Shortly after America had achieved its independence from Great Britain, the new nation confronted a threat from the Ottoman provinces of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. Beginning in 1784, raiders from ...

With U.S. and European strikes now pounding Libyan government positions, a new chapter is being written in the long and bloody history of Western military intervention in North Africa. At present, it ...

On this episode of American Prestige, Abby Mullen on American geopolitics in their infancy. Daniel Bessner and Derek Davison Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the ...

The United States has a long history of presidentially initiated military actions conducted under executive authority without a formal declaration of war from Congress, as the Constitution vests such ...

The first-of-its-kind discovery helps illuminate one of history’s “great maritime horrors.” Experts believe that the ship, identified as a Barbary corsair (or pirate ship) from the 17th century, was ...

Some Republican leaders have compared the war in Iraq with President Thomas Jefferson's historic confrontation with the Barbary pirates. But the whole story does not necessarily serve the Republican ...

Within days of his March 1801 inauguration as the third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson ordered a naval and military expedition to North Africa, without the authorization of Congress, ...

This is the full text of the chain email received by PolitiFact about the Barbary pirates and Islam. To read our fact check of this email -- which we rated False ...

A lot of Americans don’t realize that, for a time, there was no U.S. Navy. From 1790 through 1801, the only defenders of ...

For a large share of its nearly 250-year history, the United States has been at war. While the history books tend to shed a positive light on the nation’s conflicts, the country has had its share of ...