What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson and Carter Roy
What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson and Carter Roy

Everything You Know About Pirates Is Wrong

October 21, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Everything You Know About Pirates Is Wrong

The most famous pirate punishment in history—walking the plank—has exactly zero recorded cases from the entire Golden Age of Piracy. It first appears in an 1788 slang dictionary by English lexicographer Francis Grose, who defined it as something mutineers did to their own officers, not pirates to their captives. The reasoning was cold: they believed that if a man walked off under his own power, it didn't count as murder. A criminal loophole dressed as suicide.

The Invention of Walking the Plank

The image we all carry came from fiction, not history. The 1724 book A General History of Pirates—credited to a "Captain Charles Johnson," who may not have existed—includes a version of the scene, but set in ancient Rome. Then came an 1837 illustration called "Walking the Death Plank," followed by Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island in 1883, and finally J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan in 1904, where Captain Hook gave children the plank they could draw from memory.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (02:52) **Walking the Plank: A Punishment That Never Happened** - Carter reveals that the most famous pirate punishment has zero recorded cases from the Golden Age of Piracy.
  • 2 (05:21) **The Jolly Roger Was Marketing, Not a Weapon** - Pirates used flags as psychological warfare to force surrender without a fight.
  • 3 (08:40) **Rapid Fire: Eye Patches, Peg Legs, and "Arrrr"** - Carter debunks three more iconic pirate tropes in quick succession.
  • 4 (12:39) **The One Real Buried Treasure (and Why Pirates Didn't Bother)** - Carter explains why pirates almost never buried treasure, then reveals the single confirmed case.
  • 5 (16:49) **Captain Kidd's Treasure: The Real Inventory** - The contents of the only confirmed buried pirate treasure are inventoried, and its fate is revealed.
  • 6 (19:44) **The Treasure Map with the X: A Stepdad's Accident** - The iconic treasure map with an "X" marking the spot comes from a single, accidental source.
  • 7 (22:45) **The Pirates' Code: Democracy Before Democracy** - Carter reveals that pirates invented written constitutions, elected leaders, and workers' compensation decades before the American Revolution.

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Show Notes

Pirates didn’t really walk the plank. There’s only one confirmed case of buried pirate treasure. And some of the most notorious outlaws on the ocean had written contracts, elected leaders, and workers’ compensation.


Connor Tomlinson and Carter Roy dig into three of the biggest myths about pirates and the wild true stories behind them. From walking the plank and buried treasure maps to the surprisingly strict rules pirates actually lived by, it turns out the truth is even stranger than the legend.


Which pirate myth changed your mind the most: the plank, the treasure map, or the lawless pirate? Drop your vote in the comments.


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What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson and Carter Roy

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