The History of Sealand
The Starting of Sealand
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In 1942, Great Britain built four offshore forts to protect the Thames Estuary during WWII. The forts helped save Britain during the war, and the British never bothered to spend money to tear down the four offshore forts. Major Paddy Roy Bates (Pictured to the left) was a retired British army officer in WWII. In the 1960's Roy Bates set a radio antenna above one of the four forts and later located it to another fort, named Roughs Tower because it was out of Britain's territorial limits. Then Roy Bates got thinking, "What could you do with two legged offshore forts outside of Britain's rule?" Roy Bates hoped to make money for making a nation, and finally, in 1967, Roy Bates and his wife became prince and princess of a new nation: The Principality of Sealand.
After the Establishment of Sealand
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Sealand had a peaceful history with Britain for the most part. Although Roy Bates did get charged for violating firearm laws for firing warning shots at a government ship, in 1968, a judge ruled that, as stated earlier, Sealand was outside of British rule and was never forced to pay British taxes. In the later years Roy Bates sold passports in which noble titles were a few pounds each (usually for Roy's family and friends) but he eventually stopped because they were used as fraud. In 2004 there has been about 300 legitimate Sealand passports. In 2006, Sealand suffered a severe fire (Pictured to the right) that made people abandon Sealand for a while and on October 9 of this year Roy Bates was 91 when he passed away from the Alzheimer's disease. He will be greatly missed.
Estuary
The place in which the river meets the tide.