the 21st century, seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue, with estimated worldwide losses of US$25 billion in 2023, increased from US$16 billion in 2004. (Full article...)
Selected biography -
Mary Read (died April 1721), was an English pirate about whom there is very little factual documentation. She and Anne Bonny were among the few female pirates during the "Golden Age of Piracy".
Read was likely born in England. General History says she began dressing as a boy at a young age, at first at her mother's urging in order to receive inheritance money and then as a teenager in order to join the British military. She then married and upon her husband's death moved to the West Indies around 1715. (Full article...)Selected article -
Operation Atalanta, formally European Union Naval Force (EU NAVFOR) Somalia, is an ongoing counter-piracy military operation at sea off the Horn of Africa and in the Western Indian Ocean, that is the first naval operation conducted by the European Union (EU), in support of United Nations resolutions 1814, 1816, 1838, and 1846 adopted in 2008 by the United Nations Security Council. Since 29 March 2019, the operational headquarters is located at Naval Station Rota (NAVSTA Rota) in Spain, having moved from London as a result of the British withdrawal from the EU.
It is part of a larger global action by the EU to prevent and combat acts of piracy in the Indian Ocean, and it is the first EU naval operation to be launched. It cooperates with the multinational Combined Task Force 151 of the US-led Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) and NATO's anti-piracy Operation Ocean Shield. (Full article...)Did you know?
- ... that indigenous Australian artist Daniel Boyd has depicted colonial figures including Captain James Cook and Governor Arthur Phillip as pirates?
- ... that since 1904 the Gasparilla Pirate Festival in Tampa, Florida, has featured a pirate-themed parade?
- ... that the developers of Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number suggested that Australian customers pirate their game?
- ... that HMS Redpole, one of the aptly-named coffin brigs, sank in an action with a pirate vessel in August 1828?
- ... that Saudi Arabian broadcaster beoutQ pirated and resold beIN Sports programmes during the Qatar diplomatic crisis?
- ... that in the Golden Age of Piracy, the word "pirate" was often spelled "pyrate" or "pyrat"?
- ... that there is only one account of walking the plank?
- ... that, unlike traditional Western societies of the time, many pirate clans operated as limited democracies, demanding the right to elect and replace their leaders?
Selected quotations
“ | Now for our affair's are on the razor's edge, men of Ionia, wither we are to be free or slaves ... so if you will bear hardships now, you will suffer temporarily but be able to overcome your enemies | ” |
— Dionysius the Phocaean |
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- eliminate red links from List of pirates
- expand Timeline of piracy, specifically to fill in vast gap between the 1890s to 2000s
- revise Bartholomew Roberts
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