When, in 1967, self-made millionaire named Paddy Roy Bates inaugurated himself ruler of the Principality of Sealand, a tiny dominion of the high seas, he began the extremely strange, completely true story of Sealand, an indefatigable micronation located on a World War II anti-aircraft gun platform off of the British coast. Dylan Taylor-Lehman’s book “Sealand: The True Story of the World’s Most Stubborn Micronation and Its Eccentric Royal Family” describes how this rogue adventurer seized the disused Maunsell Sea Fort from pirate radio broadcasters, settled his family there and defended their tiny kingdom from UK government officials and armed mercenaries for half a century. Join us for a discussion of the Bates family’s outrageous attempt to build a sovereign kingdom on an isolated platform in shark-infested waters in this installment of Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI.