Sealand, Take Me Away…

One day recently whilst Googling for Web servers for my Linux box (just seeing what was out there apart from Apache), I came across a fascinating site concerning the Principality of Sealand. What is fascinating is the history of this, the world’s smallest country, and the company that runs it as a data center / Internet haven.

Sealand was founded as a sovereign Principality in 1967 in international waters, six miles off the eastern shores of Britain. The island fortress is conveniently situated from 65 to 100 miles from the coasts of France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany.

Originally an abandoned sea-fort from World War II, it was claimed as an independent nation in the 1960s by a retired English major. Who hasn’t dreamed of leaving it all behind and starting their own country? Here’s an example, in recent history, of people who dared to do just that.

[Andrew Olsen]

The history of Sealand is a story of a struggle for liberty. Sealand was founded on the principle that any group of people dissatisfied with the oppressive laws and restrictions of existing nation states may declare independence in any place not claimed to be under the jurisdiction of another sovereign entity. The location chosen was Roughs Tower, an island fortress created in World War II by Britain and subsequently abandoned to the jurisdiction of the High Seas. The independence of Sealand was upheld in a 1968 British court decision where the judge held that Roughs Tower stood in international waters and did not fall under the legal jurisdiction of the United Kingdom. This gave birth to Sealand’s national motto of E Mare Libertas, or “From the Sea, Freedom.”

[tags]sealand,e mare libertas,roughs tower,sovereignty,prince roy,princess joan[/tags]