Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 1: America Wanted to Take 1776 to the High Seas. North African Pirates Disagreed.

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 October 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

In this new mini-series, Scott Rank is rejoined by James Early (his co-host on many other military history mini-series, covering the Civil War, World War One, and the Revolutionary War) to look at a little-known war that pitted the infant United States against the Barbary States of North Africa.

The Barbary Wars were a series of conflicts between the United States and the Barbary States of North Africa (modern-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya) from 1801 to 1815, fought over the piracy and tribute demands imposed on American ships. These wars marked the U.S. Navy's first significant overseas military engagements and helped establish American maritime power. We also see the birth of of the U.S. Marines and how they literally fought on the shore of Tripoli.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.
0:10.0	We fight our country's battles in the air on land and sea.
0:20.0	Hey everyone, Scott here, before we get started with this episode a quick break for word
0:23.6	from our sponsors.
0:28.6	James, what happened? Was there a press gang that came around and threw us into a brig and now we've been recruited into the
0:35.1	Marines without realizing it? Where are we?
0:37.1	Oh man, we are on a ship, yes, but we are actually headed for North Africa.
0:42.1	We are going to go and try to teach some
0:45.3	pirates a lesson. So and we're going to follow along in this journey and we're going to
0:51.4	follow in the footsteps of people that went to more than 200 years before us.
0:56.2	So it's going to be an exciting journey.
0:58.1	Yeah and I'm not sure if you can get pressed into the Marines. It seems a little bit more complicated than that, but we're going to meet some people that definitely could get pressed into the Navy if they had a little bit too much rum at a tavern. And you wake up, you're on the deck of a ship, someone throws water at you and tells you to get up landlubber and you have to swab the decks.
1:17.0	It's pretty rough being in the Navy 200 years ago, wouldn't you say?
1:21.0	Yes, it was extremely hard and painful in many ways.
1:25.4	It was not an easy life.
1:27.2	But we're going to learn why the Marines have that line in their hymn.
1:31.1	The shores of Tripoli.
1:32.4	What are the shores of Tripoli exactly?
1:34.5	That is one of the many mysteries
1:36.4	that we're going to reveal in this new series, right?
1:40.4	Absolutely, yeah, it's great to be back.
1:42.0	So we are James Early and Scott Rank. I am the latter and we've done a lot of series over the years. Key battles of World War I, Key battles of World War II in the Pacific, the Civil War, the Revolutionary
	...

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