‘Real Pirates’ exhibit visits National Geographic Museum

Blackbeard and Calico Jack may seem like the stuff of legends, but a new exhibition shows that pirates and their treasures were real indeed.

‘Real Pirates’ exhibit visits National Geographic Museum

By Christina Barron

Blackbeard and Calico Jack may seem like the stuff of legends, but a new exhibition shows that pirates and their treasures were real indeed.

“Real Pirates,” which opened last week at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, tells the story of the Whydah (pronounced WID-ah), an 18th-century pirate ship that was discovered off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Underwater explorer Barry Clifford and a team of divers found the wreckage in 1984 and have brought more than 200,000 artifacts to the surface. One of the early finds — a bell with the word Whydah etched into it — proved that the wreckage was Sam Bellamy’s pirate ship. The artifacts are the world’s only verified pirate treasure.

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Source: The Washington Post.