Barbarossa

Barbarossa, HORUK and KHAIR-ED-DIN, two brothers, renegade Greeks, natives of Mitylene, who, as Turkish corsairs, were the terror of the Mediterranean during the first half of the 16th century. The former being invited to Algiers to aid against the Spaniards, treacherously murdered the Emir to whose assistance he had come, seized the town, and began to extend his conquests; but the Arabs summoned the Spaniards to their aid, and in 1518 he was captured and beheaded. The younger brother succeeded him in Algiers, and, having put himself under the protection of the Porte, fortified the town, and even conquered Tunis for the Turks. After Charles V. retook Tunis, Khair-ed-din preyed on the almost defenceless coasts of the Mediterranean, defeated the Christian powers in several sea-fights, and aided the French in taking Nice in 1543. Finally, with thousands of captives, he returned in triumph to Constantinople, where he died, July 4, 1546.