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The History of Maritime Piracy

Cindy Vallar, Editor & Reviewer
P.O. Box 425, Keller, TX  76244-0425

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Piratical Dates of Importance
(updated 3 May 2008)

This time line is a work in progress. It incorporates events important to piratical history, but it also includes important historical happenings. Although pirates gave allegiance to no nation, they didn't work in a void. What happened on land could and did impact what happened at sea. Dates dealing with piracy appear in black. Other dates appear in dark orange. Dates are divided into centuries first, then by year, and if the exact date is known, by month and day within that year. As time permits, I will provide additional tidbits of information to the piratical events.

Special thanks to Luis for his assistance in researching some of these dates.

Ship's WheelMay 22 -- National Maritime DayShip's Wheel

Before 1st Century
1st-9th Centuries
10-14th Centuries
15th Century
16th Century
17th Century
18th Century
19th Century
20th Century
21st Century

Before the 1st Century

1220 BCE - 1186 BCE

Sea People plague Egypt, Syria, Cyprus, and Crete. They are defeated in 1186 by Ramses III.
509 BCE
Roman Republic founded.
332 BCE
Alexander the Great conquers Egypt.
331 BCE
Alexander the Great appoints Admiral Amphoterus to hunt pirates.
229 BCE
Gaius and Lucius Corancanius, official envoys from Rome, request that Queen Teuta restrain her fleet after most honest trade grinds to halt because of piratical attacks.
228 BCE
Queen Teuta surrenders to Romans and agrees to pay annual tribute and relinquish most of her territorial holdings, but she retains the right to sail only two unarmed galleys at one time.
192 BCE
Rome conquers the Aetolian League, and the pirates relocate to Cilicia.
146 BCE
Rome conquers Greece.
101 BCE
Rome passes its first anti-piracy law.
86 BCE
Pirate fleet defeats Roman squadron off Brindisi, in Southern Italy.
c. 75 BCE
Cilician pirates capture Julius Caesar
69 BCE
Pirates sack the sacred isle of Delos where the roman Empire's main treasury is located.
67 BCE
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, Pompey the Great, granted an imperium to enforce Rome’s anti-piracy law. He eradicates the pirates in 49 days.
44 BCE
36 BCE
Octavian defeats Sextus and crushes the pirates.
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1st Century
 

2nd Century

330

Constantine moves to Byzantium and founds the Byzantine Empire.


3rd Century

441

St. Patrick makes pilgrimage to Cruachan Aigle (Eagle Mountain) in Ireland.
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4th Century
 

5th Century

400

Large fleets of Chinese pirates attack all ships they encounter during the summer.
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6th Century
 

7th Century
 

8th Century

793

August 8: Vikings' first raid on Britain at Lindisfarne Abbey.
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9th Century

800

Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
834
Oseberg ship burial in Norway.
839
Vikings winter in Ireland for the first time.
844
Vikings raid Spain.
845
Vikings sack Hamburg and Paris.
850
Vikings winter in England for the first time.
867
Danes capture York.
885
Viking seige of Paris begins.
896
King Alfred of Wessex in England defeats Danes.
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10th Century

c. 900

Gokstad ship buried.
912
Viking raiders prey on shipping in the Caspian Sea.
930
Founding of Icelandic Althing.
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11th Century

1066
September 28: William the Conqueror invades England.
1096
First Crusade begins.
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12th Century

1113

Hospitalers of St. John of Jerusalem founded. They eventually become the Knights of Malta.
1187 -- 2 October
Saladin captures Jerusalem from the Crusaders.
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13th Century

1204

Crusaders sack Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade.
1212
Eustace the Monk attacks English coastal villages.
1241
William Maurice, a pirate, is the first man to be hanged, drawn, and quartered in England.
1255-1262
Hanseatic League is formed to protect merchants ships from German pirates.
1271
Eustace the Monk fights English fleet at Dover. His ship is captured, and he is beheaded.
1291
Crusades end.
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14th Century

1309

Knights of St. John capture the island of Rhodes.
1314
June 23-24: Battle of Bannockburn between Robert Bruce of Scotland and Edward II of England. The Bruce wins.
1348
Bubonic Plague strikes, 1/3 of Europe's population dies.
1392
Bergen attacked by German pirates.
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15th Century

1402

Stoertebeck and 70 other pirates executed in Hamburg.
1453
May 29: Ottoman Army captures Constantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire.
1461
February 2: Edward of York defeats the Lancastrians in the second battle of St. Albans during the War of the Roses.
1461
February 17: The House of York and the House of Lancaster again fight at St. Albans. Queen Margaret defeats the Earl of Warwick and frees King Henry VI.


