i have been held hostage in a store robbery situation. Do you know anyone who's had this happen to them?
not personally but i know that they are usually held by belligerent parties or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement
Yeah. The guy who had me was trying to get $10,000 cash. The vault was locked so he couldn't get at it.
oh wow.. well in contemporary usage, someone is seized by a criminal abductor which sounds like what happened to you
Yeah, he had a gun so I didn't really want to try to get away. Do you know what's the earliest recorded hostage in history?
there is a long history of political and military use where generals would legally agree to hand over one or usually several hostaes in the custody of the other side as a sign of good faith
Wow that's interesting. I heard it happens a lot in Somalia.
well somalia does have the longest coastline on Africa's mainland, and its terrain consists mainly of plateaus, plans and highlands
Yes, and they can take whole ships hostage sometimes for very large ransoms. 
yea well the fishing communities responded by forming armed groups to deter the invaders by hijacking commercial vessels