History for the week

Rico says we should always remember our jarheads, and the History Channel does so:

The Few. The Proud. The Marines. Today, we know them as one of the most elite branches of the Armed Forces, capable of quickly launching a combined-arms force anywhere in the world. But when the Continental Marines were created, on 10 November 1775, by a resolution of the Second Continental Congress, their mission was simply to protect naval vessels and their crews during the Revolutionary War, on sea and land. Their sleeping quarters were strategically placed between officers and the crew, to protect the officers against potential mutiny.
When the war ended in 1783, the Marines were actually disbanded, but were resurrected in 1798 as the United States Marine Corps. One of their most famous missions happened during the First Barbary War, when eight Marines and five hundred mercenaries battled the Barbary pirates in an effort to capture Tripoli. They failed, but the effort is memorialized in the Marine Corps hymn, the oldest official military song: