Pirates; romanticized or despised, they are a cultural icon scattered through history and a probability wherever there is merchant shipping. Let’s grab a pitcher of grog and set sail through a rogue’s gallery of swashbucklers, political opportunists, and entrepreneurs, and dig into the reality of the world’s third-oldest profession.

For supplemental info and photos, be sure to visit Gordon’s blog.

Show notes and links:

• Mutiny on the Bounty (1789)

• Louisiana Purchase (1803)

• Spanish–American War (1898)

• Landing at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli (1915)

• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) (imdb.com)

• On Stranger Tides, by Tim Powers (amazon.com)

• The Pyrates: A Swashbuckling Comic Novel, George MacDonald Fraser (amazon.com)

• Old Ironsides (1926) DVD Movie (mthexpress.com)

• Old Ironsides (film) (wikipedia.org)

• Alfred the Great

• Ching Shih

• Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak (Another one of Gordon’s historical doppelgangers.)

• Sea Dogs

• Privateers

• Henry Morgan

• Buccaneers

• Golden Age of Piracy