Video: King Idris Crowned King of Libya

The cover feature in the December issue of History Today, out this week, dives into Libya's history to tell the story of the country before Colonel Gaddafi's reign. Specifically, it explores the unlikely alliance between a British missionary, Norman Anderson, and Libya's first modern monarch, King Idris, that led to the country's formation.

The short video shows a brief newsreel sequence announcing King Idris' coronation in late 1951, and shows him waving to the cheering crowds in Tripoli in. In 1969, whilst he was in Turkey for medical treatment, the King was deposed in a coup led by Colonel Gaddafi. He lived in exile in Egypt, where he died in 1983, aged 94, but he remains a popular figure; during the 2011 revolution, posters bearing his image were held aloft by anti-Gaddafi protestors and rebel fighters.

For more on the formation of modern Libya, read the article in the December issue of History Today.

From the archive:

The Kingdom of Libya is Established

Richard Cavendish explains how the Kingdom of Libya was established on December 24th, 1951.

Libya, Land of Myths and Demons

David Winter visits a land beset for millennia by the fantasies of outsiders.