Blackbeard
Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard (¿1680? - November 22, 1718) was a famous pirate who was so named because of his thick black beard.
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About
He usually used to light his black beard with fuses so he would appear more monstrous to those he faced and make him more feared. He was also known to shoot his crew on occasion, which helped lead to his downfall. Blackbeard was notorious for kidnapping people, he was ruthless, selfish, and greedy, to the point where towards the end he started to kill off part his crew to increase his share of the plunder. During his life, Blackbeard had around fourteen different wives.
Blackbeard was also a big man, and was said to be strong. It was claimed he was strong enough to chop straight through a man with one swipe of his sword. He also carried multiple pistols at once, mostly down to the unreliability of guns at the time.
Blackbeard also spent a lot of his reign spreading stories of his own cruelty around to make it easier for him to defeat others. Exactly how true these stories are is unknown, as the majority of what he told was said for the purpose of scaring others. Likewise, he never killed a single person he kidnapped, although on one occasion he cut a man's arm when he refused to give him a ring he was wearing.
After the Royal Navy stormed his ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, Blackbeard's crew was already depleted, and many of them were drunk. Nevertheless, a battle raged. Blackbeard was shot and stabbed multiple times before he eventually died, the Navy decapitated his dead body, hung his head on the bowsprit of the boat and tossed the body into the sea.
Portrayal in Media
Blackbeard appears as a sketch character in the TV series Horrible Histories. In the song "Black beard" he is played by Jim Howick.
Blackbeard serves as the main antagonist in the film "Pirates of the Caribbean:On Stranger Tides" replacing Cutler Beckett. This version dies in a different style as he does not get decapitated. Instead, he turns into a skeleton and fades out of existence.
Blackbeard serves as one of the main protagonists in the film "Blackbeard's Ghost" before being replaced by Jack Sparrow. This version he is already dead in the same style; after he returns as a ghost, he did his good deeds to break the curse before he can finally rest in peace.
He is a supporting character in the video game Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, serving as a friend and associate of the game's main protagonist, Edward Kenway.
He is mentioned in the kid's movie "VeggieTales: The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" when one of the characters says "He knows more about pirates than Blackbeard himself."