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| 1951, Oct. 8 |
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| Prime Minister Nahhas abrogated the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936. From Nov. 1951 until Jan. 1952, attacks by guerrilla groups on British troops stationed in the canal zone steadily mounted. | 1 |
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| 1952, Jan. 26 |
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| Black Saturday Riots in Cairo, in response to events in the canal zone on the previous day, when British troops had attacked an Egyptian police station. Violent demonstrations left 30 dead while angry crowds burned and looted commercial districts in the city. | 2 |
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| Jan. 27 |
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| Resignation of the last Wafdist government, under Mustafa al-Nahhas. Paralysis completely overcame the political system. A few independent governments that possessed no real power briefly held office through the spring and early summer. | 3 |
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| July 23 |
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| THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION. A group of army officers, officially led by Gen. Muhammad Naguib, deposed the government. The revolution represented a true watershed in Egyptian history, bringing about the downfall of the old class of political notables drawn primarily from the landed elite and paving the way for a new elite composed of military officers and high-ranking bureaucrats. In the early days of the revolution, power was vested in the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), staffed by members of the Free Officers' Society, which had carried out the coup. With the exception of Gen. Naguib, all the conspirators were young (average age of 33), held middling military ranks (mostly lieutenant colonel and major), and hailed from modest circumstances. The dominant personality on the RCC was unquestionably NASSER, who soon emerged as the real power in the country. | 4 |
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| July 26 |
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| ABDICATION OF KING FARUQ (Farouk). His young son, Ahmad Fu’ad, stayed behind as the new king under a regency. The monarchy itself was terminated on June 18, 1953. Egypt thereafter became a republic. | 5 |
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| Sept. 9 |
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| First LAND REFORM law, directed primarily against the 4,000 or so families (1 percent of the population) who owned about 70 percent of Egypt's arable land. Landholders were forbidden to own more than 200 feddans (1 feddan = 1.038 acres) and were compensated for sequestered land. Further reductions were introduced in 1961 (maximum holdings of 100 feddans) and again in 1969 (an even lower ceiling of 50 feddans). The state distributed the expropriated land in small plots to peasants, who had to join agricultural cooperatives from which they received credit, seed, fertilizer, and other forms of assistance. By 1970, it was estimated that more than 800,000 feddans of confiscated land and some 200,000 feddans of state land had been turned over to 400,000 families (constituting about 10 percent of the rural population). | 6 |
| The chief effect of the land reforms was to smash the political power of the great landowners. The social consequences were far less revolutionary. Although many landless peasants received their own plots for the first time, the main beneficiaries were the rural notables who typically owned 20–50 feddans and dominated their local villages. Over half the rural population still worked as landless laborers. As the population grew, moreover, the proportion of land to cultivators actually dropped from 1.3 hectares for a family of five (1947) to 0.8 hectares (1971). | 7 |
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| Dec. 10 |
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| Abolition of the constitution. All political parties were banned in Jan. 1953. After the monarchy was suppressed in June, Muhammad Naguib became prime minister and president of the republic. | 8 |
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