Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com? Are and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast, etcetera. I am Josh Clark with me to
Speaker 1: be laughy? Who is that a little laugh? I just
Speaker 1: I was joking. I thought who was going to be
Speaker 1: the first one to do it? And I didn't know
Speaker 1: you were going to literally lead in with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like to surprise you. Boom. Well that's a good one.
Speaker 1: It's hard to amaze me. I'm glad you did it.
Speaker 1: Chuck study wasn't going to do I know, and what
Speaker 1: I last like thirty seconds? Such a pushover. I haven't
Speaker 1: announced you yet. That's Chuck Bryant, right, Sara, etcetera. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know. The Pirate edition. Um,
Speaker 1: I think we should be done with the pirate talking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that could get really annoying. Yeah, you want to know
Speaker 1: what is probably the most annoying day of the year,
Speaker 1: some kind of pirate day? September nineteenth, talk like a
Speaker 1: pirate day? Really, I think I remember that because Strickland
Speaker 1: came was like slinging ours all over the Austine Tricklin
Speaker 1: Anti dub are being into pirates stuff, Tracy, she wrote
Speaker 1: this right, Yeah, it's a great article. Yeah, she's the
Speaker 1: keeper of the house stuff works voice. She is indeed
Speaker 1: like the old sage on that led Zeppelin poster with
Speaker 1: the lantern. Yeah, that's that's why I think of a tracy.
Speaker 1: Except when Star Trek Earrings speaking of off comes your head.
Speaker 1: We're going to get into that, chuck, because we're talking
Speaker 1: about pirates, and whenever pirates got caught, people love to
Speaker 1: cut off their head and post it as a warning
Speaker 1: to other pirates. Yeah that's gross, Yeah it is. You
Speaker 1: mean to define pirate, Gosh, can you really define pirate? Sure,
Speaker 1: a pirate is someone who uses a boat to attack
Speaker 1: another boat with the intent to kidnap, steel or otherwise
Speaker 1: do harm. Being bang boom end of podcasts. But that's
Speaker 1: not all there are. There are a few of criteria.
Speaker 1: I can't do that, please stop. There are a few
Speaker 1: other criteria. Um, it must be for private gain using
Speaker 1: a private vessel, and it's for gain like it can
Speaker 1: be um like green Peace coming up on like a
Speaker 1: whaling ship or something not pirates um, and they operate
Speaker 1: outside of a government authority, because back in the day
Speaker 1: they used to governments use things people called privateers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a lot of pirates started out as privateers, which
Speaker 1: are basically pirates, government licensed pirates. They had like a
Speaker 1: letter of mark that said this guy is allowed to go. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll do whatever to say the French or the Dutch.
Speaker 1: But the problem is or maybe the Spanish during not
Speaker 1: times of not war, peace I think is the way
Speaker 1: that most people put it. Peace, peace, thank you. During
Speaker 1: times of peace. Uh, these privateers would be out of
Speaker 1: work and they'd be like, well, I have one skill
Speaker 1: and so then they turned to piracy, right, or they
Speaker 1: could have just gone and been like regular seamen and
Speaker 1: um not gotten paid all that much? Yea, And who
Speaker 1: wants to do that, right when you can plunder and
Speaker 1: get the loot. Right. One of the reasons that people
Speaker 1: engaged in piracy from early on is the same reason
Speaker 1: that they do now. Uh. The economy a lot of
Speaker 1: times when things are down, just like anything else with theft,
Speaker 1: and we we talked about shoplifting and stuff like that
Speaker 1: another podcast, UM one hour ago, the crime rate goes up.
Speaker 1: So poverty led to an increase of in piracy over
Speaker 1: the years, and not just it's not only when times
Speaker 1: are tough, when times are really good too, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of trade on the high seas that the
Speaker 1: opposite will attract pirates as well. Yeah, the golden nature piracy,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into and uh piracy actually has a
Speaker 1: very long, hearty tradition that dates back at least to
Speaker 1: the fourth century BC. Yeah, the Luca Yeah, I've never
Speaker 1: heard of that. I hadn't either, man. They attacked boats
Speaker 1: off of the coast of uh what is now Turkey
Speaker 1: in the fourteenth century. Yeah, a long time ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a very long time ago. That's as many as
Speaker 1: thirty four years ago. It seems like almost since there
Speaker 1: were boats on the high seas, there was piracy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Tracy makes that point too. As long as people were
Speaker 1: applying the high seas with goods that were worth stealing,
Speaker 1: people stole them in boats piracy. Um, you might have
Speaker 1: heard of the Corsairs, famous pirates. That was fifteenth and
Speaker 1: sixteenth century, and of course the they were the Barbary Pirates,
Speaker 1: the Barbary Pirates, which actually I wrote an article on
Speaker 1: the Barbary Pirates. They were America's first terrorist threat. Really, huh.
