Italian frogmen enter the harbour at Alexandria and cripple two British battleships

Auchinleck finally stops Rommel's advance, in the first battle of El Alamein

Rommel's new thrust towards Alexandria is halted by the British at Alam al-Halfa, a ridge near El Alamein

Montgomery launches the second battle of El Alamein against Rommel

Gamal Abdel Nasser and army colleagues form a secret party, the Free Officers, to fight for an independent Egyptian republic

Arab countries, gathered for a conference in Cairo, form the Arab League to further their joint interests

The Muslim Brotherhood carries out acts of terrorism against the Egyptian authorities and British troops

Egypt controls the Gaza Strip area of Palestine at the end of the Arab-Israeli war

A group of officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser depose Egypt's king, Farouk, and send him into exile

Gamal Abd al-Nasser mounts another coup, this time against his colleague Mohammed Neguib, to make himself president of Egypt

Nasser escapes an assassination attempt by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood

Nasser alarms the west by buying eastern-bloc arms through Czechoslovakia

The Sudan, declining the opportunity of union with Egypt, opts for independence as a separate state

The USA and Britain withdraw their offer of financial aid for Nasser's Aswan dam

Egypt's president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the Suez canal and wins Soviet finance for his Aswan dam

Nasser disregards a French and British ultimatum to withdraw from the Suez canal

Israeli troops invade the Sinai peninsula, a province of Egypt bordering the Suez canal

The British and French bomb Egyptian airfields, and land troops near Port Said and the Suez canal

Under international pressure Britain and France agree to a humiliating withdrawal from Suez

Egypt and Syria merge as the United Arab Republic (but disengage three years later)

Syria withdraws from the United Arab Republic (UAR) seeing it as unacceptably dominated by Egypt

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is founded at a congress in East Jerusalem, then part of Jordan

An Arab League summit is held in Alexandria after the break-up of the union between Egypt and Syria

A pre-emptive air strike by Israel destroys almost all Egypt's aircraft and launches the Six-Day War

Israel captures the Gaza Strip and Sinai peninsula from Egypt