Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 23, 2017

Blackbeard (Edward Teach, c. 1680 – 1718) was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of the American colonies. He was probably born in Bristol, but little is known about his early life. He may have served on privateer ships during Queen Anne's War before he joined the crew of Benjamin Hornigold, a pirate who operated from the island of New Providence. In the Queen Anne's Revenge, a renamed merchant vessel, Teach blockaded the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, with an alliance of pirates. After successfully ransoming its inhabitants, he settled in Bath Town, but soon returned to piracy. He was attacked and killed near Ocracoke Island by a crew seeking the reward for his capture. A shrewd and calculating leader, he avoided the use of force, and there are no accounts that he ever harmed his captives. Following his death, his image was romanticised, becoming the inspiration for a variety of pirate-themed works of fiction.