Speaker 1: It was Jefferson was the one that had to deal
Speaker 1: with them. And they actually got their start from the
Speaker 1: Red Beard brothers who were Turks. But they went down
Speaker 1: to North Africa and I think converted to Islam and
Speaker 1: they used to kidnap and torture and murder Spaniards and
Speaker 1: Spaniards did the the opposite. But these two brothers, but
Speaker 1: brothers Barbarosa, which means red Beard, gave the start to
Speaker 1: the Barbary Pirates. They were very successful for I think
Speaker 1: over a century did not know that. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: of course the buccaneers, the lousy, stinking Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Speaker 1: are named after the pirate buccaneers of the seventeenth century.
Speaker 1: So that's just a I mean, there's a lot more
Speaker 1: history in this article, but that's an overview, if you will.
Speaker 1: It is an overview, uh, And it's it's not just
Speaker 1: European or African. The Chinese used to like to pillage
Speaker 1: in pirate after the Han dynasty around to twenty BC.
Speaker 1: They used to like the pirate. Yeah, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get this word out as a verb now too. Like that.
Speaker 1: And also I decided the new Rick role is Dion
Speaker 1: Warwick performing do you know the way to San Jose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been. I've been. It's worked so far. Did it
Speaker 1: to Robert Lamb and he was like, that's good. Where
Speaker 1: was that going anywhere? Okay? So, Josh, what do you
Speaker 1: think of when you think of a pirate? What comes
Speaker 1: to mind? What mental image do you get? I think
Speaker 1: of a guy with maybe a tricornered hat, a tricorn,
Speaker 1: it's called a tricorn. Okay, some hoop ear rings. What
Speaker 1: are those called hoop ear rings? Okay? Parrot that says
Speaker 1: things like pieces of eight and dead men tell no
Speaker 1: tales and stuff like that. Um, a peg leg usually
Speaker 1: or a hook for a hand. Um. I think of, um,
Speaker 1: very weathered, scarred skin, tattoos. I think of Johnny Depp.
Speaker 1: What about the clothes. The clothes, um, you know, a
Speaker 1: ruffled shirt and a little fruity long coat. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: a long coat leather probably, um and uh I also
Speaker 1: think of, um, a nice long sword, maybe a sure
Speaker 1: flint lock pistol and uh. Furies also come to mind,
Speaker 1: because usually if you run into a furry, there's someone
Speaker 1: dress as a pirate nearby. Well, Josh, you want to
Speaker 1: talk about if that's real or not? That stuff you
Speaker 1: just named in the Golden Age of piracy, which is
Speaker 1: this is the when we think of all those things.
Speaker 1: You're thinking of the Golden age of piracy, right, And
Speaker 1: actually I was surprised after reading this article how short
Speaker 1: it was, but I guess we'll get to that. It
Speaker 1: was like fifty years or so, between sixteen ninety and
Speaker 1: seventeen thirty. Okay, yeah, forty years, and that's when you
Speaker 1: might have heard of people called black Beard. Yeah, Calico Jack.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of him? Yeah? He was you know,
Speaker 1: he was controversial, and I know it was because you know,
Speaker 1: I do know why, but I know you because he
Speaker 1: allowed women pirates. Not only did he allow women pirates,
Speaker 1: he had a pretty torrid affair on the high seas
Speaker 1: with one and Bonnie. It seems like a good reason
Speaker 1: to have a woman pirate. Yeah, they had a kid together,
Speaker 1: which was born in Cuba. Um he stole her away
Speaker 1: from her husband and she basically was this housewife who
Speaker 1: went into a life of piracy. And she and another
Speaker 1: mean named Mary Reid. We're aboard Calico jack ship. Right.
Speaker 1: Once the crew found out that they were women, they
Speaker 1: accepted them because I think Calico Jack was like, if
Speaker 1: you don't cut your hat off, but don't accept them
Speaker 1: too much, as I'll cut your head off. So they
Speaker 1: dressed as women, um when they were just sailing, and
Speaker 1: then when they were about to start fighting, they would
Speaker 1: dress up as men, and apparently they killed as many people.
Speaker 1: So if there's anybody else on that ship and a
Speaker 1: witness for when they were both caught later on um,
Speaker 1: a witness who testified against them said that they swore
Speaker 1: and cursed with the best of them. Good for them,
Speaker 1: women's lib way back in the golden age of piracy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one of the reasons it was the golden age
Speaker 1: back then, Josh, is from what you just said, that
Speaker 1: was when the seas were really flying around between Africa
Speaker 1: and America and Europe. Have you heard the theory that
Speaker 1: African slaves Africa was tapped for slavery simply because of
Speaker 1: a trade wind. Really. Yeah, that went from the east
Speaker 1: coast of the United States right down to um, what
Speaker 1: is that western Africa? Interesting? Yeah, it just took your
Speaker 1: right down and that's where that's why Africans became slaves
Speaker 1: because it was so easy to get there. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although the Portuguese already had a lock on the slave
Speaker 1: trade by the time you know the colonists started or
Speaker 1: the English very true, we didn't make that up. Uh.
Speaker 1: So lots of boats with like sugar and rum and startlingly,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like big trunks full of gold coins usually, right,
Speaker 1: that did happen, but it was more like goods. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There was one specific ship that that that went down actually,
Speaker 1: uh and the pirates treasure that you hear of a
Speaker 1: lot um, it's pretty much personified or emblematic of this
Speaker 1: one called the Wide Ah. Yeah, it was like pirate
Speaker 1: Captain Sam Bellamy's ship, and it went down in seventeen
Speaker 1: seventeen off the coast of Cape Comb, Massage usits and
Speaker 1: it had literally chests of gold and jewels and things
Speaker 1: in it when it went down. But normally they pillage sugar, frum, molasses,
Speaker 1: stuff that you could turn around and sell in bulk
Speaker 1: to somebody and say like Port Royal or whatever. So
Speaker 1: the Golden Age, I mentioned it was big for two reasons.
Speaker 1: One or that's what we think of when we think
Speaker 1: of the traditional pirates, because the Golden Age was so big,
Speaker 1: and because of books like Treasure Island and Peter Pan Right,
Speaker 1: that's why we think of the pirates is is what
Speaker 1: you described earlier. It's like Santa Claus being our conception
Speaker 1: of Santa Claus comes from a illustration exactly from a
Speaker 1: guy who is paid by Coca Cola. So let's go
Speaker 1: over those real quick. The flag that you often think of,
Speaker 1: the Jolly Roger. Did you do any additional research on this?
Speaker 1: Tracy kind of traps around that one. It's a little sticky,
Speaker 1: is it? And this is definitely a family friendly article. Okay,
Speaker 1: can we mention it? No, we can't, But anybody can
Speaker 1: type in origins of Jolly Roger in Google and find
Speaker 1: it themselves, and we would bear no responsibility whatsoever for that. Well,
Speaker 1: that flag made its first appearance in the early eighteenth century, Josh,
Speaker 1: and before that there is a little non fact by
Speaker 1: me at least, uh, you would and this makes total sense.
Speaker 1: Pirates would fly up miss false colors basically to mislead
Speaker 1: other ships that they were dangerous. Yeah, and total sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the smart thing to do, right, smart. It's just
Speaker 1: like the Jolly Roger, which I also found out from
Speaker 1: this one often had a skeleton, not just the skull
Speaker 1: and cross. Sometimes it was a black um flag with
Speaker 1: a white skeleton UM. So it always struck me as
Speaker 1: weird because you're like, hey, I'm a pirate and I'm
Speaker 1: coming after you. But it turns out they did do
Speaker 1: that purposely because in a lot of um, a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, pirates were so feared that, um, the ship
Speaker 1: would just be like, Okay, you're a pirate here to
Speaker 1: take our stuff. Well, yeah, that's best case scenario. What
Speaker 1: they want is for the ship to immediately surrender. So
Speaker 1: that's what the pirates really looking for because then you
Speaker 1: get the you get the cargo, you get whatever stuff
Speaker 1: is on board, money maybe, um, and you get the ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a lot. Apparently it wasn't hard to flip a
Speaker 1: crew over to piracy. I think there's a really thin
Speaker 1: line between you know, legitimate semen and a pirate. Uh
Speaker 1: during the golden age of piracy. And you know, if
Speaker 1: you captured a crew and said I need you guys,
Speaker 1: they'd say okay, or what they probably said was, you
Speaker 1: have a couple of choices. You can become a pirate,
Speaker 1: or we can shoot you in the face or maroon
Speaker 1: you on this island. Yeah. I love that word. What maroon?
Speaker 1: Yes really, yeah, I just think it's a great word.
