Rise of Sealand

On 2 September 1967, the HM Fort Roughs was occupied by Major Paddy Roy Bates, a British subject and pirate In 1967 radio broadcaster, who ejected a competing group of pirate broadcasters. Bates intended to broadcast his pirate radio station – called Radio Essex – from the platform.

In 1968, British workmen entered what Bates claimed to be his territorial waters in order to service a navigational buoy near the platform. The Bates responded by opening fire on the workmen. As Bates was a British subject at the time, he was summoned to to court in England. A treaty was signed that day between English locals and the Bates family, officially recognizing Sealand’s sovereignty and establishing the Bates family as a royal house of Europe.