La Perle Bleu ~ Festival Des Pirates

Festival Des Pirates shared a post.

Sunday June 23rd, 2019 - 12:03 pm

This Day In Pirate History
June 23, 2019

On June 23-24, 1314, the Battle of Bannockburn was waged between Robert the Bruce of Scotland and Edward II of England. Robert The Bruce was victorious in the first significant Scottish victory in the First War of Scottish Independence, a landmark in Scottish history.

In 1604, John Ward aka Jack Ward, aka Birdy and, later in life, aka Yusuf Rais (pictured below on the left) transferred his base of operations to Sale, in present day Morocco, on the Barbary Coast. In the previous year, Ward had been pressed into service under Royal Authority aboard the Lyon's Whelp of the Channel Fleet but, after two weeks, he led 30 fellow crewmen in a mass desertion and stole a barque from Portsmouth Harbour. Elected Captain, he sailed to the Isle of Wight and stole another ship reputed to be full of Catholic refugee treasure. With the new prohibitions against piracy in conjunction with England's new peace treaty with Spain, he captured a 32-gun warship to prey on Mediterranean merchant ships.

On June 23, 1662, Chinese pirate Zheng Chenggong, aka Cheng Ch’eng-kung, aka Koxinga, or Coxinga, who was the leader of Ming forces against the Manchu conquerors of China and best known for establishing Chinese control over Taiwan, died on the island he helped conquer. He was most famous for a 1659 ambitious military campaign, a maritime expedition with more than 100,000 troops up the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang). With large Qing forces still campaigning in the south, he achieved remarkable initial success, smashing through the lower Yangtze defenses to the gates of Nanjing. There, however, mistaken strategy and failure to heed his field commanders’ advice led to a disastrous defeat.

On June 23, 1812, The USS President under the command of Commodore Rogers engaged HMS Belvidera under the command of Captain Byron in the opening battle of the War of 1812. The British frigate moved close to check out what she believed to be an American squadron. The crew had been informed by a merchant ship that war may have been declared. One half hour later the British crew spied three large American frigates and tried to steer the Belvidera away. The Belvidera sustained massive damage and had to conduct repairs in retreat but successfully escaped.

Also on June 23, 1812, France invaded Russia. The Grande Armee fielded 422,000 men, but battle casualties, disease, and desertion reduced that number to around 100,000 soldiers when Napoleon enters Moscow three months later.

On June 23, 1837, the ever-enterprising pirate William Mitchell (pictured below on the right) was released from a Philadelphia prison where he was convicted on charges claimed by his wife of bigamy and assault and battery, and very soon secured a ship, a long black schooner called the Blooming Youth, and began to try to recoup his treasure, buried on an island in the Bahamas. He was stymied in this effort late in November 1837 when the captain of the Revenue Cutter Dexter captured him and his six man crew on suspicion of piracy. Mitchell was taken to Mobile, but soon released. He had been suspected of having attacked the packet ship Susquehanna near the New Jersey coast earlier, but there was no proof.

On June 23, 2017, a Thai flagged Product Tanker C.P.41 was boarded and hijacked while underway around 33nm NNE of Kuantan, Malaysia. Six pirates in a speed boat attacked and boarded the tanker while en route from Singapore to Songkhla, Thailand. They took all the crew hostage, hit a few crew with their guns and damaged the navigation and communication equipment. They then sailed the tanker to an unknown location where part of the diesel oil cargo was stolen and transferred into another boat. Before escaping the piratesstole crew and ship property. On departure the pirates released the crew who sailed to a safe port.

And, since we make our home at the precipice of the Graveyard of the Atlantic, here are this day's list of shipwrecks of the Outer Banks:

No shipwrecks have been recorded for this date.

We detail the exploits of Blackbeard in our epic trilogy Thatcher: the unauthorized biography of Blackbeard the pirate available now through Amazon or custom inscribed at www.thatcherthebook.com. ... See MoreSee Less

Festival Des Pirates shared a post.

Sunday June 23rd, 2019 - 7:05 am

Jim Sundström auf Annotopia 2019 ... See MoreSee Less