47 Facts About Hayreddin Barbarossa

Hayreddin Barbarossa received the honorary name Hayreddin.

In 1529, Hayreddin Barbarossa took the Penon of Algiers from the Spaniards.

In 1533, Hayreddin Barbarossa was appointed Kapudan Pasha of the Ottoman Navy by Suleiman the Magnificent.

Hayreddin Barbarossa led an embassy to France in the same year, conquered Tunis in 1534, achieved a decisive victory over the Holy League at Preveza in 1538, and conducted joint campaigns with the French in the 1540s.

Hayreddin Barbarossa retired to Constantinople in 1545 and died the following year.

Hayreddin Barbarossa's mother was a widow of a Greek Orthodox priest.

Hayreddin Barbarossa became an established potter and purchased a boat to trade his products with.

Hayreddin Barbarossa learned to speak Italian, Spanish, French, Greek, and Arabic early in his career.

Hayreddin Barbarossa did this in 1517 and offered Algiers to the Ottoman Sultan Selim I The Sultan accepted Algiers as an Ottoman sanjak, appointed Oruc Governor of Algiers and Chief Sea Governor of the Western Mediterranean, and promised to support him with Janissaries, galleys and cannon.

Hayreddin Barbarossa became known for fitting sails to cannons for transport through the deserts of North Africa.

Hayreddin Barbarossa continued the policy of bringing mudejars from Spain to North Africa, thereby assuring himself of a sizable following of grateful and loyal Muslims who harbored an intense hatred for Spain.

Hayreddin Barbarossa captured Bone, and in 1519, he defeated a Spanish-Italian army that tried to recapture Algiers.

Hayreddin Barbarossa then appeared on the coasts of Tuscany, but retreated after seeing the fleet of Andrea Doria and the Knights of St John off the coast of Piombino.

Hayreddin Barbarossa then sailed eastwards and landed in Calabria and Apulia.

Hayreddin Barbarossa pillaged the Iles d'Hyeres during the same year.

Hayreddin Barbarossa proceeded to raid the nearby coasts of Calabria and then sailed towards Preveza.

Doria's forces fled after a short battle, but only after Hayreddin Barbarossa had captured seven of their galleys.

Hayreddin Barbarossa arrived at Preveza with a total of 44 galleys, but sent 25 of them back to Algiers and headed to Constantinople with 19 ships.

Hayreddin Barbarossa was given the government of the sanjak of Rhodes and those of Euboea and Chios in the Aegean Sea.

In 1533, Hayreddin Barbarossa sent an embassy to the king of France, Francis I, the Ottoman embassy to France.

Hayreddin Barbarossa later destroyed the port of Cetraro and the ships harbored there.

Hayreddin Barbarossa then sacked, torched and destroyed Vallecorsa slaughtering some townspeople and taking others captive.

Hayreddin Barbarossa captured Tunis' strategic port of La Goulette the same year.

However, upon rejecting the offer, Hayreddin Barbarossa decapitated the agent with a scimitar.

Hayreddin Barbarossa then sailed to Algiers, from where he raided the coastal towns of Spain, destroyed the ports of Majorca and Menorca, captured several Spanish and Genoese galleys and liberated their Muslim oar slaves.

In 1536, Hayreddin Barbarossa was called back to Constantinople to take command of 200 ships in a naval attack on the Habsburg Kingdom of Naples.

Hayreddin Barbarossa captured the nearby Castle of Risan, and with Sinan Reis, later assaulted the Venetian fortress of Cattaro and the Spanish fortress of Santa Veneranda near Pesaro.

Hayreddin Barbarossa later took the remaining Christian outposts in the Ionian and Aegean Seas.

In 1540 Hayreddin Barbarossa led a crew of 2,000 men and captured and ransacked the town of Gibraltar.

Hayreddin Barbarossa left Gibraltar after taking 75 prisoners which removed a significant percent of Gibraltar's population, he ultimately eliminated the town of almost an entire generation of Gibraltarians.

In 1543, Hayreddin Barbarossa headed towards Marseilles to assist France, then an ally of the Ottoman Empire, and cruised the western Mediterranean with a fleet of 210 ships.

Hayreddin Barbarossa then landed on the coasts of Campania and Lazio and, from the mouth of the Tiber, threatened Rome, but France intervened in favor of the Pope's city.

Hayreddin Barbarossa then sailed to Genoa with his 210 ships and threatened to attack the city unless it freed Turgut Reis, who had been serving as a galley slave on a Genoese ship and then was imprisoned in the city since his capture in Corsica by Giannettino Doria in 1540.

Hayreddin Barbarossa was invited by Andrea Doria to discuss the issue at Villa del Principe, his palace in Fassolo, Genoa.

Hayreddin Barbarossa then captured Castiglione della Pescaia, Talamone and Orbetello in the province of Grosseto in Tuscany.

Hayreddin Barbarossa then captured Montiano and occupied Porto Ercole and the Isle of Giglio.

Hayreddin Barbarossa later assaulted Civitavecchia, but Leone Strozzi, the French envoy, convinced Barbarossa to lift the siege.

Hayreddin Barbarossa then entered the Strait of Messina and landed at Catona, Fiumara and Calanna and later at Cariati and at Lipari, which was his final landing on the Italian peninsula.

Hayreddin Barbarossa finally returned to Constantinople and, in 1545, left the city for his final naval expeditions, during which he bombarded the ports of the Spanish mainland and landed at Majorca and Menorca for the last time.

Hayreddin Barbarossa retired in Constantinople in 1545, leaving his son Hasan Pasha as his successor in Algiers.

Hayreddin Barbarossa then dictated his memoirs to Muradi Sinan Reis.

Hayreddin Barbarossa is one of the main characters in Mika Waltari's book The Wanderer.

Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha died in 1546 in his seaside palace in the Buyukdere neighbourhood of Istanbul, on the northwestern shores of the Bosphorus.

Hayreddin Barbarossa's memorial was built in 1944, next to his mausoleum.

Hayreddin Barbarossa established the Ottoman supremacy in the Mediterranean, which lasted until the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.

Hayreddin Barbarossa's mausoleum is in the Barbaros Park of Besiktas, Istanbul, where his statue stands, next to the Istanbul Naval Museum.

Hayreddin Barbarossa has been the subject of many Turkish films.