The film "Black Hawk Down" tells the story of a 1993 U.S. Army mission into a city in Somalia. What is the city?

On October 3, 1993, a story of modern war is found in the true account of a battle between American and Somali forces in the war-torn city of Mogadishu along the eastern coast of Africa.

Mark Bowden, an American writer and author, wanted and did write a book about what was known as the Battle of the Black Sea. The book would later become a major Hollywood movie. Bowden first met with the father of an American soldier who was killed in Mogadishu. He then learned about the Battle of the Black Sea and the Day of the Rangers (a military combat mission which was part of Operation Gothic Serpent).

Bowden was surprised to learn that no one before him had thought to write a factual detailed account of the military fighting that occurred in Somalia. This idea was especially hard to accept given the gruesome images—seen by millions of Americans on TV news—of angry Somali mobs dragging American corpses through the streets of the city of Mogadishu.

The film "Black Hawk Down" (2001) tells the story of the Battle of Mogadishu or Day of the Rangers battle, from the eyes of combat pilots. The fighting by the U.S. forces turned into a night long battle against thousands of heavily armed Somalians. Eighteen U.S. soldiers and more than 500 Somalians were killed as a result of the fighting.