1492

October 12: Christopher Columbus reaches San Salvador (Bahamas).
1494
Treaty of Tordesillas confirms Pope Alexander VI’s division of the New World between Spain and Portugal.
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16th Century

1508

Spanish settle Puerto Rico.
1513
Balboa discovers the Pacific Ocean.
1516
Aruj “Barbarossa” enters Algiers.
1518
Aruj “Barbarossa” dies during battle against Spanish in Algiers.
1519
Spanish found Veracruz.
1524
French corsairs capture Mexican treasures, revealing to the world the fabulous riches of the New World.
1527
Bartolomé de Las Casas begins writing History of the Indies.
1529
Fancisco Pizarro ransoms King Atahualpa for Incan gold.
c. 1530
Granuaile (Grace O’Malley) born.
1530
Knights of St. John given control of Malta by Charles V of Spain.
1534
First viceroyalty established in New Spain and Mexico City becomes capital of Spanish Main.
1535
Spain captures Tunis.
1540
Spain forbids ships of other nations from trading with its Caribbean settlements.
1543
Spain institutes a convoy system to protect the treasure fleets.
1545
July: Henry VIII’s greatest warship, the Mary Rose, sinks in the Solent.
1546
1547
King Henry VIII of England dies.
1548
Xu Dong executed.
1555
Martin Frobisher is imprisoned in Sao Jorge for piracy.
1556
Grancois le Clerc, aka Jambe de Bois or Pie de Palo or Pegleg, attacks Havana.
1558
November: Elizabeth I becomes Queen of England.


1589

Richard Hakluyt publishes Principal Navigations.
1562
March 1: Catholics massacre more than 1000 Hugenots in Vassy, France. This marks the start of the French Wars of Religion.
1565
1567
Theobald O’Malley, also known as Toby of the Ships (Tibbot-ne-Long), born.
1568
May: Mary, Queen of Scots, flees to England.
1570
February 25: Pope Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth for heresy.
1571
October: Battle of Lepanto in which Papal and Spanish forces crush the Turkish navy.
1572
1573
July 3: Royal regulations involving the laying out of new towns in the Spanish Main are issued.
1574
1575
Miguel de Cervantes captured by Barbary pirates.
1577
Francis Drake begins circumnavigation of the world.
1578
March: Granuaile imprisoned in Limerick gaol.
1578
November 7: Granuaile transferred to prison in Dublin Castle.
1579
Granuaile released from Dublin Castle.


1579

March 1: John Drake is the first to spot the Spanish treasure ship Cacafuego (aka Nuestra de la Concepcíon), which carries a cargo worth about 360,000 pesos.
1579
July 23: Francis Drake begins his journey across the Pacific Ocean.
1579
September 30: Francis Drake, aboard the Golden Hind, lands in Micronesia.
1580
English innkeeper, William Bourne writes the first published description of a submarine.
1580
September 26: Local fishermen spot Drake’s ship, the Golden Hind, in the Channel as she returns home after sailing around the world. Her cargo hold contains silver, gold, jewels, and cloves valued at about £600,000.
1581
Elizabeth I knights Francis Drake.
1582
Pope Gregory XIII introduces the Gregorian calendar. All Catholic countries advance ten days, but England refuses to adopt the change.
1585
December 31: Francis Drake and his men take Santo Domingo on Hispaniola.
1586
Murat Rais attacks Lanzarote in the Canary Islands.
1586
March: Drake receives a ransom of 113,000 gold ducats after 248 are torched in Cartagena.
1586
June 18: Sir Francis Drake visits Raleigh’s colony in Virginia and returns them to England five weeks later.
1587
1587
February: Mary, Queen of Scots, is beheaded in England.
1587
August 18: Virginia Dare is the first child of Europeans born in North America.
1587
August 27: Governor White sails for England. He is the last to see the colonists of Roanoke alive.
1588
Mariner’s Mirror, the first English sea atlas, is published.
1588
May 19: Spain's Invincible Armada sets sail.
1588
July 19: Captain Thomas Fleming, wanted for piracy, is the first to spot the Spanish Armada and sails to warn the English fleet.
1590
April: Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, dies.

August 15: Governor White returns to Roanoke, but all he finds are the remains of the fort and “Croatoan” and “Cro” etched into two trees. Roanoke will eventually become known as “The Lost Colony.”

1593
June: Granuaile opens correspondence with Elizabeth I, Queen of England.

July: Granuaile meets with Queen Elizabeth in private.

