The Golden Age of Piracy is a common designation for the period between the 1650s and the 1730s, when maritime piracy was a significant factor in the histories of the North Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
A 1920 painting of Blackbeard's final battle against Robert Maynard in 1718
Amaro Pargo, a Spaniard who was one of the most famous corsairs of the Golden Age of Piracy
Henry Every is shown selling his loot in this engraving by Howard Pyle. Every's capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai in 1695 stands as one of the most profitable pirate raids ever perpetrated.
Cornelis Hendricksz Vroom, Spanish Men-of-War Engaging Barbary Corsairs, 1615.
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, and vessels used for piracy are called pirate ships. The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilisations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding.
A mosaic of a Roman trireme in Tunisia
A fleet of Vikings, painted mid-12th century
The Vitalienbrüder. Piracy became endemic in the Baltic sea in the Middle Ages because of the Victual Brothers.
"Cossacks of Azov fighting a Turk ship" by Grigory Gagarin