Speaker 1: And of course that means to strand on an island
Speaker 1: or deserted island. Doesn't really work if you drop them
Speaker 1: off in Haiti. Um, but you find a deserted island
Speaker 1: drop off the crew. Sometimes they would leave them with
Speaker 1: supplies and other times they leave them with nothing and
Speaker 1: you just leave, and it's pretty much a sentence pretty much. Uh.
Speaker 1: Their clothes Josh, that you described are you know it
Speaker 1: could have been real because they basically wore what people
Speaker 1: wore at the time. But a lot of times they
Speaker 1: would get the clothes from that We're maybe being shipped
Speaker 1: to rich, wealthy people or so they would have like
Speaker 1: fine clothes, like the ruffled churts and all that. Parents true,
Speaker 1: We're not true. I don't think it's true. Not necessarily,
Speaker 1: she says. Um, they did capture parents to sell them.
Speaker 1: But um, that's that's from Treasure Island. Yeah, basically hooks
Speaker 1: and pegs legs. Yeah, that happened. Do you know why
Speaker 1: because being a fire it was dangerous. You get your
Speaker 1: arms and your legs blown off many times. So there
Speaker 1: were probably some peg legs walking around stumping around. And
Speaker 1: but that was also from Captain Hook and Treasure Island.
Speaker 1: So a lot of these things are fictional but may
Speaker 1: or may not have happened. And um, flintlock pistols, I
Speaker 1: had those it then, that's true. But they didn't work
Speaker 1: very well at sea, yeah, because of the saltwater. Right,
Speaker 1: but they still used them when they could the very
Speaker 1: at least you can club somebody in the head with it.
Speaker 1: They're big. Um. And then along with obviously the swords
Speaker 1: and daggers and all that stuff that you're familiar with,
Speaker 1: right uh and chuck, we we are focusing on the
Speaker 1: Golden Age of piracy. I think we should say. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons that gave rise to it was the
Speaker 1: War of Spanish Secession. Alright, what I was talking about
Speaker 1: about the privateers, right, yeah, and that happened many, many times. Um.
Speaker 1: The War of Spanish Secession gave rise to the Golden
Speaker 1: Age of piracy because there were so many privateers. But
Speaker 1: the United States used to give letters of mark pirates
Speaker 1: that actually, uh are privateers that turned pirate. Um, the
Speaker 1: British did it it. It happened, I think, um, well
Speaker 1: into the nineteenth century there were privateers turned pirates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: another falsehood. They are often depicted as steering these huge galleons.
Speaker 1: They would often attack these galleons. But a galleon isn't
Speaker 1: great if you're going to be in a a pirate
Speaker 1: because you want to get in and out. It's all
Speaker 1: about speed. In fact, modern pirates use speed boats mainly,
Speaker 1: which we'll get too in a minute, but they usually
Speaker 1: used um smaller uh sloops and schooners, so so they
Speaker 1: get in and out quicker, but no less cool. Or
Speaker 1: they could have also used a brigantine, which um what
Speaker 1: it was. It's like a larger version of the schooner.
Speaker 1: It could hold about a hundred and fifty men, uh
Speaker 1: and probably about thirty cannons. Not bad, No, you could
Speaker 1: do some real damage with that. So what's lifelike on
Speaker 1: a boat, Josh? It's it is, indeed, because they're not
Speaker 1: feasting on like fine meals and drinking fine wines. They
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess if they pillage some than they could.
Speaker 1: But when that's gone, dude, they're eating spoiled meat. They
Speaker 1: are eating water tainted with algae, which you could eat actually,
Speaker 1: and they drank it and uh they ate their water
Speaker 1: with a fork, that's how bad it was. And they
Speaker 1: ate something called hard tack. Yes, I've never heard of that.
Speaker 1: You know what another word for hard tech is what
Speaker 1: sea biscuit? Really is that where that comes from. I'm
Speaker 1: learning all kinds of things. That's like a really hard cracker.
