Nobody knows for sure if Libertalia (also known as Libertatia) ever really existed. It's only referenced in a single source (“A General History of the Pyrates” by Captain Johnson), some of the dates given don't match up, and the source is not usually considered all that reliable in the first place. All we can say is that it might have existed, but what an interesting story if it really did.
Today’s world is plagued with worries about the way human beings are affecting the environment and whether the consequences of our actions will prove too much for us to deal with. The other side of the argument preaches that there is nothing to worry about, for we have or can develop the technology to overcome any obstacle that may cross our path, including the threat of extinction. In light of the very serious problems caused by overpopulating our earth and overtaxing its resources, it is important for people to look to the past and see what such damage can do.
Who is that makes history? We're predisposed to think of certain people as the history makers- men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are seen as the architects of the American Revolution, as if they somehow took down the British Empire in North America through the sheer power of their mighty importance as Founding Fathers.
As we can tell from CNN’s constant coverage of the Costa Concordia wrecked off of the Italian coast this week, we are nothing if not obsessed with shipwrecks. Certainly the Costa’s wreck is a tragedy with more than eleven people presumed dead, but it is also a very visible reminder of nature’s constant control of human invention. It’s been entirely eerie to see the huge Italian ship jutting out of the water with the rescue boats dotted around it looking small and insignificant. But the Costa Concordia’s casualty rate makes it nowhere near one of the greatest maritime tragedies in history. Let’s take a look at some of the most tragic shipwrecks during which nature asserted her unyielding power: Read more about Shipwrecks in history
Back in the early days of archaeology, when the discipline first began to take shape, the emphasis in excavating a site was less in preserving and understanding the past and more geared towards acquiring the gold and other treasures that might lurk beneath the earth’s surface. Though the science of discovering the past has evolved and become refined over the last 100 years or so and efforts have been made to stop the theft of artifacts, it is much too late for many of these old sites.
The amusing yet instructive website “tvtropes.org” serves as an encyclopedia of known tropes used in TV, books and movies. What is a trope? It's something in between an archetype and a stereotype. A trope is a story pattern or character type used over and over again in fiction. One of the tropes described on the site is “Mighty Whitey,” the trope exemplified by Tom Cruise's character in “The Last Samurai.” Mighty Whitey goes into an exotic yet bad-ass foreign culture of Noble Savages, comes to identify with their plight, and ends up becoming their warlord or god-king or their savior somehow, or just proves that he is even more noble and savage than they are. (For other examples of Mighty Whitey, see “Avatar” and “Dances With Wolves.”)
By its very nature, archaeology is an infinitely complicated task which requires a vast collection of knowledge and expertise. Millions of archaeological artifacts from thousands of sites need to be examined, interpreted and made sense of so that the links to the past can be deciphered. It is only through this close examination that the truth can be revealed. More often than not, finding these truths is a time-consuming and flawed process. Artifacts are scattered over the face of the earth, making their homes in museums and generally inaccessible to most people, including many of those who would wish to study them. Luckily, advances in technology are allowing greater access to pieces of the puzzles that need to be solved.
“There came into this world a blue-gray wolf, whose destiny was heaven's will.” Those are the chillingly beautiful opening words of “The Secret History of the Mongols,” the epic poem of the conquests of Genghis Khan. And Genghis Khan did a lot of conquering, beginning with Mongolia itself- which took most of his life- and moving on to much of the rest of the world, which only took him a few years.
Searching for the past has always been a difficult task, one that only those with brilliant minds and extreme patience were able to do with any measure of success. Many sites may jut from the countryside and make themselves known, just waiting to be explored, but most are not as helpful. They lay in the depths of the earth, worn down by erosion, covered in earth that has shifted over time and overgrown with thousands of years of thriving plant life. Advances in technology are beginning to overcome these obstacles, however, making accessible many locations which would have otherwise remained hidden from us.
From the way they present it in the history books we all studied in school, you'd think that the American Revolution was a nearly unanimous thing- barring a handful of villainous Tories, of course. The reality, though, was far different.