Weatherday: The first American foreign war

Galway street stalls (2017).

Not a bad one. Breezy, sunny spells, scattered showers. Enough rain late tonight that you don't have to worry about watering the flower beds.

Temperature up to 16deg in fresh southwesterlies.

On this day in 1801, the Barbary pirates of Tripoli declared war on the newly independent United States of America, a conflict which ended when US ships bombarded numerous fortified cities in present-day Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria, ultimately extracting concessions of safe conduct from the Barbary states for American vessels.

Photographs use Policy — Privacy Policy