Of all the pirates that roamed the Atlantic seas, perhaps the most notorious was Blackbeard. Much that has been written about Blackbeard blends fact with fiction, making the legendary pirate even more mysterious. In 1996, divers in Beaufort Inlet found a sunken ship that dates to Blackbeard's era and some believe to be his pirate ship the Queen Anne's Revenge.
Efforts are ongoing to excavate and study the shipwreck and learn more about the age of piracy.
He had a commanding presence, standing 6 feet 4 inches and weighing 250 pounds, with long black hair and braided beard tied with ribbons. Blackbeard preyed on ships from New England to the Virgin Islands. On the stolen Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard would attack ships that carried riches from the New World, pounding them into submission with his 40 cannon. Then looking like a brother of the Devil that he claimed to be, Blackbeard would storm aboard a captured vessel, with pistols and knives in his sash, cutlass in his hand, and dagger in his teeth. For additional effect, Blackbeard would light small pieces of slow-burning rope that were tied to his beard and hair, creating a smoldering hallucination of a beast from hell.