Speaker 1: And they took that out to see because it didn't
Speaker 1: spoil is fast, but I'll bet it was hell on teeth.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and they also said that it was you know,
Speaker 1: when you're out to see for that long, it's like
Speaker 1: weevils like crawling around and that's gross. Yeah, so you're
Speaker 1: not exactly happy, and probably after a couple of days
Speaker 1: of eating hard tack and spoiled meat, you are really
Speaker 1: really ready to go butcher a crew to get your
Speaker 1: hands on their food. Yeah. I imagine that you had
Speaker 1: no trouble persuading your crew to go after each and
Speaker 1: every ship you came upon. I would think, So, you know,
Speaker 1: you know how they did that, how they came up,
Speaker 1: and you want to talk about how that they did
Speaker 1: their thing. Yeah, let's let's talk about that. Usually at
Speaker 1: night they would sneak up on the stern side and
Speaker 1: they would uh throw up the grappling hooks and they
Speaker 1: would climb aboard and try and get them to surrender
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. Right, Like you said that The
Speaker 1: ideal confrontation was one where the other ship just gave
Speaker 1: up immediately without a fight. Right. Sometimes that didn't help
Speaker 1: or it didn't work, um, so they would have to fight,
Speaker 1: and they would what did you say, grappling hooks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the grappling hooks to get up so they board, sure, right,
Speaker 1: and that you'd want to actually keep your um, your
Speaker 1: ship out of cannon fire range. Um, so that you
Speaker 1: would just get in a few boats and swim over
Speaker 1: to it or row over to it, and then climb aboard,
Speaker 1: and then the massacre would begin, right, or if not
Speaker 1: a surrender, then the masket would be and they would
Speaker 1: disable the rudder to which I didn't know, which is
Speaker 1: pretty smart. Yeah, straightaway, so they couldn't steer away or anything, right,
Speaker 1: but you could still toe what I imagine, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess because the ideal situations to get the boat. That's
Speaker 1: why they didn't want to bombard them with cannon fire,
Speaker 1: because you want to take the boat and everything that's
Speaker 1: got on it in one piece. And plus, even if
Speaker 1: you don't intend to take the boat, you don't want
Speaker 1: to sink it before you can get to the cargo. Right.
Speaker 1: So there was cannon fire that did happen when all
Speaker 1: outs failed. And I think Tracy said they also fired
Speaker 1: a grape shot. Have you ever heard of that? Huh?
Speaker 1: Whell those like small little cannonballs. It looks like a
Speaker 1: little bunch of grapes actually, and they would spit like
Speaker 1: spew out like a shotgun. Yeah, I think somewhere else
Speaker 1: they're they're molded together. I think they do spit out
Speaker 1: like a shotgun, but they're like that bigger around the spray.
Speaker 1: You're in trouble if somebody hits you a grape shot
Speaker 1: and actually they would go for the guy at the
Speaker 1: wheel was their first shot if they shot sure at
Speaker 1: the other ship and the guy steering. Apparently when they
Speaker 1: did capture crew, if they weren't in the mood to
Speaker 1: um turn them. There were several things they could do
Speaker 1: aboard the high season. One thing I read about was
Speaker 1: um they would tie tie somebody to the mast and
Speaker 1: just throw broken bottles at them until they got bored
Speaker 1: with that. That was one thing. Hauling so this sounds awful. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Keel hauling is when they tied a rope. They're big
Speaker 1: on the rope and they would throw you overboard and
Speaker 1: drag you under the keel of the boat, which pretty
Speaker 1: much means you you drowned. Yeah, or and along the
Speaker 1: way we're cut up by the barnacles that were stuck
Speaker 1: to the ship. And they would do this to their
Speaker 1: own guys. Apparently there was a strict code on the
Speaker 1: boat with the crew, and if you disobeyed the code,
Speaker 1: you would be treated just like the enemy would be. Uh.
Speaker 1: One thing that is fiction is walking the plank. Chuck,
Speaker 1: I did not know that either. Yeah, this is like
Speaker 1: the totem pole. I'm just I'm learning. Apparently, right, that
Speaker 1: was all. That's all just made up for books, right,
Speaker 1: walking the plank. Yep, that's disappointing. Um, so let's see
Speaker 1: what else, chuck. Oh Uh, Tracy made a really excellent
Speaker 1: point that I hadn't thought of. But if you have
Speaker 1: two ships and they're the same same type of ship,
Speaker 1: how does one catch the other? If you're using sales
Speaker 1: and oars, right, the same number of oars, same wind. Um. Apparently,
Speaker 1: if you were a decent pirate, you would beat your
Speaker 1: ship every once in a while and then clean off
Speaker 1: the hole and the barnacles off the hole to make
Speaker 1: it slide through a lot faster. Remember we were talking
Speaker 1: about ships that are being outfitted with that ouze that
Speaker 1: resembles a pilot whale skin. Um, the pilot whales keep
Speaker 1: barnacles off, and this ouze is the aim of the
Speaker 1: ouze is to keep um barnacles off of these ships
Speaker 1: to go fat or more efficiently at least, and go faster.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think it was gonna cut fuel consumption
Speaker 1: by like twenty percentage of consumption consumption. So that is
Speaker 1: how you would catch up to somebody else. You could
Speaker 1: also offload cargo, store it, maybe bury it in North
Speaker 1: Carolina and um, yeah, that is an interesting point. I
Speaker 1: ever thought about that because they they have the same wind.
Speaker 1: That's right. Are we done with old pirates? Seems like okay,
Speaker 1: modern modern times. Yeah, there was like there was a
Speaker 1: lull between the nineteenth century and the twenty first century really,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, we have pirates again. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean there's probably little pirateing here, and they're not
Speaker 1: like we've been seeing lately. Yeah, this one could almost
Speaker 1: call this the second Golden Age of piracy. Josh, if
Speaker 1: one were so inclined. Do you know why that is
Speaker 1: flourishing again? Economy much for the same reasons that it
Speaker 1: flourished back then. Economy is bad. Um, ship masters have
Speaker 1: been reluctant to report them who ship masters? Ship masters
Speaker 1: are reluctant to report the attacks because it can take
Speaker 1: a long time and be expensive and hold them up,
Speaker 1: so they'll just let it go undone. And they because
Speaker 1: of the economy, their staffing crews with smaller, smaller crews,
Speaker 1: ships of smaller cruise and the vast majority of modern
Speaker 1: pirate attacks are happening in the Gulf of Aiden, and
Speaker 1: they are being undertaken by Somali pirates. And one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why the pirates are getting away from it
Speaker 1: is because some only is as far as I know,
Speaker 1: the one nation on the entire planet that doesn't have
Speaker 1: a functioning central government. It's truly lawless, great place for
Speaker 1: pirates to hang out, right, Um, we're land based these days.
Speaker 1: Well they're hugging shore more right, but they have their
Speaker 1: operations based on land all right. Well, I mean they
Speaker 1: did that. They did the same thing during other ages
Speaker 1: of piracy, like the buccaneers all hung out in Port Royal. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: So the other reason the Gulf of Aiden is such
Speaker 1: a hotspot for piracy. Apparently ten or eleven percent of
Speaker 1: all of the world's oil goes through the Gulf of Aden,
Speaker 1: which is a relatively relatively narrow stretch UM between the
Speaker 1: Middle East and North Africa, northeastern Africa, UM, And it's
Speaker 1: two fifty miles wide, and it's like that for nine miles,
Speaker 1: so it's like a bottleneck. And then you're going right
Speaker 1: alongside the only country on the planet without a functioning
Speaker 1: central government. And I think eight percent of all of
Speaker 1: the goods shipped UM globally go through the Gulf of
Speaker 1: Aiden as well. Really yeah, so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: cash that flows through that that goalf. So you know
Speaker 1: how they operate nowadays, I do kind of just like
Speaker 1: they used to, except with rocket propelled grenade. They have RPGs.
Speaker 1: But they will do the same thing. They'll get a
Speaker 1: smaller boat, it's faster boat. They will sneak up on
Speaker 1: the stern and the dead of night with their grappling
Speaker 1: hooks and board the ship. And of course now they
Speaker 1: have you know, a crew of like that one incident
Speaker 1: earlier this year was like six or eight guys, wouldn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So not as hard to overtake a ship these days
Speaker 1: when you have machine guns and RPGs and a crew
Speaker 1: of six that you have to overtake. Are you talking
Speaker 1: about the Maresk, Alabama one where the Navy came in
Speaker 1: and the snipers killed the guy he did a little
Speaker 1: two tap. I would demend it. So yeah, but they're
Speaker 1: not after cargo, which I didn't know. I thought, like,
Speaker 1: it depends, well, I guess it does. But Tracy made
Speaker 1: the point that they can't overtake these huge cargo ships
Speaker 1: is they don't have the means to get rid of
Speaker 1: all that stuff. So they're usually after uh like smaller
Speaker 1: equipment on the boat in personal loot and sometimes they
Speaker 1: carry a lot of money in safe And I found
Speaker 1: it interesting because I think she wrote this in like
Speaker 1: two thousand five, maybe two thousand six, and it seems
Speaker 1: like two thousand seven or eight was when things really changed.
