Daniel Defoe: Did you mean...?

A colourised engraving from c. 1724 of Bartholomew Roberts (aka Black Bart Roberts), the notorious Welsh pirate (c. 1682-1722). The illustration shows the various flags Roberts flew to bring fear and capitulation from his victims. (From an...

An illustration by N.C. Wyeth of Robinson Crusoe which appeared on the dust jacket a 1920 edition of Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe, first published in 1719. The character was inspired by Alexander Selkirk, marooned on the Juan Fernández...

A view of the mountains on the Juan Fernández Islands off the coast of Chile. Alexander Selkirk (1676-1721) was marooned on the islands from 1704 to 1709. His story inspired Daniel Defoe's Robisnon Crusoe, published in 1719.

An illustration of the English pirate Charles Vane, active in the Caribbean and off the east coast of North America in the Golden Age of Piracy. Vane was tried and hanged in Jamaica in 1720. (From an early edition of A General History of...

The Webster-Hayne debate was a series of back-and-forth speeches between Senator Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Senator Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina in January 1830. What started as a debate over the sale of western lands blossomed...

In the book of Genesis in the pre-flood period, Enoch was the son of Jared and the father of Methuselah. There are few details about Enoch. We learn that he lived 365 years, and then Enoch "walked faithfully with God; then he was no more...

Shays' Rebellion (1786-87) was an armed insurrection by rural farmers in western and central Massachusetts, sparked by the state government's unpopular response to a debt crisis. The insurrection reached its climax when the rebels, referred...

Captain Charles Vane was an English pirate active in the Caribbean and off the east coast of North America between 1716 and 1720. The pirate, who infamously refused a pardon and instead fired his cannons at the ship of Governor Woodes Rogers...

George I of Great Britain (r. 1714-1727) succeeded the last of the Stuart monarchs, Queen Anne of Great Britain (r. 1702-1714) because he was Anne's nearest Protestant relative. The House of Hanover secured its position as the new ruling...

Captain Benjamin Hornigold was a British pirate active in the Caribbean and North Atlantic from 1716 to 1717. Hornigold’s greatest claim to fame (or infamy) is that he taught the pirating ropes to Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard (d. 1718). Giving...