Contemporary · Africa · Politics

2011

Tahrir Square fills

January 25, 2011

Egyptians inspired by Tunisia's revolution poured into Cairo's Tahrir Square demanding the end of Hosni Mubarak's thirty-year rule. They pitched tents, organized field clinics, and held the square for eighteen days against riot police, plainclothes thugs on camels, and regime snipers. On February 11, Mubarak resigned. The revolution, it would turn out, had only begun.