The name Edward Teach sounds pretty tame. But when American colonists heard Teach’s other name—Blackbeard—they shivered in fear.
Blackbeard was a pirate in the early eighteenth century. He did his best to look fierce, so people wouldn’t fight back when he robbed them. Before British forces killed him in 1718, Blackbeard looted 50 to 100 ships.
In 1996 archaeologists found what is probably Blackbeard’s ship off the coast of North Carolina. Think of the booty a pirate ship might hold: gold! jewels! a toothpick! To an archaeologist, any clue to the past is a treasure, no matter how unimportant it might seem.