Speaker 1: Remember the the cargo ship filled with Russian tanks that
Speaker 1: was held, the cargo, the tanker filled with oil that
Speaker 1: was held. So so they are going after the cargo
Speaker 1: now they're just holding it for ransom. They're not trying
Speaker 1: to fence it. Like you can't fence a hundred Russian
Speaker 1: tanks or a container ship full of oil, but you
Speaker 1: can't hold the hostage and get money. You can hold
Speaker 1: it ransom and get money for you know, to to
Speaker 1: release it. And that's what they've been doing successfully. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I never followed up, but I did remember hearing about
Speaker 1: a couple that was sailing around the world and they
Speaker 1: were um kidnapped by pirates. I read something in the
Speaker 1: New York Times that was this year, I think, but
Speaker 1: I never found out what happened to them. Like a
Speaker 1: wealthy couple. Do you remember that guy who um was
Speaker 1: He had like a walk on part as and I
Speaker 1: think is like, uh, I don't remember what he was,
Speaker 1: but it was on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and he
Speaker 1: killed some couple for their yacht. But this wasn't him. No, okay,
Speaker 1: he wasn't a pirate. He's a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger Chuck. Yes,
Speaker 1: Let's say we are aboard a cargo ship filled with
Speaker 1: oil and pirates are heading our way with RPGs um
Speaker 1: rocket launchers a K forty seven's what do we do? Well,
Speaker 1: if you see them headed, I'm not really sure. I
Speaker 1: know you can do beforehand. You cannot discuss your route
Speaker 1: while you're in port. Yeah, like you don't don't go
Speaker 1: to the bar and say, yeah, we got a shipment
Speaker 1: of diamonds. We're gonna be taken to the Straits of
Speaker 1: horror muth And I'll bet that guy that was good.
Speaker 1: Actually that was the jackass shipmate who has a loud mouth.
Speaker 1: That was a perfect impression. And you know what, I'll
Speaker 1: bet that rule of thumb is this. It goes back
Speaker 1: to the Luca. Yeah, I bet, I bet so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just keep your mouth shut. Yeah, we've learned that
Speaker 1: a lot on the show. Kind of if only we could,
Speaker 1: um keep constant watch obviously to have someone up and
Speaker 1: what's it called the crow's nest looking out avoid bottlenecks, which,
Speaker 1: unfortunately with that one route you're talking about, it sounds
Speaker 1: like it's kind of hard to do, if not impossible,
Speaker 1: and uh, search your ship, you know, make sure no
Speaker 1: one's stowing away. Sometimes pirates will already be there as stowaways.
Speaker 1: It's like surprise call for help. I think there's uh
Speaker 1: their systems now that monitor where your boats are. If
Speaker 1: you're a cargo boat, shiplock, shiplock, there you go. What
Speaker 1: do they do? It's like low jack for your ship. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: well there you have it. Um, But yeah, if we
Speaker 1: if you do see some pirates coming aboard. If you
Speaker 1: ever happen to find yourself commanding an oil tanker and
Speaker 1: you see, uh, you see pirates coming towards you, you
Speaker 1: do call for help. As Chuck said, you also want
Speaker 1: to sound your alarm, turn on your lights. You want
Speaker 1: the pirates to know that you've seen them, so there's
Speaker 1: no element of surprise. Yeah, it may actually deter their
Speaker 1: attacks because you know, you're a huge cargo ship and
Speaker 1: they're like five guys. Um. A lot of ships, especially tankers,
Speaker 1: have their own fire hoses, like the big kind um,
Speaker 1: and you can spray guys as they try to come
Speaker 1: up the side of the ship. Kind Yeah, well you
Speaker 1: know it's like yeah, um and uh, if you aren't
Speaker 1: transporting oil or any kind of flamable material, there's actually,
Speaker 1: um a new kind of technology that electrifies the whole
Speaker 1: I heard about that. So the guy tries to climb up,
Speaker 1: he's like surprise, Yeah, exactly. That'd be awesome. Oh it
Speaker 1: would be dude. If I had that system, I would
Speaker 1: go through that shipping channeling you're talking about, and I
Speaker 1: would just like camp out the donuts in the Gulf
Speaker 1: of Aiden. Yeah, just to smoke a cigar and crack
Speaker 1: of beer and be like, can I get it? So
Speaker 1: that's pirates that I that I'm sure that it's not
Speaker 1: at all. It's the tip of the ice. Or even
Speaker 1: as far as Tracy's article goes, there's still more that
Speaker 1: we didn't touch on. But yeah, it's such a rich,
Speaker 1: beautiful history films and corsairs and swashbuckling, etcetera. And we're
Speaker 1: not touching on film and TV at all, because if
Speaker 1: we mentioned a hundred pirate things, we would get an
Speaker 1: email saying, I can't believe you didn't mention Pirate X
Speaker 1: from movie X y Z. And actually there's a little
Speaker 1: graph that Tracy had made for this article that it's
Speaker 1: it's our ten favorite pirates. But we're just gonna go
Speaker 1: ahead and break the news that this is Tracy's ten
Speaker 1: favorite pirates. Is your favorite? I didn't see that black
Speaker 1: Beard black Beards number one for historical pirates, and then
Speaker 1: in fiction tread Pirate Roberts, the guy from Prince's Pride,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah yeah, and the guy from Fireflies in
Speaker 1: there too. I like Jack Sparrow. I didn't like those
Speaker 1: movies weren't the best ever, but he was pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: We just fell into what you said we weren't going
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, but come on, all right, Well we
Speaker 1: welcome your emails. We'll give you the email address you
Speaker 1: can send your angry pirate emails too. And this second, um,
Speaker 1: let me say this, so no email with multiple ours
Speaker 1: will be read or answered to. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I think we set up a spam filter that if
Speaker 1: our appears in the email, it's just automatically deletes. We
Speaker 1: can see okay, um, if you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about pirates, type that word in pirates, pirate, um, something
Speaker 1: like that into the handy search bar at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com, which means it's time for a listener
Speaker 1: May is indeed, Josh, today we have a listener mail.