1595
Sir John Hawkins dies from fever off the coast of Puerto Rico.
John Davis invents the backstaff.
1596
January 28: Sir Francis Drake dies from fever and "the bludie flix" (dysentery). They bury him at sea off of Nombre de Dios.
1597
Jean Fleury hanged for piracy.
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17th Century

1600

Eighty-nine cases of men arrested as pirates are heard in England.
1601
January 17: William Parker and his fellow pirates sack Portobello.
1603
March 24: Elizabeth I of England dies. James VII of Scotland becomes James I of England.
1605
November: The Gunpowder Plot, designed to kill James I and the English Parliament, fails.
1607
Colony of Jamestown is founded.
1609
A True and Certaine Report of the Beginning, Proceedings, Overthrowes, and now Present Estate of Captaine Ward and Dantseker is published in London. It concerns the renegadoes John Ward and Simon Simonson, aka Danseker.
1609
December 29: 18 pirates hanged at Execution Dock, Wapping.
1612
Peter Easton (also spelled Eaton) arrives in Grace Harbor, Newfoundland with a fleet of five pirate ships.
1614
James I of England bans privateering.
1616
1618
Thirty Years’ War begins.
1620
December: Puritans arrive in Massachusetts Bay and establish a new colony.
1623
John Ward, aka Yasuf Rais, dies of plague in Tunis.
1624
Dutch colonize the island of Formosa.
1625
Charles I becomes King of England.
1626
Accused of murder, Cheng becomes a pirate. His reign lasts for twenty years.
1627
Tibbot-ne-Long, Granuaile’s son, created first Viscount of Mayo.
1628
1631
1635
Pierre le Grands and 28 buccaneers capture a flagship of a Spanish treasure fleet.
1638
Murat Rais dies.
1641
May 26: Spain captures Pimienta.
1642
1646
Cheng makes a deal with the Manchu rulers in Beijing that gives him an imperial title and other rewards.
1646
Zheng Zhilong (Nicholas Iquan) surrenders to Qing dynasty and is arrested.
1647
The British Parliament passes the first in a series of Navigational Acts to create economic monopoly with American colonies.
1648
1649
Charles I of England is beheaded.
1651
England passes first Trade and Navigation Act that impacts America.
1654
Oliver Cromwell sends fleet with army of 7,000 to Caribbean to capture Hispaniola.
1655
English capture Jamaica.
1655
April 4: The English fleet defeats the Barbary Corsairs at the Battle of Postage Farina, Tunis.
1656
January: Christopher Myngs arrives in Port Royal.
1658
Governor d’Oyley adopts policy that encourages buccaneers to use Port Royal as a base in exchange for protection against the Spanish.
1659
Christopher Myngs leads expedition of privateers that attacks Campeche, Coro, Cumana, and Puerto Cabello.
1660
1661
1661
July: The Council of Jamaica grants licenses to more than forty new taverns, grog shops, and punch houses.
1662
1663
1664
Zhou Yu and Li Rong lead pirate uprising in Canton, China.

June 11: Sir Thomas Modyford arrives in Jamaica to assume governorship.

1666
January: Edward Mansvelt, aka Mansfield, elected “admiral” by his men.
March 4: Jamaica's Governor Sir Thomas Modyford declares war on Spain and issues letters of marques to privateers.

May 26: Privateer Captain Edward Mansfield recaptures the island of Pimienta.

June 11-14: Four Days Battle, one of the longest naval engagements in history, takes place.

1667
1668
May 29: John Davis captures St. Augustine.
1669
April 9: Council of War of the Indies, Madrid, declares that Jamaica must be retaken.

June 24: Peace between England and Spain proclaimed in streets of Port Royal.

1670
January 3: Portuguese Manoel Rivero Pardal receives privateering commission from Governor of Cartagena.

July: England and Spain sign Treaty of Madrid.

October: Royal orders arrive in Cartagena authorizing the issuance of privateers against the English.

December: Henry Morgan sets sail for the isthmus of Panama with 1,200 men.

1671
January
  • 15: Sir Thomas Lynch receives commission as Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica.
  • 18: Henry Morgan sacks Panama.
    • February 24: Morgan and the privateers leave Panama after four-week occupation.
    July 1: Sir Thomas Lynch arrives in Jamaica.

    August: Sir Thomas Lynch arrests Governor Modyford and sends him to England.

    1672
    April 4: Henry Morgan is arrested and returns to London.
    1674
    Captain George Cusack imprisoned in Marshalsea prison prior to his trial on charges of piracy.
    1675
    Henry Morgan returns to Jamaica with knighthood and commission as Deputy Governor.

