Principality of Sealand

THE BIRTH OF SEALAND In the early 60s, Roy Bates, a Major in the British army, established a radio station, situated offshore on an abandoned ex naval fort named Knock John. The theory behind this location was an attempt to bypass the draconian broadcasting restrictions of the time, which permitted little more than formal broadcasting by the BBC. Roys station, Radio Essex, and others like it, were known affectionately by the media as Pirate radio stations, and were much loved by the British public, as they supplied everything that the BBC did not at the time, Pop music and amusing presenters. In the years than ensued, Roy fought an unsuccessful legal battle with the UK government, which questioned the legality of his occupation of said fort. It was ruled that Knock John fell under UK jurisdiction. Smarting from his setback, Roy weighed his options. Another abandoned fortress, Roughs Tower, identical in construction to the Knock John existed further offshore, and crucially, outside...