Kepangeranan Sealand

Sejarah HM Fort Roughs

Pada 1943, selama Perang Dunia II, HM Fort Roughs dibangun oleh Britania Raya sebagai salah satu dari Benteng Maunsell, terutama untuk pertahanan
terhadap pesawat mine-laying Jerman yang
mungkin menargetkan
muara yang merupakan
bagian dari jalur pelayaran
penting; it comprised a floating pontoon base with a superstructure of two hollow towers joined by a deck upon which other structures could be added. The fort was towed to a position above the Rough Sands sandbar, where its base was deliberately flooded to allow it to sink to its final resting place on the sandbar. The location chosen was approximately 7 nautical miles from the coast of Suffolk, outside the then three-mile territorial water claim of the United Kingdom and therefore in international waters. The facility (called Roughs Tower or HM Fort Roughs) was occupied by 150–300 Royal Navy personnel throughout World War II; not until well after the war, in 1956, were the last full-time personnel taken off HM Fort Roughs.

Pendudukan oleh Roy Bates dan pembentukan Sealand

Pada tanggal 2 September 1967, benteng diduduki oleh Mayor Paddy Roy Bates, seorang warga Britania Raya dan penyiar radio "bajak laut", who ejected a competing group of pirate broadcasters. Bates bermaksud untuk menyiarkan stasiun radio bajak lautnya, Radio Essex, dari platform.
In 1968, British workmen entered what Bates claimed to be his territorial waters in order to service a navigational buoy near the platform. Michael Bates (son of Paddy Roy Bates) tried to scare the workmen off by firing warning shots from the former fort. As Bates was a British subject at the time, he was summoned to court in England on firearms charges following the incident. But the court ruled that as the platform (which Bates was now calling "Sealand") was outside British jurisdiction, being beyond the then three-mile limit of the country's waters, the case could not proceed. In 1975, Bates introduced a constitution for Sealand, followed by a flag, a national anthem, a currency and passports.
Pada Agustus 1978 saat Bates dan istrinya sedang berada di Inggris, Alexander Achenbach, yang menyatakan dirinya sebagai perdana menteri Sealand, menyewa beberapa orang Jerman dan orang Belanda untuk menyerang platform tempat Sealand berada. Mereka menterang platform dengan speedboat, jet ski, dan helikopter, serta berhasil menangkap anak Bates dan menjadikannya sandera. Bates berhasil mengambil alih kembali platform dan menangkap Achenbach serta pengikutnya yang terlibat. Achenbach, seorang pengacara Jerman yang memegang paspor Sealand, dituntut atas tuduhan pengkhianatan melawan Sealand  dan ditahan sampai ia membayar uang sejumlah 75.000 mark Jerman. Pemerintah Belanda, Austria dan Jerman mengirimkan petisi kepada pemerintah Britania Raya, but the United Kingdom disavowed his imprisonment, citing the 1968 court decision. Pemerintah Jerman lalu mengirimkan diplomatnya dari kedutaan besarnya di London ke Sealand untuk bernegosiasi dalam pembebasan Achenbach. Roy Bates relented after several weeks of negotiations and subsequently claimed that the diplomat's visit constituted de facto recognition of Sealand by Germany.
Following his repatriation, Achenbach and Gernot Pütz established a "government in exile", sometimes known as the Sealand Rebel Government, or Sealandic Rebel Government, in Germany. Achenbach's appointed successor, Johannes Seiger, continues to claim via his website that he is Sealand's legitimate ruling authority.