For a pirate captain, it was important that they kept a full crew. A lot of times, when they would capture a ship, they would force the survivors to become part of their crew.  

Pirating has been around for a long time since the 15th century and there is still pirating that goes on today. However, the golden age of pirating only lasted for about 30 years and that was from 1690-1720. 

If you became a pirate, you would sign a document or an article, which outlines rules of being a pirate. For example, no gambling, no fighting, except for on land, no stealing, and it would tell you the punishments for breaking the rules. And it would tell you how each pirate would be paid. 

Why the eye patch? Pirates typically didn’t get the amount of vitamins that they had needed while on voyages. This caused a disease called crickets, which causes one of your eyes to go blind. That is why pirates are typically depicted with an eye patch. 

So you have two kinds of pirates: a pirate and a privateer. A pirate will attack any ship regardless of the nation, just for the money. The privateer is contracted by a country to attack approaching merchant ships. 

If you were a pirate crewmember and you were caught, they would either educate you and bury you face down under the high water mark. They wanted you face down because you were looking at hell and they believed that that’s where you were going. Or, to make an example out of you, they would leave you hanging for 3 tides as a warning to all potential pirates and all current pirates. 

A lot of times, pirates did even have to attack the ship. Just the sight of an approaching ship would make the captain surrender immediately. He wanted to avoid as much injury and bloodshed as possible. This worked sometimes, however, there were many pirates, for instance, Black beard, who were ruthless and bloody just for fun. 

You know pirate treasure maps and x marks the spot? Well that’s another Hollywood invention. No one has ever found a treasure map and there is no historical record of one ever being made. 

The Portuguese were responsible for populating much of the Caribbean with species of wild boars. They would take a male and a female boar and put them on an island in hopes that they would breed and have many other boars. So just in case they would end up getting stranded, they would have enough food to survive. With no natural predators, these boars ended up ruining the ecosystem of these islands. 

Pirates had a sort of insurance policy. For instance, if they lost their right arm, the would be awarded 600 pieces of 8. For their left arm, its 500. Right leg, 500 pieces of 8 and left leg 400 pieces. An eye or a finger would get you 100 pieces of 8. And if you lost both of your legs or both of your arms, because you would have so much trouble taking care of yourself, you would get 800 pieces of 8 and a slave. 

Pirates did have a particular way of speaking. Especially the British pirates, however, the phrases “Arr!” and “Matey” that we’re familiar with today are inventions of Hollywood. In fact, pirates didn’t say “Arr!” at all. The actor that played Long John Silver in the Hollywood movie added that, and it just kind of caught on. 

So here’s a question for you. Do I look better with my glasses on or off? 

And in another video, interesting facts about glasses. 

And in another video, facts about girls. 

Thanks again for watching. If you have any questions, please leave a comment and rate my video. See you next time!