In 1942, Britain built a Maunsell sea fort in the North Sea, a wartime platform of concrete towers and a steel deck. They called it Roughs Tower.
It stood on Rough Sands, then in international waters, about 7 miles (11 kilometers) off Suffolk.
Former Army major and pirate-radio host Paddy Roy Bates took the empty platform.
His goal?
His own pirate radio station.
He seized it from another group of radio pirates already there.
On September 2, 1967, the plan flipped.
Instead of going on air, he declared an independent state: the Principality of Sealand.
He called the fort nobody's land and cited the law of nations, the claim that unowned territory can be taken.
The motto became E Mare Libertas.
From the sea, freedom.
In 1987, Britain stretched its territorial waters, the sea it claims as its own, from 3 to 12 nautical miles.
The fort now sat inside them.
No country recognizes Sealand.
His family and associates still hold it and still call it sovereign.
As of August 2024, one person lives there full time.
An abandoned war fort.
The world's best-known micronation, a state no country accepts.
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