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Following the end of World War II (the 1939-45 war as it is known outside the U.S.), The Royal Navy abandoned the fort leaving it to sit alone and untended in, what was then, international waters approximately seven miles off the east coast of England.

Like many of his fellow countrymen, chafing under the stifling regulations and confiscatory taxes of pre-Thatcher Britain, a retired Major in the British Army and so-called pirate broadcaster by the name of Roy Bates moved to the island in 1966. At that time the British Broadcasting Corporation was a government monopoly that controlled all broadcasting in the United Kingdom. Because there existed a large audience of consumers who longed for more choice in their radio offerings as well as businesses who wished to reach this audience with advertising (which was not allowed by the BBC), a number of entrepreneurs attempted to fill this, rather large, market by setting up so called pirate radio stations which broadcast, without a license, from ships off shore or from other abandoned World War II platforms. After having his station, which had operated from a tower closer to shore, forcefully shut down by the police, Bates moved further out to Rough Tower and attempted to resume broadcasting. He was again arrested and charged with violating the British broadcast laws.

In 1967, taking advantage of the fact that Rough Tower lay outside British territorial waters, Major Bates designed a flag and proclaimed Rough Tower to be the Principality of Sealand, a sovereign nation with himself as Prince. Although he never got the radio station going again, he has made money selling Sealand passports and titles of nobility (both of which have proved popular but neither of which are recognized as valid outside of Sealand). Sealand has also attracted an Internet company which decided to escape the prying eyes of bureaucrats locating its servers on Sealand.....

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One of the world's smallest countries is up for sale. Only one family and some employees live there and all of them have homes elsewhere so this is more like buying an expensive (very expensive in that the sellers would like an eight figure amount – we are talking ten to ninety-nine million dollars here) home than a country.

Aurorae

Feb 5 2009, 05:05 AM

You mom isn't Opera, who exactly is Opera? Do you mean OPRAH?

Gale

Feb 5 2009, 12:14 PM

Buy it?

Pfft, it'd be cheaper just to invade it...