history people Flashcards
was the president of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. He was a military leader who came to power in a coup when Prime Minister Milton Obote was out of the country. While in power, he encouraged death squads such as the Public Safety Unit and the State Research Bureau, and he has been blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths. In 1972 he expelled tens of thousands of Asians from Uganda. He allowed Palestinian hijackers to land a captured Air France plane at Entebbe Airport in 1976; Jewish hostages on board were freed by Operation Thunderbolt, an Israeli commando operation during which Yonatan Netanyahu, the older brother of the future Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was killed. A 1979 invasion by Tanzania forced him from power; he fled to exile in Saudi Arabia
(Idi) Amin
was the leader of Libya from 1969 to 2011. His Free Officers Movement, modeled after the Egyptian organization of the same name, overthrew King Idris I in 1969. The Little Green Book collects ideas and sayings associated with his pan-Arabist ideology. The U.S. and Britain criticized his terrorist associations and blamed him for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland (the Lockerbie bombing) which killed 270 people. After a discotheque in Berlin was bombed in 1986, the U.S. attacked several sites in Libya. He was overthrown and killed by supporters of the National Transitional Council during the Libyan Civil War in 2011
(Muammar) al-Gaddafi
a leader of the Kikuyu people, fought against British control of Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s. He studied anthropology at the London School of Economics with Bronisław Malinowski; his book, Facing Mount Kenya, is an account of traditional Kikuyu society under pressure from colonialism. When Britain allowed elections to take place, his KANU (Kenya African National Union) party was successful; in 1964 he became the country’s first president. He used the slogan “harambee,” which is Swahili for “all pull together,” to encourage national unity and economic growth. His son, Uhuru, became Kenya’s fourth president in 2013.
(Jomo) Kenyatta
came to power during the “Congo Crisis,” which resulted in the assassination of elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and the death in a plane crash of United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. He changed the name of his country from “Congo” to “Zaire” (it reverted to “Democratic Republic of the Congo” after his fall). Despite its atrocious human rights record, his regime was supported by the United States because he took an anti-Communist position during the Cold War. Rebels led by Laurent Kabila overthrew him in 1997
Mobutu (Sese Seko)
became the first president of post-colonial Zimbabwe in 1980. Zimbabwe was the successor state to Rhodesia, the white-supremacist state in south-central Africa led by Ian Smith. He, the leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union, was a key figure in the civil and military struggle for African rights in Rhodesia. His regime came under increasing criticism for his failure to prevent hyperinflation and his suppression of political dissent. He resigned the presidency after a November 2017 coup and was replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa
(Robert) Mugabe
was a leader of the African National Congress and the first democratically-elected president of South Africa. In the 1960s he was a young radical; along with Oliver Tambo and others, he founded a militant group called Umkhonto we Sizwe (the “spear of the nation”) to carry out acts of sabotage against the apartheid government. In 1964 he was charged with criminal activity in the Rivonia Trial; he was imprisoned for 27 years, most of them on Robben Island, a prison colony located off the coast of Cape Town. He was the leading figure in South Africa’s transition away from apartheid; he and his predecessor, F. W. de Klerk, shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.
(Nelson) Mandela
was the leader of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. He supported the Free Officers Movement, which was led by Muhammad Naguib and which overthrew King Farouk in 1952, but he then took power while accusing of Naguib of allying with the Muslim Brotherhood. He nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, leading to a confrontation with Britain, France, and Israel. From 1958 to 1961 He served as president of the United Arab Republic, a short-lived federation of Egypt and Syria. He was succeeded in 1970 by his ally Anwar Sadat
(Gamal Abdel) Nasser
became the prime minister of the Gold Coast in 1952 and declared independence from Britain in 1957, renaming the country Ghana. He was the first African leader to declare independence from a colonial power. He supported pan-Africanism, an ideology that proposed continent-wide cooperation and union of African peoples. His regime racked up large debts through military reform and the building of the Akosombo Dam to create Lake Volta. A 1966 coup ended his rule over Ghana
(Kwame) Nkrumah
was the leader of Tanganyika and then Tanzania from 1961 to 1985. (Tanzania was formed by the 1964 merger of Tanganyika with Zanzibar.) Tanganyika gained independence before he came to power due to negotiations between Nyerere and British Governor Richard Turnbull. He put forward his socialist plans in the Arusha Declaration of 1967. His policies were known by the term ujamaa, signifying family unity in Swahili. Under his leadership, literacy improved significantly, but poverty remained high, especially among rural laborers uprooted by his centralized economic planning. His Chama Cha Mapinduzi, or Party of the Revolution, remains as the dominant power in Tanzania politics
(Julius) Nyerere
was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. A 1936 invasion by fascist Italy forced him to live in exile in England until 1941, when he was restored to the throne with the assistance of the British military. Many members of the Rastafarian movement consider him to be a sacred and messianic figure. Ethiopia suffered a severe famine in the early 1970s, and he was overthrown in 1974. The military government that replaced him was known as the Derg
(Haile) Selassie
was the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 until shortly before his death in 2004. In the late 1950s, he and other Palestinian refugees founded the political party Fatah, which in the late 1960s became the dominant faction within the PLO. Under his leadership, the PLO was based in Jordan until it was expelled in 1970 in Black September. With Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, he negotiated the 1993 Oslo Accords establishing the Palestinian National Authority
(Yasser) Arafat
was the president of Syria from 1971 to 2000. He, a member of the Alawite minority sect within Islam, was the commander of the Syrian Air Force when he came to power as a member of the Ba’ath Party. Along with Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, he launched the Yom Kippur War against Israel in 1973. In 1982, he brutally crushed an Islamist uprising led by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Syrian city of Hama. He was succeeded as president of Syria by his son, Bashar.
(Hafez) al-Assad
was the founder of the modern Republic of Turkey and the country’s first president. He rose to prominence as a commander of Ottoman forces at the Battle of Gallipoli during World War I. After the war, he dissolved the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic caliphate and created a secular nationalist state based in Ankara. Among the reforms he initiated were a Hat Law replacing the fez with Western-style hats, the adoption of family surnames, and use of the Latin alphabet for the written Turkish language
(Mustafa Kamal) Atatürk
was a Zionist leader and principal figure in the founding of the state of Israel. He served as the first prime minister of Israel from 1948 to 1954, as a member of the political party Mapai; his second term as prime minister lasted from 1955 to 1963. He was born in what is now Poland and immigrated to the Ottoman district of Jerusalem in 1906. He became chairman of the Jewish Agency in 1935, and was the main political leader of the Jewish forces in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War
(David) Ben-Gurion
was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and served as Iran’s supreme leader from the country’s 1979 establishment until his 1989 death. He was known by the title ayatollah, given to those who are experts in Shi’ite religious theology and jurisprudence. He emerged as Iran’s leader in the wake of the revolution that overthrew Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran, and which led to the Iranian hostage crisis. He commonly referred to the U.S. as the “Great Satan.”
(Ruhollah) Khomeini
