June 7, 1942 - Muammar Gaddafi
His rule spanned four decades, making him one of the longest-serving leaders in modern history — a tenure built on the suppression of political opposition, state-sponsored terrorism abroad, and an ideological framework that concentrated near-absolute power in his own hands. The 1969 coup that brought him to power was swift and largely bloodless, but what followed was a system of governance that eliminated dissent domestically while funding and directing violence well beyond Libya's borders. His fall in 2011 was as chaotic as his rule had been controlled, ending in his capture and killing by rebel forces.
From Wikipedia
Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (c. 1942 – 20 October 2011) was a Libyan military officer, revolutionary, politician, and political theorist who ruled Libya from 1969 until his overthrow by Libyan rebel forces in 2011 during the First Libyan Civil War. He came to power through a bloodless military coup, first becoming Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977, Secretary General of the General People's Congress from 1977 to 1979, and then the Brotherly Leader of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1979 to 2011. Initially ideologically committed to Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Gaddafi later ruled according to his own Third International Theory.
Born near Sirte, Italian Libya, to a poor Bedouin Arab family, Gaddafi became an Arab nationalist while at school in Sabha, later enrolling in the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi. He founded a revolutionary group known as the Free Officers movement which deposed the Western-backed Senussi monarchy of Idris in a 1969 coup. Gaddafi converted Libya into a republic governed by his Revolutionary Command Council. Ruling by decree, he deported Libya's Italian population and ejected its Western military bases. He strengthened ties to Arab nationalist governments and unsuccessfully advocated pan-Arab political union.
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