The World's Smallest Country! - The Principality of Sealand

The Principality of Sealand is a micronation 12 km or 7miles off the coast of England.

Constructed for use for the second world war, multiple 4500 ton maunsell seaforts were built on barges and sunk in the ocean to protect the coastline of England. A crew of 100 soldiers could setup a seafort in only 30 minutes once they started to sink the structure. This seafort called Roughs Tower was named after the sandbank it sits on. Roughs tower was mainly used to keep track of any Germany vessels laying mines but was never needed to defend against an impending german attack. After the war Roughs Tower along with all the other seaforts were simply abandoned.

In the 1960s illegal pirate radio stations were popping up all over the place and found that broadcasting from the sea made them immune to British law as back then the law was only valid on land and 3 nautical miles off shore. This measurement came from the distance a cannon could shoot from the shore. Full time staff aboard Roughs Tower was removed in 1956 which opened the door for these abandoned maunsell seaforts to become popular homes for illegal radio stations. Wonderful Radio London made use of this tower in the early 1960s but in 1967 Paddy Roy Bates who owned the illegal radio station Radio Essex, seized the tower as his own to setup his radio station in international waters. Bates put his training as a Major in the British military to good use as he gathered some weapons and took ever Roughs Towers and declared it the Principality of Sealand. He declared himself the prince and his wife the princess. A year after his claim of Sealand a British vessel traveled close to the tower. Paddy fired a few warning shots in the air to scare off the boat which landed him in English courts with firearms charges. The court ruled that the event occurred outside of British territory which brought a lot of attention to Paddy and his self declared country.

In 1978 a German business man, Alexander Achenbach, along with his armed crew took over the Principality of Sealand. They took Paddy’s son hostage and Alexander claimed he was now the Prime Minister of Sealand and he now owned the country. How different the world would be today if it were that easy to take over a country.

Paddy and and his crew of armed goons boarded a helicopter and took the fort back with force but with no casualties. Now if this story wasn’t bizarre enough here’ where it gets really weird. One of the crew of Alexander, when they first took Sealand in 1978, was a German lawyer by the name of Gernot Putz. Gernot held a Sealand passport, that’s right Sealand not only has passports but currency, stamps, coat of arms, their own flag and a website where you can buy nobility titles like Knight, Baron, Lord, Baroness, Count, Countess, Duke and Duchess. We’re getting a little side tracked here so Gernot Putz held a passport from Sealand so by being apart of Alexander’s invasion crew it was considered an act of treason against Sealand. He was imprisoned with bail set at today’s value being $130,000. The UK government refused to have any participation in the matter as they stated Sealand was not part of the United Kingdom. The German government sent a diplomat stationed in London to negotiate Alexander’s release. After a handful of weeks he was released and things quieted down at Sealand. This event was a major win for Paddy as having diplomatic interactions with another country, and having England claiming Sealand wasn’t a part of the UK solidified Sealand as it’s own country. You see for a country to be a country it has to be viewed as a country by other countries. There are other factors but at this point Germany and England no longer viewed it as simply a few hippies living on an abandoned fort.

In 1982 during the Falklands war, Argentina tried to buy the island but Bates refused their offer. In 2007 ThePirateBay torrent website tried to buy Sealand by the Bates once again refused out of fear that England might try to reclaim the fort. HavenCo a data hosting service company found a home on Sealand in 2000 but after disagreement between the company and Bates, HavenCo’s website went off in 2008. Surprisingly it came back online in 2013 to continue business.

In 2012 Paddy Roy Bates died with his wife passing on soon after. Paddy’s son Michael is now in control of Sealand.
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Intro music thanks to Machinmasound:
Rallying the Defense:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruPk4RD19Nw