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
_______________________________ 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
_____________________________ 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
___________________________ 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
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