Captain William Bainbridge managed to run the USS Philadelphia hard aground on a submerged reef in Tripoli harbor on October 31, 1803, and this pristine frigate, one of the top ships in the United States Navy was now in grave danger of falling into the hands of the Tripolitan pirates.

Soon after Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as our country’s third president on March 4, 1801, Yusuf Karamanli, the Pasha of Tripoli, decided to renounce the existing treaty his North African province had with the United States. Unhappy with the amount of his annual tribute and feeling under-compensated compared to his fellow tyrant, the Dey of Algiers, Karamanli demanded that the new President give him a one-time gift of $250,000 and an annual tribute of $20,000.