The Suez Crisis
Nasser seizes the canal, and Britain's superpower days end
On 26 July 1956 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal. In late October Israel, Britain and France, acting on a secret pact, attacked Egypt and landed troops at Port Said. But the US and USSR demanded an end to the war, and the invaders had to withdraw. Nasser became a hero of the Arab world, British Prime Minister Eden resigned, and the UN deployed its first peacekeeping force.
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Did you know
In autumn 1956 the world watched two crises at once: the Anglo-French landing at the Suez Canal and Soviet tanks in Budapest.
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Whole world
- 1939–1945 World War II — 17 years earlier
- 1947–1991 Cold War — 9 years earlier
- 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — 8 years earlier
- 1949 Founding of NATO — 7 years earlier
- 1980 Smallpox declared eradicated — 24 years later
Europe
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — 23 years earlier
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — 20 years earlier
- 1941–1945 The Holocaust — 15 years earlier
- 1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — 3 years earlier
- 1957 Treaty of Rome — 1 year later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — 15 years earlier
- 1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — 14 years earlier
- 1945 German surrender and Victory Day — 11 years earlier
- 1957 Sputnik 1, the first satellite — 1 year later
- 1961 Gagarin's flight — 5 years later
Middle East
- 1932 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proclaimed — 24 years earlier
- 1948 Founding of the State of Israel — 8 years earlier
- 1979 Iranian Revolution — 23 years later
- 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War — 24 years later
Asia
- 1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — 11 years earlier
- 1953 First ascent of Everest — 3 years earlier
- 1955–1975 Vietnam War — 1 year earlier
- 1955 Bandung Conference — 1 year earlier
- 1975–1979 The Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian genocide — 19 years later
Americas
- 1955 Salk polio vaccine declared safe — 1 year earlier
- 1959 Cuban Revolution — 3 years later
- 1960 Great Chilean earthquake — 4 years later
- 1969 Moon landing — 13 years later
- c. 1970 Mass deforestation of the Amazon begins — 14 years later
Oceania
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — 20 years earlier
- 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — 15 years earlier
- 1942 The Battle of Midway — 14 years earlier
- 1954 The Castle Bravo test at Bikini — 2 years earlier
- 1959 The Antarctic Treaty — 3 years later
Alive at the time
- Winston Churchill (aged 82)
- Pablo Picasso (aged 75)
- Charlie Chaplin (aged 67)
- Mao Zedong (aged 63)
- Nelson Mandela (aged 38)
- Martin Luther King Jr. (aged 27)
- Neil Armstrong (aged 26)
- Yuri Gagarin (aged 22)
- Harry S. Truman (aged 72)
- Anna Akhmatova (aged 67)