The King of Pirates, and the Biggest Pirate Heist in History

There were a lot of downsides to being a 17th-century pirate. Never mind the severely unhygienic coworkers and cramped living conditions. If you were caught, you were usually tortured and killed in ways that made a stint in Guantanamo look like a weekend in Ibiza.

So what was the upside of the pirating life? Sometimes you got away with it, loaded with tons of…