    June 24: King Philip's War in North America begins when Native Peoples massacre colonists at Swansea, Plymouth colony.

    1678
    June: Michel de Grammont, “Le Chevalier,” captures San Carlos fortification guarding the entrance of the Lake of Maracaibo.

    September: Michel de Grammont, “Le Chevalier,” captures Trujillo.

    1679
    William Dampier goes on the account with Bartholomew Sharp.
    1681
    July: Bartholomew Sharpe captures El Santo Rosario off Cape Pasado, Ecuador and seizes silver and gems, as well as the more precious derrotero, a book of secret Spanish maps of the west coast of South America.
    1682
    Bartholomew Sharpe tried for piracy in London, but acquitted.

    July: Laurens de Graaf captures 30-gun Francesca off Puerto Rico that carries the annual wages for soldiers in Havanna. 100 men share 120,000 pesos.

    1683
    May: De Grammont, de Graaf, and van Hoorn attack Verz Cruz.

    October: Sir Henry Morgan removed from the Council of Jamaica and public service after a dispute with Governor Lynch.

    1684
    Basil Ringrose returns to the West Indies and resumes his career of piracy under Charles Swan.
    1685
    Sir Henry Morgan settles libel suit pertaining to the English translation of The Buccaneers of America.

    July 6: De Graaf attacks Vera Cruz and holds town for 3 months, but most of valuables secreted away by Spaniards.

    September: Michel de Grammont, “Le Chevalier,” and Laurens de Graaf join forces and attack Campeche, Mexico.

    1686
    Basil Ringrose killed in attack on Santiago.
    1686
    August: Hurricane scatters Michel de Grammont’s fleet, he’s presumed lost at sea.
    1687
    King James I issues a pardon to pirates.
    1688
    August 25: Sir Henry Morgan dies. He is given state funeral with a series of 21-gun salutes.
    1689
    1690
    Lionel Wafer's New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of Panama is published.
    July 17: Adam Baldridge arrives at Island of St. Marie in Madagascar.
    1691
    Adam Baldridge builds his mansion on Ile Sainte Marie and begins trading with the pirates.
    1692
    February: The exiled James II issues privateering commissions against British shipping.

    June 7: Earthquake, followed by a tidal wave, strikes Jamaica and part of Port Royal slides into the sea. More than 2,000 people die.

    July: In reaction to James’ privateering commissions, the Privy Council proposes to treat captured rebel seamen as criminals.

    1693
    1693
    October 19: Thomas Tew arrives at Madagascar aboard Amity.

    December 23: Thomas Tew departs from Island of St. Marie for America.

    1694
    February: The English try twelve privateers, sailing under commissions of the exiled King James II, for piracy and treason.

    May 7: Henry Every leads a mutiny, seizes the Charles II, and becomes a pirate.

    November: Governor Benjamin Fletcher of New York sells Thomas Tew a privateer’s commission for £300.


    1695

    January 26: William Kidd granted royal commission.

    May: English attack de Graaf’s base at Port-de-Paix, ransack the town, and take his wife and daughters hostage.

    December 11: Amity arrives in Madagascar after death of Thomas Tew.

    1696
    1696
    November 25: William May, one of Henry Avery’s men, is hanged at Execution Dock in London.
    1697
    1698
    1699
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    18th Century

    1700

    1701
    May 23: Captain William Kidd hangs twice at Execution Dock, London.
    1703
    French and Spanish forces destroy Nassau.

    June: Portugal joins the Grand Alliance against the French.

    1704
    May 24: Lieutenant Governor Thomas Povey issues general warrant for arrest of John Quelch.

    June

    19: Trial against John Quelch for piracy, robbery, and murder opens in Boston.
    30: Quelch and those of his crew convicted hang for piracy.
    July: Thomas Green, commander of the English merchantman Worcester, arrested for piracy in the Indian Ocean. Although there is no solid evidence for the charges, Scotland convicts and executes him.
    1705
    Governor of Massachusetts charges Rhode Island with consorting with pirates.
    1707
    1708
    The English Prize Act withdraws the required 1/5 share of plunder due the treasury.

    August 1: Woodes Rogers’ expedition to capture a Manila galleon departs from Britain.

    1709
    January: Alexander Selkirk is rescued by Woodes Rogers after spending four years and four months marooned on Juan Fernandez Islands.

    February 13: Alexander Selkirk departs Juan Fernandez Island with Woodes Rogers’ expedition.

