First Barbary War in the context of "Derna, Libya"

The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. U.S. federal law names six armed forces: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. Since 1949, all of the armed forces, except the Coast Guard, have been permanently part of the United States Department of Defense, with the Space Force existing as a branch of the Air Force until 2019. They form six of the eight uniformed services of the United States.

From their inception during the American Revolutionary War, the Army and the Navy, and later the other services, have played a decisive role in the country's history. They helped forge a sense of national unity and identity through victories in the early-19th-century First and Second Barbary Wars. They played a critical role in the territorial evolution of the U.S., including the American Civil War. The National Security Act of 1947 created the Department of Defense or DoD, (after a short period being called the National Military Establishment) headed by the secretary of defense, superior to the service secretaries. It also created both the U.S. Air Force and National Security Council; in 1949, an amendment to the act merged the cabinet-level departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force into the DoD.

The Barbary Wars were a series of two wars fought by the United States, Sweden, and the Kingdom of Sicily against the Barbary states (including Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli) and Morocco of North Africa in the early 19th century. Sweden had been at war with the Tripolitans since 1800 and was joined by the newly independent U.S. The First Barbary War extended from 10 May 1801 to 10 June 1805, with the Second Barbary War lasting only three days, ending on 19 June 1815. The Barbary Wars were the first major American wars fought entirely outside the New World, and in the Arab World.

The wars were largely a reaction to piracy by the Barbary states. Since the 16th century, North African pirates had captured ships and even raided European coastal areas across the Mediterranean Sea. Originally starting out with the goal of capturing individuals for the domestic North African slave trade, the focus later shifted to kidnapping for ransom. By the 19th century, pirate activity had declined, but Barbary pirates continued to demand tribute from American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean. Refusal to pay would result in the capture of American ships and goods, and often the enslavement or ransoming of crew members.

The Second Barbary War, also known as the U.S.–Algerian War and the Algerine War, was a brief military conflict between the United States and the North African state of Algiers in 1815.

Piracy had been rampant along the North African "Barbary" coast of the Mediterranean Sea since the 16th century. Algerian pirates and privateers intermittently preyed on American ships, with Algiers extracting annual tribute from the U.S. since 1795; the First Barbary War in the early 19th century, fought primarily against Algiers' neighbors, failed to fully stem the problem.

The Karamanli dynasty (also spelled Caramanli or Qaramanli) was an autonomous dynasty that ruled Ottoman Tripolitania from 1711 to 1835. Their territory comprised Tripoli and its surroundings in present-day Libya. At its peak, the Karamanli dynasty's influence reached Cyrenaica and Fezzan, covering most of Libya. The founder of the dynasty was Ahmed Karamanli, a descendant of the medieval Karamanids. The most well-known Karamanli ruler was Yusuf ibn Ali Karamanli who reigned from 1795 to 1832, who fought a war with the United States between 1801 and 1805. Ali II was the last of the dynasty.

USS Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides, is a three-masted wooden-hulled heavy frigate of the United States Navy. She is the world's oldest commissioned warship still afloat. She was launched in 1797, one of six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794 and the third constructed. The name "Constitution" was among ten names submitted to President George Washington by Secretary of War Timothy Pickering in March or May for the frigates that were to be constructed. Joshua Humphreys designed the frigates to be the young Navy's capital ships, and so Constitution and her sister ships were larger and more heavily armed and built than standard frigates of the period. She was built at Edmund Hartt's shipyard in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts. Her first duties were to provide protection for American merchant shipping during the Quasi-War with France and to defeat the Barbary pirates in the First Barbary War.

Constitution is most noted for her actions during the War of 1812 with the United Kingdom, when she captured numerous British merchantmen and five warships: HMS Guerriere, Java, Pictou, Cyane, and Levant. The capture of Guerriere earned her the nickname "Old Ironsides", adding on the public adoration that had repeatedly saved her from scrapping. She continued to serve as flagship in the Mediterranean and African squadrons, and she circled the world in the 1840s. During the American Civil War, she served as a training ship for the United States Naval Academy. She carried American artwork and industrial displays to the Paris Exposition of 1878.