There are only a handful of real-life examples of pirates stowing ill-gotten gains underground, and in none of these cases did ‘X’ mark the spot. English privateer and royal favourite Sir Francis Drake buried tonnes of booty on the Panama coast in 1573, but he left armed guards at the site and quickly returned – no map required.

The tale of Captain Kidd (pictured) is slightly more swashbuckling, as he interred a vast hoard on an island near New York in 1699, but it was quickly retrieved by the British and used as evidence in the trial that saw Kidd hang. In general, pirates were not responsible savers, and the idea of setting aside loot as a subterranean rainy-day fund did not occur to the average marauder.

25 history 'facts' that are completely untrue