273. Panama’s Brutish Conquistador Who Found The Pacific and Lost His Head (Part 1)

J.M. Barrie, the fascinating Scottish writer, gave us Peter Pan - the boy who never grows up, and his notorious pirate nemesis: Captain Hook. But where did this iconic rivalry come from, and how did B...

14 Nov 202442min

Robert Louis Stevenson, a sickly boy with a vivid imagination, grew up along Scotland’s rugged coast, where tales of shipwrecks and buried gold stirred dreams of pirates and treasure. Out of this coas...

12 Nov 202441min

For many years, commemorations of the two World Wars excluded the memorialisation of soldiers from the British Empire. But campaigners have gradually turned the spotlight on their experiences. In th...

7 Nov 202438min

After robbing the fleet in a brutal, barbaric fashion, Henry Avery caused a diplomatic incident of global proportions. The Mughals were furious and the East India Company, which at this very moment wa...

5 Nov 202444min

One of the most notable pirates of his day, Henry Avery would go on to make potentially the most lucrative heist ever on the high seas. Originally a navy man, Avery then took the well-trodden path of ...

31 Okt 202440min

William Kidd, a respectable Scottish privateer during the late 17th century, tasked with hunting down pirates on the orders of a murky cabal of British aristocrats, but with the crown’s blessing, find...

29 Okt 202440min

Alongside legends like Blackbeard and Calico Jack, William Kidd is one of the most famous pirates to have entered the public consciousness, thanks to Hollywood, sea shanties and literary mythologizati...

23 Okt 202441min

“At our first salutation he drank damnation to me and my men who styled cowardly puppies saying he would neither give nor take quarter…” By the end of November 1717 Blackbeard had become one of the m...

21 Okt 202440min