How 8 U.S. Marines Ended the White Slave Trade

Also raising the first American flag on foreign soil.

For over 300 years, Barbary pirates enslaved 1 million Europeans and Americans. They raided ships, burned villages, and sold captives into brutal servitude. Until 8 U.S. Marines took on a pirate empire and ended the white slave trade forever.

From the 16th to 19th centuries, the Barbary corsairs operated from the North African coast, targeting European a…