The death toll from Cyclone Daniel, which struck the coastal city of Derna, eastern Libya, on the night of September 10-11, causing the bursting of two dams and torrential flooding, remains uncertain. More than 30,000 of the city's 100,000 residents took refuge in safer areas but remain homeless, while the death toll, already over 3,000, continues to rise, with thousands still missing.
A catastrophe of this magnitude may not have hit Cyrenaica since the earthquake of 365. In Ptolemy's Geography, Derna is called Darnis, the eastern border of Cyrenaica. In 366, local chronicles mention the appointment of a bishop at Darnis by the archbishop of Alexandria.
In the 7th century, Derna became part of the province of Barqa, and Cyrenaica became Islamic. It was a relatively prosperous port on the caravan route between the Maghreb and Egypt. The Ottomans, who seized present-day Libya in 1517, decided to manage this immense territory from Tripoli. In 1711, a local dynasty of beys, the Karamanlis, supplanted the distant Constantinople to establish a "regency of Tripoli," very active in an anti-Western race. The United States, which had become independent from Great Britain in 1783, lost the protection of the British fleet in the Mediterranean. They negotiated fiercely with the Karamanli emissaries for the payment of a tribute to guarantee the release of their compatriots imprisoned by the Libyan authorities. The case caused a stir in the US, pitting John Adams, Washington's successor as president in 1797, against Thomas Jefferson, elected president in 1801 and a proponent of the "hard way" with Libya.
In 1801, Jefferson launched the first expedition of this "Barbary War" against Tripoli. Combining a blockade of Tripoli, a naval battle, and occasional bombardments, this expedition was no more effective than the next two, launched in 1803 and 1804. Jefferson then decided on a new strategy, unknowingly inventing the "regime change" that was to become so popular with his distant successors in the White House. An expeditionary force was assembled in Egypt under the pretext of installing Hamet Karamanli, the brother of Youssouf Karamanli, the ruling bey, on the throne of Tripoli. The motley crew of American soldiers, supporters of the pretender, and various mercenaries crossed the Libyan border to join the units disembarking from American ships in Derna in 1805, bombarding the city. This was the founding act of the Marines, as these marine infantry commandos were henceforth known.
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