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By now you have probably heard the startling reports that, beginning in 2020, orcas- also commonly called killer whales- off the straits of Gibraltar, started attacking sailboats. While Orcas have not historically generally represented danger to people or boats, this new behavior isn’t the first time that people at sea have been terrorized by massive creatures of the deep. In fact, the recorded. history of whales attacking boats goes back a very long time.
When Whales Attack
In 1891, British humorist Jerome K. Jerome wrote that “Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories.”
The Reconquista, or Christian reconquest of Iberia, took nearly 800 years. The fighting did not come without great attempts by Muslim powers across the strait trying to reestablish their presence in mainland Europe. The last gasp of that effort came in the 1330s, when the powerful Marinid sultanate of what is modern Morocco invaded in an attempt to reverse Christian gains and secure the perilous position of the Sultanate of Granada.
The plot of the Rue of Saint Nicaise and its use of an infernal machine played a vital role in the career of Napoleon Bonaparte, and transformed the very concept of assassination, resulting in a new definition of a word all too familiar today: terrorist.
