Blackbeard (Edward Teach, c. 1680 – 1718) was an English pirate who
operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of the American
colonies. He was probably born in Bristol, but little is known about his
early life. He may have served on privateer ships during Queen Anne's
War before he joined the crew of Benjamin Hornigold, a pirate who
operated from the Caribbean island of New Providence. In the Queen
Anne's Revenge, a renamed merchant vessel, Teach blockaded the port of
Charles Town, South Carolina, with an alliance of pirates. After
successfully ransoming its inhabitants, he settled in Bath Town, but
soon returned to piracy. He was attacked and killed near Ocracoke Island
by a crew seeking the reward for his capture. A shrewd and calculating
leader, he avoided the use of force, and there are no accounts that he
ever harmed his captives. Following his death, his image was
romanticised, becoming the inspiration for a variety of pirate-themed
works of fiction.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbeard>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1850:
The first National Women's Rights Convention, presided over by
Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis, was held in Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Women%27s_Rights_Convention>
1942:
World War II: Japanese forces began their ill-fated attempt to
recapture Henderson Field from the Americans.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Henderson_Field>
1956:
The Hungarian Revolution began as a peaceful student
demonstration which attracted thousands as it marched through central
Budapest to the Parliament building.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956>
2002:
Chechen separatists seized a crowded theater in Moscow, taking
approximately 700 patrons and performers hostage.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
nocebo:
(pharmacology, also attributive) A substance which a patient
experiences as harmful due to a previous negative perception, but which
is in fact pharmacologically (medicinally) inactive.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nocebo>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether
the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems
we're told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one
of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in
part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part
generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part
by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to
determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our
perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed
down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.
--Michael Crichton
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton>