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What was America's first terrorist threat? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house Stuff
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant. I'm talking weird
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: like a radio announcer, which means it's time for stuff
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: you know podcast. It's right. Welcome, sir. How are you well?
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I'm good. Welcome to you as well. Great, I'm I'm good.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: You I'm fantastic. Are you sure you're feeling high? Uh?
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Is that a trick question? Yeah? I'm feeling high, good man,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: feeling high, feeling gay and feeling ready to go? Good. Well,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: let's do this all right, okay, um, Chuck, Josh, Yeah,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, wait, let me relish this. There's no plugs,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: there's no lead ins, nothing here. Pretty good, okay, Chuck. Yes,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: have you ever heard the terrorism? Terror? Terror? War? Is
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: no terror? Or? I know? I have a thick tongue
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: terror or terror? Yes? I have you have? Yes? Did
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: you know it's from the French? Um? I did not know. That.
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  Speaker 1: Pretty surprising, isn't it? It is to me it's from
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the French. Terrorism. That's how I assume it's pronounced. You
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: have to say it like you're condescending. Sorry, uh yeah, nice, um.
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  Speaker 1: But it was coined during the reign of terror in
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  Speaker 1: the sev during the French Revolution, So uh, did it
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: have the same meaning like unconventional means of warfare that
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: involved citizens. It was basically it did have roughly the
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: same the same meaning in that it involves citizens. This
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: is the one thing that terrorism is always pointed to.
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  Speaker 1: It's um. It's it's when citizens, innocence are casualties, are
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: directly involved in big problems. Yeah, and not just you know,
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  Speaker 1: of course there's casualties all the time, including nowadays with
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: US drone strikes and our own wars, but literally abandoning
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: the rules of war, which we've done a podcast on
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  Speaker 1: in favor of you know, homemade guerilla tactics to all
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  Speaker 1: outside those rules and to terrorize people and to terrorize people,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: but you're you're directly targeting normal, everyday citizens, which there
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: in lies the terror right. So terrorism, it's been around
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the last couple of hundred years, although in the US
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: here it's it's just only in the I guess the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: fifties it started to become kind of a household word.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Definitely by the eighties. Once um, hijackers started taking over
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: airplanes all over the place. We knew what terrorists were. Yeah, boy,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: remember that hijacking was such a big deal because I
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: used to be terrified of that, and of course that
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: was a central component of nine eleven. But um like
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: hijacking as far as just taking over the plane, that
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  Speaker 1: was like a big deal back in the day. Remember
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  Speaker 1: that very iconic image of the terrorists holding a gun
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: to that pilot's head on a tarmac and I think
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: cypress and leaning out the window. Yeah, I remember that.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: It was before they had the good sense to keep
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: those doors secure or use metal detector before you got
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: on the plate, so you couldn't get a forty five
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: onto a plane. You're just on the plane smoking your
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: cigarette with your gun, right exactly. Pilots doors open, if
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: you want to tour the cockpit, just come on up, right.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Do you mind taking your burlap hood off right so
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: we can see who you are? Man? Things were so lax,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: so weird, so um. So we we came to understand
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: terrorism from maybe the sixties of the eighties on. But
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the United States has been dealing with terrorism literally since
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the moment it was born. Especially if you call piracy terrorism,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: and for our purposes today we will yes to fall
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: in line with the title of this article. We're going
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: to yes. Uh, from the moment we gained our independence
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: from England before them, yeah, before then, because Europe was
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: dealing with it as well. He's um on the North
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: African Coast, the Barbary Coast, so named for the Barbarossa brothers. Yeah,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: care and Dean. No, that's sorry, that's one guy. Car
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Dean was one Barbarossa. Yeah, I'm not quite sure who
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: he was, but there were brothers, a rouge and his ear. Yeah,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: and Barbara Rossa, Barbara Beard Rosa, Red red Beard, red Beard,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: just like the Ferrari Testa Rosa, the Red Testes exactly.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: And uh like former quarterback then he Testa Verde. But
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: my friend he's called Bevinny green Balls, so I thought
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: was pretty funny. And he played that he was like
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: fifty so he probably did have said he played for
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: the books, right. Oh, he played for a bunch of teams.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: He was known to play for the Buccaneers, he was
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: and then later with the Jets, and he was all
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: over the place. Yeah, I was just associated with the Buccaneers. Yeah,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: well he I think he played a portion of his
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: career there, but when he played for twenty five years
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: or whatever, you're gonna get around. You know, there was
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: never a better Heyday for team logos than there were
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: than the seventies and eighties. Like the old Raiders logo,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: which I guess is still around that the Raiders stay
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: pretty concer but the Buccaneers used to have a great
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: one orange. The New England Patriots had like that min
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: man who was ready to hike the ball. They were,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: They were just great. The Pittsburgh Pirates had probably one
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: of the better ones of all time. Uh well, yeah
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: they were baseball of course, sure, I know, yeah, I
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: said sports logos. Okay, I think I said sports. Yeah,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: you're talking about the old stove top hats that the
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Pirates were at the flat Caps they had. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: those are awesome with the yellow bands. Yeah they were terrible.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: So speaking of Pirates, we were talking about the brothers
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: red Beard, Barbarossa and um. These guys were actually Turks,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: but the Spaniards were the ones who named them. Barbarossa
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: and the Spaniards were well versed in the school of
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: the Blade, taught by a rouge and his year Barbarossa. Yeah,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and these pirates specifically were helping out Muslim Moore's driven
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: away from Spain by Christians, and this just reinforced to
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: me like Christians and Muslims, man, they've been fighting for
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: a long time, like anything you see on the news
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: these days, just like, yeah, this has got quite a
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: bit of history here. Yeah, is a really big year
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: for Spain. Sent Columbus over here to the New World
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: and drove the um Spanish Muslims a k a. The
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Moops from Spain or they the moops, No, the Moors.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Remember that Seinfeld where he's playing can we pursue with
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Bubble Boy and he's like the Moors. He goes, no,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: it's the moops. Yeah, I forgot about that. I feel
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: silly because I thought that might have been. Yeah, yeah,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: the Spaniards like Moore's moops. Who cares? Okay. So after
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: this happens, the Mediterranean Sea right there between North Africa
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: and Southern Europe, all of a sudden, because it was
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: such a heavily traveled trade route, became a haven for
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  Speaker 1: piracy because there was lots of stuff to booty, Yeah,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: lots of stuff to lots of booty to pillage. Yeah,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: because at this time it was that was the route
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: between Europe and the East Indies, and that's where Europe
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: was making all of its money from the spice trade
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and all that um. And so to get there you
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: had to go through the Mediterranean. When the Christians drove
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the Moors to North Africa, and of course the North
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Africans are like, hey, we're living here, the Berber folks,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: and that where Barbary comes from. No Barbary comes from Barbarossa.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Oh I thought it said it was so named for
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: the Berber people. Know, the Barbarossa brothers. Those guys were
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: so bad they named the entire North African coast after them,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the four states of uh, Algiers, Tunis, Morocco, and Tripoli,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: which is what we know know is liberal Libya, liberty.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: That's the Barbary Coast named after the Barbarosis. So you've
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: got all this piracy going on. It's stepping up in
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: earnest after and everybody's just getting taken every which way
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: but Sunday, that's right, Uh, every which way. So Muslims
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: and Christians were both you know, getting it on the
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: piracy game. We don't want to like sling stones to
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: good point only at the Muslims. But um, because of
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: where it was, it was just a haven for it.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: And I think you point out this is your article right, Um,
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  Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century at one point and estimated twenty
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: people were captured by the Barbaries and held in Algiers alone.
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  Speaker 1: Twenty thousand kidnappings. That's like a couple of good sized
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: cities back then. Yeah, that's significant. So they were doing
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: a pretty good job. I guess it's the piracy. Yeah,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: that's like the average attendance on a Tuesday night of
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: a Pittsburgh Pirates game in the late seventies. Tuesday night,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: late seventies. Yeah, they were pretty good. Yeah, but Roberto
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Clemente era, he can fill those seats. He was earlier
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: than that. But yeah, the Willie Stargel era, that's what
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I said. Let's call it that. Um so European. They
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: they did so much pirating. They thought, you know what,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: we can make more money if we start to extort people.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Not only can we pillage their booty, we can extort
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  Speaker 1: money from them a k a. Getting tributes paid, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: which is really just extortion. It's a protection racket. Yeah,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: it was. We will protect you from ourselves. These guys
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: are like Sicilians. All of a sudden, it's like, hey,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: we wouldn't want anything to happen to your ship. Give
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: us some money, we'll make sure it doesn't. But they
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: weren't even as sly as the average Sicilian. They said,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: if you don't give us money, we're going to attack
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: your ships, take your goods, and kidnap your crews. And
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: they had certain things so in addition to to tribute
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: and then capturing goods, kidnapping a person could be kind
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: of lucrative no matter what the person's station was socially. Well, yeah,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: because well, first of all, pay us if and we
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: won't kidnap you, and then we will kidnap you and
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: then get try and get you to pay us the ransom,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: or if you won't do that, then we'll just sell
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: you as a slave. And we're gonna make money one
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: way or the other, one way or another. If you
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: are a member of a Barbary state and you're a pirate,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: you know how to make some coin. Yeah, And it
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: was such a racket that nations included line items and
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: their budgets to pay these tributes. It was like an actual.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I guess you'd call it legit. I mean, it wasn't
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: legitimate because it was uh, you know, plundering, but they
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: legitimately included it as like, hey, we gotta pay these
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: guys off exactly this much money per year, so we
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: just gotta think about that. Yeah. Um, and the I
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: think the United States in its four fiscal budget had
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: eight grand set aside to pay as tribute to Barbary governments. Yeah,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: that is crazy. And um, that was actually small at first.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Two Well yeah it um, I think you pointing out
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: it goes up to a million dollars by and they
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: paid a million dollars annually for fifteen years. It's a
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: lot of coin. Back then. That was ten percent of
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the federal annual income at the time. Well million bucks.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: The reason it went up so much was the Barbary
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: states actually had tribute on a sliding scale. They they
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: the European nations right at the time. If you think
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: of them as corporations, because essentially it's what they were,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Like the British East India Company was pretty much one
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: and the same as the British government. Um, they would
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: use the Barbary pirates to um, they would use their
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: diplomats to get the Barbary pirates to attack some nations
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: leave theirs alone. They would pay some tribute, but they
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: were It was definitely part of the political maneuvering was
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: to just kind of keep this Mediterranean shipping channel open
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: for the superpowers and squeeze out the little guys. Well
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: of Barbaries were like, yeah, we like making money from you,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: but we also want to make it from the little
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: guys too, So we're gonna establish the sliding scale and
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: based on the size of your economy, that's how much
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: tribute we're going to extract from you. And when the
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: US was born, they're like, oh, you're tiny, just give
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: us like eighty grant how about that? And then within
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: like ten years they were like, oh, yeah, you guys
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: have a whole continent of raw material. You show no
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: scruples that stealing it um from the natives who are
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: living there, right, So how about a million a year
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: from So they did that for fifteen years. Um. One
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: of the main reasons they did this for so long
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: was because they were trying to form a navy. They
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: didn't even have a navy at this point the US. Yeah,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: and then in fact this is why the navy was born.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: It would have been born at some point anyway, because
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: you need a navy. But this is what really spurred
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: the creation of the navy in the US. And Thomas
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Jefferson comes along and was, like I told John Adams,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: was like, dude, we can't be paying these this old
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: world stuff and worrying about paying off these tributes to
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: these guys. Like we got to expand west brother, Like
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: this is where it's at. We're sitting here playing these
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: old games, paying these guys money and trading and over
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: the Atlantic. Screw that, Let's just stay over here, expand westward,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: and that's where the future of this country is. Right.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: He also made a pretty good point that it would
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: be more cost effective to take that million bucks and
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: put it into a navy and pound the Barbary States
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: into submission, then to just keep paying him a million
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: dollars a year, you know, ad infinite. Um. I wonder
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: what the because this is while they were doing this,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: concurrently they were building a navy to try and stop this.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Like if that was ten, I wonder how much it
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: costs to build the navy, Like a substantial portion of
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the federal government's funds was tied up and stopping this
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: at the time, including building the navy, paying these ransoms
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: or tributes or extortion fees depend which way one. And
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: it was a big problem, like we said, right out
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: of the gate um. But it wasn't handled for a
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: while because Jefferson ideas, I guess, his westward expansion concept
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: and then building a navy rather than paying tribute um.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: He was in the minority. He was the diplomat that
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: succeeded Benjamin Franklin, who was the America's first diplomat or France.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: And Benjamin Franklin had he took the tech that most
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: people at the time took, which was this was just
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: part of doing business with the East Indies, and you know,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: we'll we'll do what we can. Before we used to
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: be under the protection of Great Britain. While we split
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: from Great Britain, we're not under the protection anymore. We're
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: still kind of a fledge nation, so we need a
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: protection of superpower. So Franklin knew how to charm the French,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: and he set up the Treaty of Amity and Commerce
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: of seventeen seventeen seventy eight just directly addresses this pretty much. Yeah.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: It actually had mentioned the Barbary nations by name in
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: this treaty and basically said France, you got help us
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: out here in the Mediterranean and France said okay. They
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: did say okay, which is good. So Jefferson, Um, he
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: doesn't have any real pull at this point yet. It
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: was not until he became president that actually really enact
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: his plan, which was to get out of this whole mess. Yeah,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: and once he did, he basically said, you guys are toasted. Yeah.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, as soon as he was sworn into office,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the Turkish ruler Pasha demanded an extra two hundred and
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: fifty dollars from this new administration. They were like, well,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: you're the new guy. Well we just need a bonus
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: payment because you're now in office, right, And I, Um,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I looked this up. I was like, god, I thought
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: that was so much money. Back then it was about
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: three million dollars. It was less than three million, which
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: is not that much. Yeah, and you never hear about this,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Like I didn't learn this in high school. No, I know,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: you know, I remember getting out of high school and realizing, like,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: there's so much more to history. Yeah, I didn't realize
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: what else Jefferson was doing in Paris. You know, he
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: was doing a lot of crazy stuff. Yeah, and some
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: not so crazy romantic things. But you didn't learn about
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: that in high school either, about him. I bet I
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: wonder if they teach that stuff now. I'd be curious
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to sit in on a high school history class. I
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: imagine it's very much the same. Yeah, there's a certain uh,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: there's a certain school of thought that you're indoctrinated into,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: and there's stuff you need to know and things you
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: shouldn't know, and you don't need to know about that.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: We don't need to talk about that kind of thing.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: And then college was where I first started getting my
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: real education, had some really good history teachers. Yeah. Um,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: all right, So where are we? We are in office
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: as Jefferson, Yes, and he already hates the Barbary States
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: because he's been trying to get everybody to turn against
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: him for fifteen years. He's finally got the power to
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: do something about it. That's right. Uh, they had taken
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: control of a couple of crew members captured American chips
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and they and you know what, we'll release these guys
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: if you increase your tribute. And Jefferson said enough of
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: this crap. We've got ships now, six of them. I
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: think at first, Yeah, that's cute. You gotta start small,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: and we're coming over to pay you a little visit
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: in our ships. And the First Barbary War from e
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: ten o one to eighteen o five, Uh, it was,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: it was, but pretty happen in war. I mean it
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: was mostly at sea and it lasted four years, right, yeah,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: But um, at one point they captured Uh well they
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: captured because the US the USS Philadelphia I think, ran
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: aground and got stuck. So this is one sixth of
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the entire US fleet at the time, I think, so, yeah,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: so I got stuck and like working order still, So
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: they captured the ship, take control of the crew, and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: they used the ship as a gun battery against us
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: because it's just parked right there, I guess cannons aimed
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: out towards the sea. So they just used it that
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: way for a while. And um, it was Stephen Decatur,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Stephen Decatur of the Navy led some marines and
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: recaptured the ship and burned it so they couldn't use it.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: And that guy is he's I think there are forty
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: six communities in the United States named Decatur, including one
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: where you live right here in Atlanta, and Jerry So
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: named yeah, and Jerry So named for Stephen Decatur. And
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: there's a pick there's a statue. Is that Decatur Jefferson?
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: I think there's a Decatur statue right there at the
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: is the one that we shot at though, Was that Jefferson? Oh?
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Was that Jefferson the guy writing? You know, man, I
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: don't even know that's sad, like molested the statue. We
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: don't even know what statue was, but I know there
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: is a Decatur monument in the center of Decatur. Stephen Decator,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: he was, but yeah, this is where he really kind
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: of proved his stripes as an admiral. And apparently he
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: came very close to being killed. But one of his
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: crew members when they were going to attack the Philadelphia,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: one of his crew members threw himself in between Decatur
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: and a barbary I guess pirate, and um, he survived,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: but like he threw himself in in between the sword
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and Decatur and Decatur went on to um even greater stuff. Um.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so they destroy the Philadelphia. They get out
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: very daring and you said marines were there, Yeah, I
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: mean led by a naval officer, but it was definitely
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the Marines the dirty work. And that's why if you
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: listen to the Marine Corps him in the first line,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: it's from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: This is what they're talking about. Pretty cool. Um. So
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the First Barbary War last from eighteen o one to
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: eighteen o five, it was mostly with Tripoli. They're the
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: ones who were giving us the most trouble. Tunis and
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: l Jeers Um basically said, you know what, We're just
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: gonna stand over here for a little bit. We're fine.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: We all of our alliances with you were not to
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: break up. We're pirates. We're all pirates, everybody, What did
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: you expect? And then several years later, Thomas Jefferson retires
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: the Monticello and James Monroe comes into the presidency and
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: we have trouble again, but this time it's with Tunis
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: and l Jeers and James Monroe takes a totally different
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: tack than Thomas Jefferson. I think because we had a
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: much bigger navy by then. For the Second Barbary War,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: was it just a little more aggressive we just went
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: into the coast of Tunis and Algiers impounded their cities
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: with our cannons and they said, okay, okay, sorry that.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Right after that the US said no more, We're never
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: paying you another dime. Yeah. And in the First War
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: they you pointed out that they used the tactic used
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: by the Green Berets, which was to find local insurgent
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: groups to help them do the fighting. And I think
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: in this case there were some Greeks and Arab and
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Berber mercenaries that we like enlisted to help fight against
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: them on land, what little fighting it was on land,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: and it worked, and it was the first time a U.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: S Flag was ever raised on foreign soil, thankfully. Man.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: I am just overwhelmed with jingoism right now? Are you
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: a jingoist? I for the moment, Eve, until we Keith
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: growing around? Man, that guy, what happened to him? He's around?
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, okay, I mean, I don't keep up, but
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: nothing's happened to him as far as I know. He's
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: still gingering it up. Uh So is that it? I've
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: got nothing else, I've got something else. So we were
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: talking about how you said Christians and Muslims alike, we're
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: not shy about resorting to piracy, enslavement, all that stuff.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: And um, the Mediterranean had seen piracy for millennia, but
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: it all really started in the Crusades, and that's when
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: one side was just you know, capturing the other people.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Never that at some point the Crusades. Yeah, I mean
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: we could only have to be an overview obviously, because
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: we could do like tin shows on the Crusades. Sure. Um,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: but through at this time there's this order called the Mathurians,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and they are a French Catholic sect and their whole
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: gig was raising money to use to ransom sailors who
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: couldn't pay their own ransom to keep them from being
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: sold into enslavement, which is a pretty noble pursuit. And
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: these guys were like they were you know, they took
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: vows of poverty, so they like weren't holding any of
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the money themselves. They were getting fatl this they really
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: used it, and over three centuries, um, they ransom ninety
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: thousand sailors that were captured. Yeah, and um, one of
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: those guys turned out to be Miguel de Cervantes who
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: wrote Don Quixote. Really he was captured in the Mediterranean,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: And I suppose wrote that after he was freed. I
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: don't know, I would say so, well, that's just a guess.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: An that cool though. Thought about one more thing too,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: apparently the slaves. I mean, it was not great to
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: be captured as a slave, but it wasn't like European
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: and uh American slaves like you could actually gain wealth
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: and possession and status as a slave in Africa. Yeah. Yeah,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: African slavery is much different than Portuguese style slavery that
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: we're used to here in this and and most of
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: the time it was not like a great thing, but
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: you could. I think one guy even rose to a
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: position of advisor to a king of Algae. Wow. Wow. Yeah.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: And by used to I meant uh aware of and
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: disgusted by, right, not used to? Yeah, accustomed to? Is
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: that is that it? Yes? Okay, well that was America's
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: first terrorist threat, pirates. That's the answer. If you want
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: to learn more and uh read the article that I wrote,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: you can type in first terrorist threat. There's a lot
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: of terrorism stuff. We should do one on how terrorism
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: works in general. We no, um, you can find all
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: that stuff by typing terror into the search bar. How
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com. I'll bet he'll bring up some
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: surprising stuff. Uh. And since I said search bar this year, mail,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: not quite yet, my friend. Okay, quick little TV show plug. Yes,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: by now everybody knows we have a television show coming
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: out on Science Channel UM at ten pm Eastern Standard
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Time on Saturday, January nineteen. Yes, and we're very excited
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: about it. Yes, we were following the series three premiere
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: of IDID Abroad that Carl Pill contender Ricky Gervais will
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: get pretty pumped up about. And then comes our show.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: And if you don't have TV or cable, you can
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: still get this on iTunes. You can purchase each show
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: each week I believe the following day for about ninety
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: nine and the first show is free. Yeah. So Saturday,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: January nine at ten pm is the world premiere of
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know television show, and then at ten
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: thirty PM is episode two, back to back episodes on
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: January nineteen. There'll be a big deal. So what listener,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: male time? Now? All right, Josh, I'm gonna call this
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: a sexual healing is your coin? Did you make that up? Yeah?
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: That's awesome, guys. When I first saw the podcast on
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: a sexuality. I figured it had to be about a
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: sexual reproduction, like single celled organisms or c sponges. It
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: was a little trepidacious when I saw I was actually
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: about a sexuality as a sexual orientation. Often I am
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: not particularly happy with any brief overview of any subject
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: they care about or have much knowledge about. I was
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: pleased I had no such negative reaction to your podcast, though,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: in fact it was extremely uplifting. You described much of
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the difficulty I had growing up. The talk of being
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: confused by your friends suddenly being into girls was particularly evocative.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: In high school and college, I also had a lot
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: of really awkward or negative interaction with people, especially girls
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: who just didn't get what I was. I even had
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: a female friend stop being my friend when I turned
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: down her sexual advances. I can only guess as to why,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: but I always felt like she just didn't believe me,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: and that really sucked um. I Also, it also made
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: me realize that, at thirty one years old, I'm not
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: as okay with my sexuality as I'd like to think
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I am. No matter how much I've told myself and others,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I'm a sexual and I'm cool it. I've always had
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: that itch in the back of my head that has
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: told me that I'm crazy or delusional or there's something
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: wrong with me. Knowing that this is a real thing,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: with such a relief, I'm now looking into a d
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: E N and finding all sorts of exciting stuff. So
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: thank you very much recovering the subject. Nice. Yeah, congrats,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: And that is an anonymous listener who got something out
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: of the show, which is nice. Got a sexual healing
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: out of the show, I hope. So that's really cool.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: That is what we do, man, that's why we do this,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: psychic healers. Uh. We've asked for it before it we'll
• 26:48
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• 26:50
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• 26:54
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• 26:56
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• 27:01
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• 27:04
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• 27:06
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• 27:09
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• 27:13
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• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Is it how Stuff Works dot com