The sovereign state of Sealand was officially pronounced in 1967, less than a year after the abandoned fort was occupied by Roy Bates. The existence of the state, whilst questioned many times over recent decades, has yet to be challenged, and the state has even been recognised by a number of countries, most prominently France, who officially wrote to Sealand in 1971 thanking them for stamps they had been sent by Sealand ‘officials’.