Hosni Mubarak was born on 4 May 1928 in Kafr Al-Musilah, a village close to Shebin Al-Kom, capital of the Nile Delta governorate of Menoufiya. He married Suzanne Thabet in 1959. Alaa, the first of his two sons, was born in 1960, the second, Gamal, in 1964.
He served as director of the Air Force Academy (1967-1972), commander of the Air Force (1972-1975), vice president of Egypt (1975-1981) and president of Egypt (1981-2011).
1 February 1949: graduates from the Military Academy.
13 March 1950: graduates from the Air Force Academy#.
1952-59: instructor and lecturer at the Air Force Academy.
1962: goes to Yemen to join Egyptian forces supporting the revolution.
April 1967: returns from Yemen and is appointed head of the Air Force base in Beni Sweif.
5 June 1967: evacuates the Beni Sweif airbase before it is hit by Israeli fighter jets at the beginning of the Six-Day War and lands at Luxor airport before his fighter jet runs out of fuel.
November 1967: Late president Gamal Abdel-Nasser names Mubarak as director of the Air Force Academy.
23 April 1972: Sadat appoints Mubarak commander of the Egyptian Air Force.
6 October 1973: Mubarak leads the first air strike of the 6 October War.
15 April 1975: Sadat names Mubarak vice president.
August 1978: appointed deputy head of National Democratic Party.
6 October 1981: appointed interim president following the assassination of Sadat.
15 October 1981: becomes president of Egypt.
1981-1982: serves as prime minister of Egypt as well as president.
October 1987: chosen as president of Egypt for another six years in a public referendum.
October 1993: re-elected president of Egypt for a third term of six years.
October 1999: re-elected as president for a fourth six-year term.
February 2000: appoints his younger son Gamal to the secretariat-general of the ruling National Democratic Party.
September 2002: names Gamal as chairperson of the ruling National Democratic Party’s Policies Committee, fuelling speculation that he is grooming his son to inherit power.
26 February 2005: announces in a public speech in Shebin Al-Kom that Article 76 of Egypt’s 1971 constitution will be amended and multi-candidate presidential elections replace earlier public referendums. The amendment was approved by parliament on 10 May 2005 and in a public referendum on 25 May.
7 September 2005: presidential elections held with 10 candidates competing.
9 September 2005: Mubarak declared the winner of Egypt’s first direct multi-candidate presidential election with 6.3 million (88.5 per cent) of the votes.
November 2006: in a public speech before parliament announces the introduction of a number of amendments to the 1971 constitution.
26 December 2006: reveals he has requested changes to 34 articles of the constitution. One amendment specifies future presidential candidates be drawn from among the leading officials of political parties further fuelling speculation that his son Gamal is being groomed to take over. The amendments also target the Muslim Brotherhood by banning the formation of Islamist parties.
25 March 2007: The constitutional amendments are passed in a public referendum.
25 January 2011: A popular uprising erupts on Police Day. Mubarak is accused of trying to anoint his son Gamal as his successor.
29 January 2011: names chief of intelligence Omar Suleiman as vice president following bloody protests.
11 February 2011: steps down as president. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) takes over the running of government for a transitional period.
13 April 2011: The prosecutor-general orders Mubarak and his two sons to be detained for 15 days for investigation into allegations of corruption and abuse of power.
3 August 2011: The trial of Mubarak, his two sons and a number of former Ministry of Interior officials begins on charges of ordering security forces to kill peaceful protesters.
2 June 2012: A Cairo Criminal Court sentences Mubarak to life. Mubarak begins his sentence in a military hospital.
13 January 2013: The court overturns Mubarak’s sentence and orders a retrial.
29 November 2014: acquitted of all charges by a Cairo Criminal Court.
9 May 2015: convicted and sentenced to three years after being found guilty of stealing funds allocated to restore presidential palaces.
12 October 2015: Mubarak’s sons freed by Cairo’s Criminal Court after being acquitted of outstanding corruption charges.
2 March 2017: acquitted of corruption and manslaughter charges by the Court of Cassation.
24 March 2017: released from custody.
6 October 2019: appears in public for the last time in a video in which he recalls his memories as commander of the Air Force during the 1973 October War.
25 February 2020: dies after one month in intensive care.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 27 February, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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