It was on this date, 28 September, 1970, that Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser died. A leader of the Revolution that toppled the Egyptian monarchy in 1952, Nasser himself would assume the office of President in 1956. Nasser would burst onto the world stage with the nationalization of Suez Canal Company.
A charismatic man of modest tastes who came from a humble background, he captured the imagination of the peoples of the Middle East. His funeral would be attended by 5 million mourners in what remains one of the largest spectacles the world has ever witnessed. The Lebanese paper, ‘Le Jour’, was headlined – “One hundred million human beings—the Arabs—are orphans.”