The Suez Crisis, 1956
In this photograph, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser is greeted ecstatically by Cairo crowds after he nationalized the Suez Canal. Nasser’s gamble paid off. Thanks to American intervention, military action by Britain, France, and Israel failed, and Nasser emerged as the triumphant voice of Arab nationalism across the Middle East. The popular emotions he unleashed against the West survived his death in 1970 and are more potent today than ever, although now expressed more through Islamic fundamentalism than Nasser’s brand of secular nationalism. Getty Images.