Algeria - a few historical teasers and photos to begin with

A shield with Algerian national symbols hoisted upon a barred window in the garden of Bardo museum.

En route. Blogging. It's been a while. I'm writing this from Algiers, a city that's a most peculiar mix of colonial French, Arab / Ottoman and post independence modernist architecture. The history of Algeria is very much worth looking deeper into, but I'm hardly an expert. So I'll just mention a few interesting tidbits and a few resources for further exploration.

Long before modern Algeria, the Barbary coast and its corsairs were the source of much piracy in the neighbouring seas. Aside from the many wars fought with European powers over the centuries, their attacks also led to the creation of the US Navy in 1794. After the US signed a peace treaty with the Regency of Algiers:

"the annual tribute paid to the Regency of Algiers amounted to 20% of United States federal government's annual expenditures."

The Algerian war of independence against France is a period especially interesting to me. Doubly so as Yugoslavia - of which my home country of Slovenia is one of the successors - was quite involved help to internationalise the Algerian issue at the time, helped with weapon supplies, as well as helped build quite a lot of the infrastructure in Algeria post independence. All facts still fondly remembered by the locals with some historical memory, over a few beers.

The French colonisation of Algeria lasted from 1830 up to their independence in 1962. The war of independence was long and bloody, but ultimately successful. It shook not only Algeria to its core, but also France. As hard right wing supporters of French colonialism from Algeria occupied Corsica, the French 4th Republic fell, brought Charles de Gaulle back into power and resulted in the 5th French Republic. However, the aspirations that the French imperialists put into Charles de Gaulle did not exactly go according to plan, to say the least. In the end, those same hard liners tried to assassinate de Gaulle, due to what they saw as his treachery of their cause.

Post-independence Algeria became a member of the non-aligned movement, experienced lots of ups and downs, including a civil war with Islamists after 1992, but is today a peaceful country and one of the most prosperous in Africa. It's also the largest country by surface area in Africa and 10th largest in the world (2,381,740 square kilometres).

Once again, this isn't a comprehensive anything, just a teaser to get you interested to explore.

Further resources aside from the wikis linked above:

Algerian history in 4 parts from the French occupation in 1830 onwards by the Turning Tides podcast. Forgive them the inane pronunciations of French expressions though.
The Battle of Algiers - a classic film made shortly after independence and featuring some actors that were the actual freedom fighters
Zdravko Pečar - Alžirija v Plamenih - a testimonial by a Yugoslav reporter embedded with the Algerian fighters for independence. If you're in Slovenia or another ex-Yugoslav country, you can likely find it at your local library.
Non-Aligned: Scenes from the Labudovic Reels - a film about Tito's cameraman and the non-aligned movement, but with an important chapter on Algeria.

Now, a few photos of Algiers, so you get a feel for the place. Mostly form the French-period quarters closer to the coast, the Moorish villa that houses the Bardo National Museum and Bab el Oued. Casbah to follow later.