    1711
    October 14: Woodes Rogers’ expedition returns home after circumnavigating the world and capturing a Manila galleon.
    1712
    Kanhoji Angria captures the East India Company’s Governor of Bombay’s private yacht.
    1712
    August 28: Powerful hurricane strikes Jamaica.
    1713
    1714
    Parliament offers £20,000 prize to anyone who can figure out how to calculate longitude.


    1714

    March: Woodes Rogers visits Madagascar.
    1715
    Samuel Bellamy goes on the account.

    July: Annual Plate Fleet encounters hurricane near Sebastian, Florida. Ten out of the eleven ships are lost. The lost treasure is valued at £1,572,000.

    1716


    May: Benjamin Hornigold refuses to attack English ships and is deposed in favour of Samuel Bellamy.

    1717
    February: Samuel Bellamy captures the Whydah.

    April 26: Northeasterly gale drives Samuel Bellamy’s Whydah onto the shoals of Nantucket. About 146 pirates die, including Bellamy.

    August 27: Puritan minister, Cotton Mather, delivers a sermon entitled Instructions to the Living, from the Conditions of the Dead two months before the survivors of Bellamy’s crew are tried for piracy.

    September

    Stede Bonnet encounters a Spanish man-of-war, is badly wounded in the battle, but escapes.

    5: King George issues a proclamation "for Suppressing of Pyrates."

    October: Those pirates who survived the wrecking of Bellamy’s Whydah are tried in Boston.

    November

    Blackbeard captures the French slaver Concorde off St. Vincent and renames her Queen Anne’s Revenge.

    15: Six members of Samuel Bellamy’s crew are hanged at Boston.
    28: Blackbeard attacks Guadeloupe.

    1718
    Twenty-two pirates tried at Bombay.

    January 6: King George issues commission to Woodes Rogers to rid the Bahamas of pirates and names him Governor of the colony.

    March: Blackbeard convinces Stede Bonnet to join him.

    May: Blackbeard blockades Charlestown Harbor.

    June: Blackbeard intentionally grounds the Queen Anne's Revenge in Beaufort Inlet.

    July

    Charles Vane voices opposition to Woodes Rogers coming to New Providence in the Bahamas as Governor.

    26: Governor Woodes Rogers arrives in New Providence to rid the colony of pirates.

    August
    Under the leadership of Charles Vane, pirates blockade the port of Charleston, South Carolina.

    30: King George’s proclamation that Jennings, Carnegie, Ashworth, Wills, and others are pirates arrives in the Caribbean.

    September
    Howel Davis leads mutiny aboard the Buck and goes on the account

    5: Last day for pirates to surrender and receive a full pardon for all crimes.
    27: Colonel William Rhett captures Stede Bonnet at Cape Fear.

    October
    • Charles Vane visits Blackbeard at Ocracoke.
    • Governor Alexander Spotswood secretly meets with Captains Brand and Gordon to plan an attack to rid the Americas of Blackbeard.
    28: Trials of pirates captured from Edward Thatch’s and Stede Bonnet’s crews begin at Charleston, South Carolina.


    November

    Pirates oust Charles Vane as captain, and Calico Jack Rackham is elected captain in his place.

    8

    • Twenty-two pirates are hanged at White Point near Charleston, South Carolina.
    • William Rhett recaptures Stede Bonnet.
    12: Trials of pirates captured from Edward Thatch’s and Stede Bonnet’s crews end at Charleston, South Carolina. Stede Bonnet is found guilty of piracy.
    17: Lt. Maynard and his men set sail on their mission to capture Blackbeard.
    22: Blackbeard killed in battle with Lieutenant Maynard.
    December
    The War of the Quadruple Alliance pits Spain against Britain, France, Austria, and the Netherlands.

    9: Trials of Captain John Augur and eleven others begin at New Providence in the Bahamas.
    10: Stede Bonnet is hanged at White Point near Charleston, South Carolina.
    12: Nine pirates, including John Augur, Dennis McCarthy, and Thomas Morris, are hanged at Nassau.

    1719
    1719
    January 3: Lt. Maynard returns to Hampton Roads, Virginia with Blackbeard’s head hanging from the Adventure’s bowsprit.

    February 17: Richard Worley is hanged for piracy.

    March 12: Fifteen members of Blackbeard’s crew stand trial in Williamsburg, Virginia. One is found not guilty. Of the others, all but one, Israel Hands, are executed for piracy.

    April 1: Thomas Cocklyn captures slave ship captained by William Snelgrave at mouth of Sierre Leone River.

    May: Jack Rackham receives pardon from Governor Woodes Rogers.

