Gaddafi seizes Libya

September 1, 1969

A twenty-seven-year-old army captain named Muammar Gaddafi led a bloodless coup against the aging King Idris of Libya while the king was in Turkey for medical treatment. Gaddafi would rule for forty-two years, nationalize the oil, fund terrorism, write a Green Book, and eventually be dragged from a drain pipe and killed by a mob in 2011.