Piracy

For as long as ships have sailed the sea, there have been pirates. Ancient Egypt and the Romans, Medieval kings, and the British Empire dealt with pirates. Fighting pirates has sometimes been one of the most important roles of a navy.

Piracy still happens in the modern world. The Gulf of Aden (which is off the coast of Somalia) has especially high rates of pirate attacks, mostly by Somali pirates. 

 Modern 
Usually, modern pirates climb onto ships to get money. In the process, they may kill the crew or hold it for ransom. In a very few cases, they may also take over the ship and sell its cargo.

The cargo ships that travel the oceans are huge, but they usually have very few crew members working on them. Their size often makes the ships carry a lot of money in the safe. The money is used to pay the crew, to pay for the taxes to stay at a port, or to pass through a channel.

 Famous pirates 

 Real pirates 
 Edward Teach (a.k.a. Blackbeard)
 Francis Drake
 Jack Rackham (a.k.a Calico Jack)
 Henry Every (a.k.a Long Ben)
 Anne Bonny
 Wijerd Jelckama
 Pier Gerlofs Donia
 Captain Kidd
 Amaro Pargo
 Jean Lafitte

 Pirates in fiction 
 Jack Sparrow. He is in the film series Pirates of the Caribbean.

 Related pages 

 Pirate code
 Piracy in the Caribbean
 Organized crime
 Robbery

References

 More reading 




Category:Organized crime

Category:Robbery