Why Is This Old Sea Fort Still Calling Itself a Country?

Mercenaries once stormed a country and took its prince hostage. The country was a rusty WWII gun platform in the North Sea. In this animated documentary: • How a wartime sea fort ended up beyond British law, thanks to a three-mile limit • Pirate radio, a blown-up fort, and the 1967 birthday declaration of the "Principality of Sealand" • The 1968 court case Britain couldn't win, and the 1978 invasion and helicopter counter-attack • Fake passports, a data haven, a fire, a €750 million price tag, and why no country has ever recognised it ⏱️ Chapters 0:00 A Fort Nobody Wanted 1:16 The Pirates of Pop 3:07 Prince Roy 4:33 The Invasion of 1978 6:21 Passports, Servers and Fire 7:57 So... Is It a Country? 📚 Educational & historical note: This video is for education and entertainment. It simplifies a complicated story, and some details differ between sources (noted in the video). Sealand is not recognised as a state by any country. ⚠️ Unverified claims: (1) The account of Michael Bates sliding down a rope onto the deck with a shotgun during the 1978 counter-attack comes from his own telling (CBS 60 Minutes; his memoir "Holding the Fort") and can't be independently confirmed. (2) The figure of about 4,000 fake passports sold by the Madrid ring, many of them reportedly to people in Hong Kong, rests on press reports from 2000. (3) That Britain left Sealand alone because it "wasn't worth a fight" is our interpretation; the UK government has never explained it. These are labelled UNVERIFIED on screen. Sources: Wikipedia "Principality of Sealand" and "HM Fort Roughs" (used as a guide to the sources) · CBS News 60 Minutes, "Meet the daring royal family behind Sealand" · James Grimmelmann, "Sealand, HavenCo, and the Rule of Law" (University of Illinois Law Review, 2012) · Michael Bates, "Holding the Fort" (2015) · UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Art. 60(8) · Wikipedia "Republic of Rose Island" 👉 Subscribe to Past Explains for more strange true history, explained with stick figures! 💬 Would you buy a "Lord of Sealand" title, or keep your money on dry land? #History #Sealand #Animation