Speaker 1: I am going to call uh. Jerry was amazed by
Speaker 1: this email. Awesome and I was too. Hey, guys, I
Speaker 1: was listening to your podcast on hostage negotiation and you
Speaker 1: had a little back and forth at about the ten
Speaker 1: minute mark that made me laugh a little bit. This
Speaker 1: isn't the one? Isn't this is the one? So should
Speaker 1: we play that now? Yes? Let's I love doing that.
Speaker 1: It's usually just a regular domestic scene and the worst ones, man,
Speaker 1: the worst ones of those you see on the New
Speaker 1: is where you see some dudes got a baby acting
Speaker 1: as a human shield. Who does that? You've never seen that? No, oh, man,
Speaker 1: it's it's the worst watching those cop shows. A baby
Speaker 1: is a human shields. It's like the dad is out
Speaker 1: of his mind and uh on drugs or something and
Speaker 1: he'll have his baby and it's just it's the worst
Speaker 1: thing in the world to watch unfold. Okay, Josh, this
Speaker 1: from Danny, And here's what Danny has to say about that.
Speaker 1: Except this is the one. I was one of those babies.
Speaker 1: We were living in Queens, New York at the time,
Speaker 1: and my father barricaded himself on our top floor apartment
Speaker 1: for hours. He was holding me and threatening to jump
Speaker 1: out of the window with me in his arms if
Speaker 1: the police got too close. He didn't have any elaborate
Speaker 1: demands other than wanting my mother to not take me
Speaker 1: away from him in a custody dispute. The police used
Speaker 1: a negotiator to try and distract him so the swat
Speaker 1: team could do their own thing. Could do their thing,
Speaker 1: but they deemed it too risky to try an assault
Speaker 1: with him dangling me out the window like Michael Jackson did.
Speaker 1: That's not in there. I just threw that in. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the negotiators started playing to his religious beliefs, good tactic,
Speaker 1: and got him to let a priest come into the apartment.
Speaker 1: They were finally able to take him down without brute force.
Speaker 1: You can imagine how much I appreciate the art of
Speaker 1: obstage negotiations. No kidding, Danny. Uh. The story made the
Speaker 1: cover of every New York newspaper that day, and I
Speaker 1: have all of them saved odd souvenirs. I guess, thanks
Speaker 1: for the great show. I know. So I couldn't believe
Speaker 1: this happened in Danny, and I wrote him back and
Speaker 1: I asked what happened to his dad? And um, I
Speaker 1: have not heard back from him, so I'm not really sure.
Speaker 1: But dude, Danny, glad you're around. Man. I know I
Speaker 1: am too. That's just mind boggling. Actually, Uh, it turns
Speaker 1: out people do use babies as human shields, and they
Speaker 1: listen to stuff you should know twenty years on. If
Speaker 1: you have an absolutely nutty, mind boggling real life story, Chuck,
Speaker 1: Jerry and I are always interested in those. If you're Somalipoe,
Speaker 1: then you listen to the show. Why not let us know.
Speaker 1: Let us see your view. We we don't hear your
Speaker 1: view very often here in the West, So let us
Speaker 1: know what life is like for you, uh Somali pirate,
Speaker 1: human shield or anything else. Let us know. Send in
Speaker 1: an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics
Speaker 1: because it how stuff works dot com. Want more how
Speaker 1: stuff works, check out our blogs on the house. Stuff
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