🏴‍☠️ Where pirates debauched—and plotted

December 19, 2022
by RJ Hamster

WHERE PIRATES GOT THEIR RUM—AND THEIR NEWS

Monday, December 19, 2022

In today’s newsletter, we track where loot-laden pirates went to party, plumb the violent origins of Hanukkah, explore a drug with a ‘Lazarus effect’ on human brains … and say bye-bye to the legendary P-22.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JEFF ROTMAN, NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY

Any self-respecting pirate, loaded down with loot, needed a place to blow off steam. Someplace with free-flowing rum, easy companionship, and receptiveness to ill-gotten merchandise.

Throughout the Caribbean and northern Atlantic, establishments with expansive terms of comfort sought to accommodate groups of free-spending, swaggering, staggering seafarers. In between swills, the pirates recruited sailors, promoted mutiny on merchant vessels, and learned routes of other prospects for plunder. Where are these places? Do any still exist? What tales do they hold?

Read the full story here.

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ILLUSTRATION VIA PICTURES NOW, ALAMY

Yo ho ho, bartender: A pirate could drop more in a night of revelry on shore (illustration above) than a land-lubbing laborer could make in a year. Few questions were asked about the source of the payments. At top, a gold bar and coins recovered from the Spanish galleon Nuestra Señora de las Maravillas, which wrecked off the Bahamas in the 1650s. Read more.

STORIES WE’RE FOLLOWING

PHOTOGRAPH BY JESS CRAIG

Are cures for some of our deadliest diseases hiding out in our sewers? (Above, Martin Georges hunts for microscopic phages.)

How fentanyl kills—and how Narcan saves lives

The seas of Avatar: James Cameron on the real science behind his fictional world

Despite the warning, the Titanic was doomed

How do I know if I have long COVID?

The alarming rise of food allergies

Thousands of temples flood this sacred skyline

The best time of day to eat

The Christmas Eve plot to kill Napoleon

We say goodbye to P-22 and look at the photograph that made him a local icon

WHAT IN THE WORLD?

PHOTOGRAPH BY @JOSHUACOGAN

What’s this plant? It could be a scene from the Cretaceous period. That era—about 95 million years ago—is when this species first came into existence, alongside dinosaurs. Photographer Joshua Eli Cogan captured this eerie scene recently in the mid-Atlantic. Do you know what kind of plant this is? Click here for the answer.

WHAT PLANT AM I?

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

PHOTOGRAPH BY JO ANNE MCARTHUR

Healthy people, healthy wildlife: Wildlife veterinarian Gladys Kalema-Zikusok (above) knows how hunger and inadequate healthcare in local communities can devastate nearby primate populations—like the time her team discovered a scabies outbreak in humans had reached critically endangered mountain gorillas. “If you don’t attend to the needs of the people who share their habitats with gorillas and other wildlife, it’s very difficult to conserve wildlife in the future,” the Nat Geo Explorer explains.

HEALTH FOR ALL

LAST GLIMPSE

PHOTOGRAPH BY YONATAN SINDEL, FLASH90/REDUX

Hanukkah’s big back story: The Jewish Festival of Light, running through Monday, is technically about a 2,000-year-old “miracle” in which light won out over darkness. But the roots began long before that, in a power struggle that began after the death of Alexander the Great and culminated in a Jewish rebellion, Nat Geo reports. (Pictured above, a colorful menorah lights up the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City.)

Today’s newsletter was curated and edited by Sydney Combs, Jen Tse, and David Beard. Have an idea or link to a story you think is right down our alley? Let us know at david.beard@natgeo.com. Happy trails!

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RJ Hamster

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🏴‍☠️ Where pirates debauched—and plotted

🏴‍☠️ Where pirates debauched—and plotted

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