Daring characters who swooped on treasure ships and returned home with golden cargoes? Brutal sea-thieves who showed no mercy to their victims? Bold adventurers, who paid for travel by theft at sea? In fact, pirates were all these things and more. For centuries, pirates have sailed across the seas and oceans of the world.
Piracy began more than 2000 years ago in Ancient Greece when sea robbers started flocking around the trading routes. These sea robbers challenged all those who passed from there and looted them mercilessly.
Organized piracy and privateering was finally ended in the nineteenth century as governments of most countries increased the sea patrols and made piracy punishable by death. However, piracy has not completely disappeared. It is still flourishing from Sumatra to Somalia, and today’s pirates are quite different from the lovable rogues shown in movies such as ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’
