
HUMPERBUMPER FACT:
Blackbeard
or Edward Teach was a famous English pirate . He burnt hemp beneath
his 'black beard,' to make it look like he was breathing fire,
to intimidate his enemies.
Blackbeard
eventually retired to North Carolina to spend his senior years
rolling around in gold coins. But the Governor of Virginia put
a hit on him, dispatching two ships commanded by Robert Maynard.
Rather than running from the two enormous ships sent to kill him,
Blackbeard boarded Maynard's ship.
First he bombed the deck with primitive grenades, then nearly
severed the fingers on one of Maynard's hands with his sword,
and Maynard in turn broke his sword, stabbing Blackbeard back.
At
the end of the fight, Blackbeard had been stabbed twenty times
and suffered at least five gunshot wounds, before bleeding to
death whilst trying to reload his pistol. Maynard then decapitated
Blackbeard and hung his severed head from the bow of his sloop,
in order to collect his reward. He was paid 100 pounds for his
trouble
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