Fact: the USS Constitution was Constructed to Fight Islam.

Constructed to fight Islam, and fight them well, she did... The Constitution was one of six frigates that Congress requested be built in 1794 to help protect American merchant fleets from attacks by Barbary pirates of the Ottoman Empire (Islam) and harassment by British and French forces. It was constructed in Boston, and the bolts fastening its timbers and copper sheathing were provided by the industrialist and patriot Paul Revere. Launched on October 21, 1797, the Constitution was 204 feet long, displaced 2,200 tons, and was rated as a 44-gun frigate (although it often carried as many as 50 guns). In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson ordered the American warship to the Mediterranean to fight Barbary pirates off the coast of Tripoli. The vessel performed commendably during the conflict, and in 1805 a peace treaty with Tripoli (Islam) was signed on the Constitution's deck. Since the 1600's Muslims pirates had cruised the Mediterranean Sea, capturing ships and taking prisoners, forcing Christian nations to pay tribute for freedom of passage. To avoid such confrontations, some Christian nations were willing to appease the Islamic enemy by signing treaties requiring them to pay a certain amount of tribute each year. It was a form of extortion that Muslims could impose on frightened Christians. The pirates also raided coastline villages and took prisoners. The reason why so many Christian Greek coastal villages were built up in the hills was to provide protection against the depredations of the Muslims.  Millions of Africans and thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans were enslaved by these raiders, who killed many non-Muslim older men and women and kidnapped young women and children to be sold as concubines. The boys were often mutilated to create eunuchs for use in harems and as servants. Jefferson understood that the Barbary Pirates were acting under religious and hence patriotic duty when they attacked non-Muslims, a point that Americans hundreds of years later still fail to grasp.  Long before the Congress authorized construction of the USS Constitution and five other frigates Jefferson had the following  well documented encounter. In 1786, the American ambassadors to France (Thomas Jefferson) and Britain (John Adams) met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Tripolitan ambassador to Britain. Tripoli was a sultanate of the Ottoman Empire at the time and consequently part of the Islamic Caliphate. American merchant ships had been captured by the Barbary corsairs and their crews and passengers imprisoned. They could only by freed by the payment of large ransoms. The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty to spare their ships these piratical attacks. Congress was willing to appease the Barbary pirates if only they could gain peace at a reasonable price. During the meeting, Jefferson and Adams asked the ambassador why Muslims held such hostility toward America, a nation with which they had had no previous contacts. Jefferson later reported to John Jay what the ambassador had told them: the reason for the Muslims’ enmity was that “It was written in their Koran that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman (Muslim) who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to [P]aradise.” America defeats Islam twice in ten years.. After its victory in the First Barbary War (1801–1805), the U.S. found its attention diverted to its worsening relationship with theUnited Kingdom over trade with France, which culminated in the War of 1812. The Barbary pirate states took this opportunity to return to their practice of attacking American, as well as European merchant vessels in the Mediterranean Sea and holding their crews and officers for ransom. At the conclusion of the War of 1812, however, America could once again turn its sights on North Africa. On March 3, 1815, the U.S. Congress authorized deployment of naval power against Algiers, and a force of ten ships was dispatched under the command of Commodores Stephen Decatur, Jr. and William Bainbridge, both veterans of the First Barbary War. Decatur's squadron departed for the Mediterranean on May 20. Bainbridge's command was still assembling, and did not depart until July 1, thereby missing the military and diplomatic initiatives which Decatur swiftly and decisively handled Shortly after departing Gibraltar en route to Algiers, Decatur's squadron encountered the Algerian flagship Meshuda, and, in a battle off Cape Gata, captured it. Not long afterward, the American squadron likewise off Cape Palos captured the Algerian brig Estedio. By the final week of June, the squadron had reached Algiers and had initiated negotiations with the Dey. After persistent demands for recompensation mingled with threats of destruction, the Dey capitulated. By terms of the treaty signed aboard the Guerriere in the Bay of Algiers, 3 July 1815, Decatur agreed to return the captured Meshuda and Estedio while the Algerians returned all American captives, estimated to be about 10, and a significant group of European captives were exchanged for about 500 subjects of the Dey along with $10,000 in payment for seized shipping. The treaty guaranteed no further tributes and granted the United States full shipping rights. Shortly after Decatur set off for Tunis to negotiate a similar agreement with the Bey of Tunis and enforce prior agreements with the Pasha of Tripoli, the Dey of Algiers repudiated the treaty. On 27 August 1816, following a round of failed negotiations, the fleet delivered a punishing nine-hour bombardment of Algiers. The attack immobilized many of the Dey's corsairs and shore batteries, forcing him to accept a peace offer of the same terms as he had rejected the day before. Exmouth warned that if they were not accepted he would continue the action. The Dey accepted the terms, not realising that they were a bluff as the fleet had already fired off all of its ammunition. A treaty was signed on September 24, 1816. 1,083 Christian slaves and the British Consul were freed and the U.S. ransom money repaid. After the second Barbary war of 1812, Old Ironsides served as the flagship of the navy's Mediterranean squadron and in 1828 was laid up in Boston. Two years later, the navy considered scrapping the Constitution, which had become unseaworthy, leading to an outcry of public support for preserving the famous warship. The navy refurbished the Constitution, and it went on to serve as the flagship of the Mediterranean, Pacific, and Home squadrons. In 1844, the frigate left New York City on a global journey that included visits to numerous international ports as a goodwill agent of the United States. In the early 1850s, it served as flagship of the African Squadron and patrolled the West African coast looking for slave traders (also predominantly Muslim). In 1855, the Constitution retired from active military service, but the famous vessel continued to serve the United States, first as a training ship and later as a touring national landmark. Since 1934, it has been based at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston. Over the years, Old Ironsides has enjoyed a number of restorations, the most recent of which was completed in 1997, allowing it to sail for the first time in 116 years. Today, the Constitution is the world's oldest commissioned warship afloat.