Pirates could be found in nearly every Atlantic port city. But only particular locations became known as “pirate nests,” a pejorative term used by royalists and customs officials. Many of the most notorious pirates began their careers in these ports. Others established even deeper ties by settling in these cities and becoming respected members of the local elite. Instead of the snarling drunken fiends that parade through children’s books, these pirates spent their booty on pigs and chickens, hoping to live a more placid and financially secure life on land.

The aftermath of a revolution:

Amid all the chaos of Libya’s transition from war to peace, one remarkable theme stood out: the relative absence of revenge. Despite the atrocities carried out by Qaddafi’s forces in the final months and even days, I heard very few reports of retaliatory killings. Once, as I watched a wounded Qaddafi soldier being brought into a hospital on a gurney, a rebel walked past and smacked him on the head. Instantly, the rebel standing next to me apologized. My Libyan fixer told me in late August that he had found the man who tortured him in prison a few weeks earlier. The torturer was now himself in a rebel prison. “I gave him a coffee and a cigarette,” he said. “We have all seen what happened in Iraq.” That restraint was easy to admire.

How Russia consistently undermines the U.N. in order to keep a multi-billion dollar monopoly on the sales of helicopters and airplanes.

In 1913, a ship carrying 31 explorers got stuck in the Arctic ice, hundreds of miles from civilization. The leader left to carry on the expedition. Others stuck with the boat. Help wouldn’t come for a year.

The money has dried up, the models are broken and “there are simply many, many more high-priced lawyers today than there is high-priced legal work.” On the end of an era.

Following the hunters and poachers, servers and saviors of the little-known pangolin—a scaly, endangered creature sold by the thousands on the black market.

How the Google co-founder, forced out of a leadership role in 2001, came back to run the company 10 years later.

In appreciation of meaningful, ubiquitous, enduring applications.

Previously: Paul Ford on the Longform Podcast.

An American woman's travels and memories of her Russian husband.

Bryan Goldberg’s site for women was widely mocked when it launched a year ago. Today it has 15 million readers per month and some of its harshest early critics are on the payroll.

After Devaughn Darling died during a workout with the Florida State football team, his family was awarded a payout of $2 million. That was 13 years ago. Only $200,000 has come.

A profile of Chris Rock as he makes one last attempt to jump from standup to leading man.

Why 85-year-old Jacques-André Istel established a town (population: 2) on 2,600 acres in the middle of the Arizona desert (but not before becoming a sky diving legend, among other things).

A forgotten birthday cake sets off a chain of unexpected events.

For a daily short story recommendation from our editors, check Longform Fiction or follow @longformfiction on Twitter.

After a final film, Kevin Smith is going to retire to a life of podcasting and speaking tours. Or so he says.

The early days of electronic spreadsheets and how the tool transformed business.

Three years ago, Shell spent millions to send a colossal oil rig to drill in the remote seas of the Arctic. But the Arctic had other plans.

Al Sharpton wanted to be a civil rights leader in the mold of Martin Luther King, Jr. It hasn’t quite worked out that way.

The government says Matt DeHart is an online child predator. DeHart—and his parents—say he’s being framed over his knowledge of CIA secrets.

The woman that the mixed martial arts star beat nearly to death tells her side of the story.

How technological progress slowed from its 20th-century peak, why we’ve shifted from changing reality to simply simulating reality, and whether capitalism is the true culprit.

How a card-counting former meteorologist from Las Vegas made the first perfect Showcase bid in the 38-year history of The Price Is Right.

On the last day of their junior year at Harvard, one roommate kills the other, then hangs herself. The press descends. A year later, a reporter searches for the real story.

On the young and ascendant Frank Sinatra, “who ruled crowds by seductive magnetism and surrounded himself with courtiers, but had once been an adolescent alone in his room listening to Bing Crosby on his Atwater-Kent.”

A newly minted, 34-year-old White House budget director gets a little too candid with a reporter profiling him during Ronald Reagan’s first year in office. Among Stockman’s many admissions: “None of us really understands what’s going on with all these numbers.”