    June 6: Bartholomew Roberts becomes a pirate after Howel Davis captures the slaver he works on.

    July: Bartholomew Roberts captures the Marquis del Campo and renames her Royal Rover

    August: Jack Rackham returns to piracy after stealing the sloop William.

    1720
    1720
    February: The War of the Quadruple Alliance ends.
    24: A Spanish invasion fleet is sighted off Nassau, but the attack is thwarted.
    June 21: Bartholomew Roberts arrives in Trepassey, Newfoundland

    July

    August 22: Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and six others steal a sloop and go on the account.

    October 22: Calico Jack Rackham, Mary Read, Anne Bonny, and others captured.

    November

    16-17: Calico Jack Rackham and the male members of his crew are tried and convicted of piracy at St. Jago de la Bega.
    28: Anne Bonny and Mary Read tried and convicted of piracy. Although sentenced to hang, they plead their bellies and their executions are stayed until after the births of their children.
    1721
    March
    22: Charles Vane is tried for piracy in Jamaica.
    29: Charles Vane is hanged at Gallows Point, Port Royal.
    April 28: Mary Read dies in prison, possibly from fever. She's buried in St. Catherine's Cemetery.

    July

    3: William Kennedy convicted of piracy and sentenced to hang.
    21: William Kennedy executed at Execution Dock, Wapping.


    August: Bartholomew Roberts acquires the Onslow and renames her the third Royal Fortune.

    1722
    January
    Bartholomew Roberts in Whydah, West Africa

    13: Bartholomew Roberts leaves Whydah one day before Captain Ogle arrives.

    February 10: Bartholomew Roberts killed during battle with the British Royal Navy.

    March 31: First followers of Bartholomew Roberts’ tried and convicted. 14 found guilty, 6 immediately hanged.

    April 20: Final pirate trial for followers of Bartholomew Roberts tried at Cape Coast Castle

    May

    6: Pirate surgeon George Wilson dies.
    28: George Lowther and Edward Low part company.
    July: Edward Low plunders thirteen vessels near Marblehead.

    August 28: Hurricane strikes Port Royal five days after 19 pirates arrive. More than 40 ships sink in harbour. One third of town destroyed.

    1723
    Pirates kill their captain, Thomas Anstis.

    April: Captain Fenn and other pirates captured at Tobago.

    July:

    Charles Harris and 25 pirates hang in Newport, Rhode Island.

    10: Captain Peter Solgard, HMS Greyhound, engages Edward Low’s Ranger, but Low escapes capture.
    19: Twenty-six of Edward Low’s comrades are hanged for piracy in Newport, Rhode Island.

    August 29: John Phillips and four others seize schooner off Newfoundland and go on the account.

    November: 11 pirates from George Lowther’s crew hang on St. Kitts.

    1724
    Ned Low dissappears after a year of bloody pirate attacks.

    May

    12: John Phillips' crew arrested and tried for piracy.
    27: William Fly leads successful mutiny aboard the Elizabeth, in which Captain Green and his mate are thrown overboard, and becomes a pirate.
    July
    3: Forced men take back their vessel and take William Fly and others prisoner. Fly and two other pirates will hang in Boston, Massachusetts.
    10: Benjamin Colman, a Presbyterian minister, delivers a sermon at the request of two convicted pirates in Boston. They are members of William Fly’s crew.
    1728
    Woodes Rogers is appointed to his second term as Governor of the Bahamas.
    1729
    Kanhoji Angria dies.
    1730
    French authorities apprehend and execute Olivier La Buse on Réunion Island.
    1732
    Woodes Rogers dies in Nassau.
    1734
    Captain William Snelgrave's A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave Trade is published. It includes his experiences as a pirate captive.
    1740
    War of the Austrian Succession begins.

    June 7: Alexander Spotswood dies of fever in Annapolis, Maryland.

    1745
    September 21: Battle of Prestonpans, near Edinburgh. Jacobite Army routes Hanoverian Army in 10 minutes.
    1746
    April 16: Jacobite Army defeated at Culloden, Scotland during the Rising of 1745. Last Jacobite attempt to restore the Royal House of Stuart to the British throne.
    1748
    War of the Austrian Succession ends.
    1749
    Chaloner Ogle, the man who took down Bartholomew Roberts and his pirates, becomes Commander-in-Chief of the British Navy.
    1750
    Robert Maynard dies in England.
    1752
    England adopts Gregorian calendar.
    1756
    May 15: Seven Years War (French and Indian War) begins when England declares war on France.
    1758
    June 12: Siege of Louisbourg (Nova Scotia) begins.
    1763
    1765
    Cheng I (Ching Yih) is born to a piratical Chinese family.
    1770
    March 5: Boston Massacre.
    1775
    American Revolution begins.
    1776
    April: Continental Congress begins issuing privateering commissions.

