Museum exhibit focuses on pirate history

You won't find Captain Jack Sparrow, but Blackbeard has a starring role in a new pirate exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History.

The almost yearlong exhibit "Knights of the Black Flag" traces the sweet trade from ancient Egypt and Greece to today's pirates who prowl the waters off Somalia.

"People have an image of pirates, but what is the reality?" asked museum curator Jeanne Marie Warzeski.

To that end, the exhibit opens with paintings of pirates to show "the image that we have in our culture of pirates," Warzeski said Thursday.