Muammar Gaddafi

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi was a Libyan military officer, revolutionary, politician and political theorist who ruled Libya from 1969 until his assassination by Libyan rebel forces in 2011. He came to power through a military coup, first becoming Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the Brotherly Leader of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011. Initially ideologically committed to Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Gaddafi later ruled according to his own Third International Theory.