    September 7: Turtle, an American submersible, attempts to put a time bomb on the hull of Admiral Richard Howe's flagship, HMS Eagle. First submarine attack.

    December 25: George Washington and his army cross the Delaware.

    December 26: The Continental Army wins its firts major victory against the British Army at Trenton, New Jersey.

    1780
    July: Individual states cease issuing privateering commissions.
    1783
    1784
    Dutch invade Riau.
    1786
    British establish settlement at Penang.
    1789 -- July 14
    Storming of the Bastille in Paris, France. The French Revolution begins.

    1794

    March 27: George Washington signs the Naval Armament Act that establishes the U.S. Navy because of "depredations committed by the Algerine corsairs on the commerce of the United States."
    1795
    British establish settlement at Malacca.
    1798
    Quasi-War begins between the United States and France.
    1798
    June 12: Malta surrenders to Napoleon.
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    19th Century

    1801

    1803
    October 31: USS Philadelphia runs aground in Tripoli harbour and Daniel Porter, among other naval personnel, are captured.
    1804
    Zheng Yi (Cheng I) blockades Macao.

    February 16: Lieutenant Stephen Decatur and a handful of volunteers sail into Tripoli harbor and blow up the captured USS Philadelphia.


    1805

    Zheng Yi and seven other leading pirates sign confederation pact to impose law and order over unruly Chinese pirates.
    1806
    Cai Qian’s pirates defeated by Qing army and local militia in China, but he escapes.
    1807
    Zheng Yi dies during storm at sea. His widow, Zheng Yi Sao, and Zhang Bao assume command of Chinese pirate confederation.
    1808
    United States bans the importation of slaves.
    1809
    April: Governor-General Bai Ling institutes ancient strategy known as “extermination and appeasement” (military campaigns plus amnesty and rewards) to pirates who surrender in China.

    September

    13: Ned Jordan and others take control of the Three Sisters and become pirates.
    21: Chinese pirates kidnap Richard Glasspoole, mate aboard British East India Company ship, and hold him for ransom.
    October: Cai Qian dies during battle with Chinese imperial navy.

    November 24: Ned Jordan hangs.

    1810
    Jean Laffite becomes leader of the Baratarians.

    February: The Chinese government offers pirates amnesty.

    April: Zheng Yi Sao and Zhang Bao, with over 17,000 pirates, surrender.

    June 18: United States declares war on Britain

    October 13: Britain declares war on the United States.

    1813
    John Barss, Jr., commander of the privateer Liverpool Packet, captured.

    November 24: Governor William Claiborne of Louisiana issues a proclamation offering a $500 reward for the capture of Jean Laffite. Laffite counters with a $1000 bounty for the governor's deliverance to Laffite at Bartaria.

    1814
    April: Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates.

    September 3: HMS Sophie arrives at Barataria with a solicitation for Laffite's help during the taking of New Orleans.

    October: Privateer Chasseur of Baltimore returns to New York after capturing 18 ships during her first cruise.

    December 24: Treaty of Ghent signed in Belgium, ending the War of 1812.


    1815

    January 8: Jean Laffite and the Baratarians help the Americans defeat the British at the Battle of New Orleans -- neither side is aware that the war is over.

    February 6: President James Madison grants full pardons to Jean Laffite and his men for their assitance in Battle of New Orleans.

    March 2: The United States declares war on Algiers because of the Barbary Corsairs attacks on American ships.

    June 18: Duke of Wellington defeats Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo.

    1817
    Jean Laffite returns to piracy and moves his base of operations to Galveston.
    1819
    British establish settlement at Singapore.
    1820
    The U.S. Navy evicts Laffite from Galveston.
    1821
    October: USS Enterprise captures 4 pirate ships off Cuba.
    1822
    “Mosquito Fleet” in operation and Commodore David Porter begins cruising Caribbean waters and the Gulf of Mexico in search of pirates.
    1823
    April
    Commodore David Porter defeats Cuban pirate known as Diabolito.

    20: Gaceta de Colombia publishes an account of Jean Laffite's death on February 5 during a sea battle in the Gulf of Honduras.

    1827
    1830
    French conquer Algiers, thus ending more than two centuries of state-sponsored piracy.
    1831
    Charles Gibbs hangs in New York for piracy.
    1832
    “Don” Pedro Gibert captures the American Mexican.

