Arr! Prepare to Be Boarded!

In April of 1718, the famed pirate Blackbeard was enlarging his pirate fleet. At its largest, his crew and fleet numbered 300 pirates and three ships. His flagship was the Queen Anne's Revenge, which had originally been a French slaving ship. 

Blackbeard, whose real name might have been Edward Teach, was a pirate who operated out of the Caribbean and along the Eastern coast of North America. He was known for being terrifying. He was tall and he wove wicks into his beard and lit them on fire when he attacked a merchant ship. 

Blackbeard appeared to end his pirating stint when he married a North Carolina woman and became partners with the governor of North Carolina. However, he was paying off the governor and continued to raid merchant ships. Unlike pirates who raided Spanish ships from South America, Blackbeard attacked ships leaving the colonies so much of what he took was cotton, sugar and rum. 

(Coast of North Carolina where Blackbeard operated)

Citizens in North Carolina and Virginia feared Blackbeard and felt that his partnership with the North Carolina governor meant that he was not going to leave, so they turned to Governor Spotswood of Virginia. 

(Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia)

Although Spotswood had no legal authority to take out Blackbeard, he sent two ships after the notorious pirate anyway. Lieutenant Robert Maynard led the attack on Blackbeard. After a duel between the Lieutenant and Blackbeard, Blackbeard was killed by five gun shot wounds and 20 sword cuts. Maynard cut off the pirate's head and attached it to the bow of his ship and dumped the body overboard. Before the body sank though, it is said that it swam around the ship three times.