Captain Edward Teach (Thatch), aka Blackbeard the Pirate, was a real person from Bristol England who lived between 1680 to around 1718. In his short 38 to 40 years he managed to make quite a name for himself as a notorious pirate sailing the ocean around the West Indies and off the coast of the newly forming American colonies. Blackbeard has been portrayed in many films and TV shows by an array of fine actors. It is thanks in no small part to their performances over the years that the myth has outgrown the man.