Blackbeard, also identified as Edward Teach, was hunted down and killed off North Carolina’s Outer Banks during a battle with a British naval force sent from Virginia. In 1713, he commenced his “pirating career” when he became a crewman aboard a Caribbean ship ordered by Benjamin Hornigold. History claims that Blackbeard had as many as fourteen wives. Teach was said to be a native of England and in 1717 he captured and took over a French ship and improved its armament to forty guns, and renamed it the Queen Anne’s Revenge. The Queen Anne’s Revenge served as the flagship of a pirate fleet featuring up to four vessels and more than 200 men. Teach earned his name because of his long, dark beard, which he lit on fire during battles to intimidate