    February 21: Benito de Soto captures the Morning Star. After pillaging and raping, they lock the crew and passengers belowdecks and scuttle the vessel. The prisoners escape and keep their barque afloat until rescued the next day.

    September 20: Pedro Gibert attacks an American brigantine in the Florida Straits, embarking on a career of piracy.

    1833
    Benito de Soto and his crew are hanged in Cadiz.
    1835
    Pedro Gibert hangs.
    1836
    British adopt anti-piracy suppressions measures around Singapore.

    February 23: Santa Anna lays seige to the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas.

    April 21: Sam Houston and fellow Texans defeat Santa Anna at San Jacinto.

    1839
    Opium War begins.
    1841
    British occupy Hong Kong.
    1842
    1844
    July 30: Saladin pirates hang.
    1845
    1849
    1857
    Chinese pirates along coast of Vietnam kidnap seaman Edward Brown.
    1860
    Suppression campaigns against pirates in Southeast Asia so successful that piracy no longer serious problem.
    1862
    August 24: Captain Raphael Semmes sets sail aboard on the CSS Alabama to become the most successful and notorious of the commerce raiders during the American Civil War.
    1863
    The Track of Fire; or, A Cruise with the Pirate Semmes, a dime novel about the infamous commerce raider of the Confederacy, is published.

    1864

    August 15: Burning of Atlanta and beginning of General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea.

    November 29: Sand Creek Massacre. At least 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho noncombatants die.

    1865
    December 15: US Marines arrest Raphael Semmes for illegally escaping Union custody after surrendering the CSS Alabama, but four months later the prosecutor drops all charges and Semmes is released.
    1867
    Canadian provinces take steps to become a nation and severe some ties with Britain.
    1876
    June 25: Battle of Little Big Horn between Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse against Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry.
    1877
    August 30: Raphael Semmes dies.
    1878
    February 18: Billy the Kid's mentor, an English rancher named John Tunstall, is murdered, which ignites the bitter and bloody Lincoln County War.
    1880
    Gokstad ship discovered on Norwegian farm.
    1883
    Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island published.
    1889
    P. Christian’s Historie des Pirates published.
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    20th Century

    1904

    1905
    January 22: Czarist troops fire on a peaceful group of workers on their way to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.
    1910
    French passes found that Captain Kidd claimed would prove his innocence.
    1916
    April 24: IRA launches Easter Rebellion in an attempt to oust the British from Ireland.
    1918
    July 16: Bolsheviks execute Tsar Nicholas and his family in Yekaterinburg.

    October 8: Corporal Alvin C. York almost single-handedly kills 25 German soldiers and captures 132 in the Argonne Forest in France during World War I.

    November 11: At 11:00 World War I ends.

    1921
    December 6: Irish Free State declared.
    1922
    Lai Choi San (aka Lai Sho Sz'en) is born into a pirate family and will succeed her father on his death to command 12 ships. She reigns until 1939.
    1935
    Errol Flynn stars in Captain Blood.
    1938
    November 9: Kristallnacht.

    1941

    December
    7: Japanese warplanes attack Pearl Harbor.
    8: Franklin D. Roosevelt declares war on Japan, bringing the United States into World War II.
    1945
    May 8: Victory in Europe Day.
    1959
    January 1: Fidel Casto seizes power in Cuba.
    1973
    October 6: Yom Kippur War begins.
    1981
    Nigeria’s coast declared world’s most dangerous.
    1982
    United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea of 1982.
    1984
    Barry Clifford discovers the wreck of the Whydah off Cape Cod.
    1987
    September: Max Guérout, a marine archaeologist and retired captain of the French navy, announces that the remains of the commerce raider CSS Alabama were discovered nearly three years earlier by a minesweeper.
    1998
    November: Pirates, dressed as Chinese officials, seize Cheung Son near Hong Kong and throw crew overboard.
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    21st Century

    2002

    June: Indonesian fishermen rescue crew of oil tanker from Thai waters after pirates forced them overboard.

    December: International Ship and Port Facility Security Code approved.

    2003
    IMB reports that pirate attacks on ships triple over previous decade.


    2005

    March: Malaysia announces it will establish 24-hour radar system to monitor security in the Straits of Malacca and have the Maritime Enforcement Agency in place by end of 2005.

    April: Singapore, Japan, Laos, and Cambodia sign the Regional Co-operational Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia.

    November: Somali pirates attack cruise ship, but the vessel escapes.

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    © 2007 Cindy Vallar


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