#1718

[krushing]

OHTANI, YAMAMOTO & SASAKI Dodgers 2025 World Series Champions

[yoshinobuyamamoto]

1718

[dimity-lawn]

So I have some potentially big news, at least in my world: After over a year of desperately longing for something I thought impossible, I am now on the waiting list for a ticket to the Discworld Convention!!!!!*

This happened about this time yesterday, and I still haven’t fully absorbed this information. I have yet to think one complete coherent thought, because my thoughts keep being interrupted by new ones. Last night I was too excited to sleep, and, as you might expect, the lack of sleep isn’t helping matters. And while I’m thrilled by this, I’m also kind of in a state of “oh no, there’s so much to figure out and do and so little time!”, including several sewing projects, especially my scaled up to adult size reproduction of an 18th century pocket in the collections of the V&A, because if I’m going to Birmingham for the convention, I’ll have to go to the V&A.** I’m afraid of getting my hopes up, but 🤞.

Rattle your drawers for me!

*Yes, five exclamation points is a sure sign of an insane mind, but in my defense, reread the part before the five exclamation points. **This project has reached a surprising and ungodly extent of procrastination.

[paininmyavs]

i miss them

[transparentfossil]

Sweden 1718, 1 daler old world coin

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (Italian, 1675-1741) Apollo, 1718 Mauritshuis, Den Haag

[wrestling-news-france]

Bron Breakker WWE Monday Night RAW #1718 27 avril 2026 World Wrestling Entertainment Laredo, Texas, USA Arena: Sames Auto Arena

[whencyclopedia]

Pirate Havens in the Golden Age of Piracy

The buccaneers who roamed the Spanish Main and the pirates who plundered the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean during the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730) needed a place of refuge where they could share out and enjoy their loot. Pirate havens like Port Royal on Jamaica, Tortuga on Hispaniola, and New Providence in the Bahamas provided safe harbours, the possibility to sell looted cargo to crooked traders, and were within easy reach of the main shipping routes. As the colonial authorities finally got a grip on piracy from 1720 onwards, so the pirate havens declined, many of them becoming a pirate’s very last port of call: the place of their execution.

The Lure of the Pirate Dens

Pirates needed safe harbours where they could hide from the authorities and share out their loot. Ideally, a base was close to the routes taken by merchant shipping, the pirates’ primary target, and, even better, close to a strait where these ships were obliged to navigate through. It also needed to be a place of refuge during the winter or storm season. Pirates needed to be able to repair their ships, and so a base with shallows was ideal as a vessel could be more easily careened. Such locations had the added advantage that large naval vessels could not easily access them.

The havens were a safe place for pirates to rest their weary sea legs and let their hair down. Here they quickly spent their ill-gotten loot on wine, women, and gambling. Pirates sold captured cargoes to unscrupulous dealers who had set up business in the various pirate havens in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. The dealers were on to a good thing since they acquired goods at a much cheaper rate than from legitimate merchant vessels in any other port, and the pirates were happy enough to get their cash, even if they were obliged to sell at a price much below the real value. The dealers then smuggled their dubious goods into legitimate ports where it was sold through the channels it would have reached if the pirates had not interrupted the trade process.

Pirates struck deals with corrupt colonial officials if they could, getting a better price for their plunder than they would have in a haven. Perhaps the most infamous of the rotten governors was Charles Eden, governor of North Carolina, who gave such notorious and unrepentant pirates as Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard, d. 1718) and Stede Bonnet (d. 1718) pardons, even allowing the former to establish a pirate base at Ocracoke Island. Another infamous governor who fenced loot for pirates was Colonel Benjamin Fletcher in New York before his dismissal in 1698.

Continue reading...