Libya
24 December 1951
- Sovereignty from
- Italian rule and Allied administration, via the United Nations
- Marked as
- Independence Day
- Years sovereign
- 75
The struggle
Italian colonisation from 1911 was met by two decades of Sanusi resistance in Cyrenaica led by Omar al-Mukhtar, crushed with concentration camps and mass deportation. After Italy's defeat in the Second World War the territory came under British and French administration, and the United Nations voted for independence — the first state created by the UN. Libya became a sovereign kingdom on 24 December 1951.
Key people
Omar al-Mukhtar
1858–1931
Led the anti-colonial resistance; executed in 1931
Idris al-Sanusi
1889–1983
First king of independent Libya
Adrian Pelt
1892–1981
UN commissioner who oversaw the transition
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