Barbarossa, Adm Khair-ad-Din (c.1483-1546), North African pirate. In 1518 he paid homage to the Ottoman Turk sultan, thereby gaining forces to conquer his home base, capturing Algiers in 1529. From here the infamous Barbary pirates terrorized Christian coasts and shipping for three centuries. In 1533, he was made admiral-in-chief of the Ottoman empire. In 1534, he conquered Tunis, although the Habsburg Emperor Charles V recovered the city in 1535. In 1538, he defeated the Venetian fleet under Doria at Prezeva, which preserved Ottoman naval dominance in the eastern Mediterranean until Lepanto.
Bibliography
- Cook, M. A., A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730 (Cambridge, 1976)
— Matthew Bennett
