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If Pirates Ruled Pictures GalleryAdvanced Photoshop Pictures Gallery - 19 image entries
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Contest Directions: 
This Saturday, September 19, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. 'Celebrations' of this Day started 1995 by John Baur ("Ol' Chumbucket") and Mark Summers ("Cap'n Slappy"), of the United States, who declared that on this day everyone should talk like a true pirate. The parodic tradition caught on and turned into a yearly holiday, to the great joy of the pirate fans all over the world. So remember when you see your co-workers this Friday, instead of usual "Hello" greet them with "Ahoy, me hearty!"
Photoshop how people and life would be different if pirates ruled the world. E.g. think of pirate movies, cars, animals, money, and of course pirate politicians and celebrities. Consider pirate sports too. Here's a good example. Arrrrr, photoshop, mateys!
Reckon th' best sea dog in this contest will win DUBLOON!
The second best buccanneer will get th' silver, th' third one th' bronze, an' th' fourth one some wood!
Tag funny pix pirates ruled
Top 19 Contest Gallery Pictures
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| | At all times, acts of piracy occurred almost everywhere in oceans, where only ships were found. Nevertheless, we can discuss the waters, where robbery for political, economic or even religious reasons, reached a particular level. As a rule, these were geographical zones, ideal for raids – a rugged coastline, a labyrinth of islands, secluded bays, plenty of places, where it's easy to dispose of the loot. And, of course, there "ought to be” an important commercial waterway and a strong "police" fleet, which, on the contrary, is absent.
In early history, such gang of "robbers" naturally occurred directly in the "solar plexus" of civilizations - Egyptian, Phoenician, Indian, Chinese etc.
Ancient writings (Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, Strab) contain many facts about the "first classic" piracy period - on the entire Mediterranean Sea from the 8th century BC to 5th century. It flourished here even in the middle ages and early modern times. And it is no wonder - at the junction of three continents, in conditions of incessant wars of trading powers and black trading developed as a consequence of confrontation between the Christian and Islamic worlds. Naturally, Christians and Muslims considered it as a matter of valour to attack the ships and ports of each other. Knights Hospitallers, known in the 14th - 16th centuries also as Rhodes (due to their main base in Rhodes) and later with the "relocation" onto Malta - as the Maltese were particularly active in such a holy deed. Members of the Brotherhood of St. Stephen, founded in 1562, by Tuscan Duke Cosimo de 'Medici – the corsair fleet of this Order was openly based in Livorno, did not lag behind the Knights Hospitallers.
There were "his" privateers - Arabs and Turks - and the Muslims. These were involved in raids from numerous refugees of Maghreb - Morocco's port of Salé, Algeria, Bona (Annaba), Buzhi (Bidzhayi), Libya Tripoli, Tunis La Goulette and from the island of Djerba.
Often policies of States grew over the interests of faith: from the sixteenth to eighteenth century, North African Corsairs often robbed not only the Turkish Sultan but also the Kings of France.
The second major group of European pirate fleets was formed in the Baltic and North seas in 7th - 11th centuries - in the era of the famous Vikings. Participants of the farthest trips for " loot and glory" were called initially in Scandinavia. However, other nations have given them different names. In England, for example, they were called Danes (from the word "Danes" —all the Northern pirates were called Danes), in France - Normans and in Russia - Varangians (probably from the ancient Swedish varingr - "associated oath"). Once upon a time, these robbers were a major force in all the waters of the continent and nobody could imagine withstanding the opposition of Vikings. Victims of their robberies were even large cities — London, Paris (small robber fleets raised up the Seine), Hamburg, Nantes, Bordeaux, Seville, Pisa. The primordial fear of the enemy survives even in Western prayer "Oh God, protects us from the ravages of Normans". Later, in the 14th - 15th centuries, like dealers, known under the name of "Victual Borthers" were successfully active here. "God's Friends and the whole world's enemies" was their strange motto.
But with the two most important geographical discoveries - America (1492) and the sea route to India (1498) - European knights finally with good luck embarked onto the broader world stage - mastered the open Ocean: tropical Africa, Malabar and the Coromandel sandy bays and even the Far East.
In world history, the largest centre of piracy began in the 16th century in the Caribbean, through which Spain continued their gold and silver fleets. A series of corsair attacks on them continued till the 60s of the19th century. However, in the 16th century, the waters of West Indies had already furrowed the "knights of the boarding axe", then largely French. One of the viceroys of New Spain, in desperation, wrote to Emperor Charles V, that the French corsairs - similar owners on sea Antilles as His Majesty on Guadalquivir. The Dutch and British also joined the nationals of Paris. Thus, in a report, sent to Jamaica in 1644, it was stated that the pirate raids have made the citizens of the island "so nervous and intimidated, that two ships appear near the port and without identifying their origin, trafficked women and entire movable assets to the mountains". In the same year, the bishop of Puerto Rico said: "We are so besieged by enemies that there is no one who dares to enter the sea for fishing because they were immediately captured".
In the 17th - 18th centuries, Caribbean piracy spread to the entire eastern coast of North America. There, it altogether became the "great trade with warehouses and agencies in the majority of harbours, to the Port of Salem in the north to Charleston in South Carolina"- noted Philip Gosse, writer, historian and naturalist in the 19th century. And Nassau on New Providence Island, which is now the capital of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, until 1718 remained the true centre for sea pirates. Apart from these ( up to 12,000 people) no one else lived there. |
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