Top 10 Audacious Acts of Piracy

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Peril on the High Seas

Kidnapping Julius Caesar: 75 B.C.

Taxi / Getty

The small inlets in Cilicia, now part of southern Turkey, were the lairs of pirates who terrorized the eastern Mediterranean in the two centuries before Christ. The abduction of their most famous victim, however, proved to be a miscalculation. A band of Cilician pirates kidnapped a 25-year old Roman nobleman on the way to Rhodes. He charmed them, telling his captors to double their ransom demand and joking about how he would punish them. When the ransom was paid and he was released, Julius Caesar returned at the head of a Roman fleet. The future master of the Mediterranean captured all of his ex-captors and crucified each one.

 

Jean Fleury Hijacks Aztec Gold: 1523

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Spain's conquests of native American empires in the early 16th century had produced enormous amounts of loot — much of it shipped across the Atlantic. Enter Fleury, the first to prey on the well-armed but slow-moving Spanish treasure ships. The Frenchman's squadron of swift corsairs captured three off the coast of Portugal, heavy with gold, jewels and exotic animals from the recently conquered kingdom of Montezuma. From then on, Spain would be on the watch for sea dogs inspired by Fleury. Indeed, governments would eventually license such "privateers" to commit legal acts of piracy — in exchange for a cut.

 

Barbarossa Captures Capri: 1535

 

One man's patriot is another's pirate. Barbarossa ("Redbeard") was the most famous of four Ottoman brothers whose adventures thrilled the Turkish empire (and fellow Muslims) and tormented the Christian kingdoms. In 1535, he captured the beautiful isle of Capri, a very short sail from one of the richest cities of Christendom: Naples. He built a castle on the Italian island that stands to this day.

 

Francis Drake Raids Cadiz: 1584

The Bridgeman Art Library / Getty

The Englishman may be remembered for circumnavigating the world, but Sir Francis Drake also happened to be Queen Elizabeth I's favorite pirate. Indeed, part of his globetrotting mission was to take treasure from the Spaniards, which he brought back to his appreciative monarch (who got a half-share of the loot). The pirate-patriot's greatest act was also a blow against the King of Spain: a raid on the Spanish port of Cadiz that destroyed several ships being assembled for the great Armada that was to be launched against England.

 

Koxinga Conquers Taiwan: 1662

 

Koxinga was a loyalist of China's Ming dynasty, which had fallen in 1644 to Manchu invaders who had set up the Qing dynasty. He harrassed the Manchus on land and sea from his family's home base in Fujian province and then, taking 25,000 men and hundreds of warships, relocated his headquarters across the sea in Taiwan, then held by the Dutch. After a siege of 10 months, he expelled the westerners; his pirate kingdom on Taiwan would last for 20 years before finally falling to forces from mainland China.

 

Henry Morgan Seizes Panama: 1671

 

Rischgitz / Getty

Much of the treasure that Spain was taking from the New World's gold and silver mines passed through Panama, making it one of the richest cities in the world — and a prime target for brigands. And so, in 1671, the privateer Henry Morgan, licensed by the English government, attacked the city with 1,400 men. "Captain" Morgan was the head of a fearsome conglomerate of pirate bands in the Carribbean and though the Spaniards in Panama outnumbered the invaders, the pirates' reputation unhinged the defenders. The booty, however, was disappointing: Most of the treasure had been spirited away ahead of Morgan's attack.

 

Captain Kidd Takes the Cara Merchant: 1698

 

Hulton Archive / Getty

 

The adventures of William Kidd have inspired works of literature as well as endless searches for buried treasure. But his greatest haul was perhaps his first act of true piracy (he had been a privateer for the British Navy until then): the Armenian trading ship Cara Merchant, which he commandeered off the coast of India. He sold most of its rich cargo but may have buried much of the loot after he scuttled the ship off the coast of Hispaniola, in what is now the Domincan Republic. The ship's remains were positively identified this month.

 

Blackbeard Blockades Charleston: 1718

 

Hulton Archive / Getty

 

One of the most terrifying pirates in history, Edward Teach operated out of the Outer Banks in North Carolina, harassing ships carrying tobacco, dyes and sugar in and out of the British Colonies. In addition to making off with these ships' cargo and reselling it himself, he also took on the supertankers of the day: slave ships. His most audacious exploit, however, was the blockade of Charleston, North Carolina, in which Blackbeard looted several ships but made only one real ransom demand: a chest of medicine in exchange for hostages.

 

Mistress Ching Retires Rich: 1810

 

Everett

 

With the death of her pirate husband Zheng Yi in 1807, the former prostitute Ching Shih took command of several hundred ships, extorting money throughout the South China Sea. Her Red Flag Fleet was feared from the Chinese coast to Malaysia. Her greatest accomplishment, however, was knowing when to give up. Unable to defeat her, the Chinese government offered her amnesty. She took it and retired with her immense loot as a respectable millionairess. She also took good care of her crew: all of Ching's pirates were pardoned. A character in the Pirates of the Carribbean films may be inspired by her. 

 

• The Taking of the MV Sirius Star: 2008

 

Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering / Reuters

 

Pirates operating from the Somali coast had picked off huge targets before: a French cruise liner; a Ukrainian freighter bearing military hardware for a still-mysterious destination. But the Saudi-owned MV Sirius Star is the biggest ship ever commandeered by privateers: the supertanker is more than 1,000 feet long and three times as large, by displacement, as a U.S. Nimitz-class aircraft carrier — the largest naval ships in the world.

 

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