Nasser was born in 1918. His father was a postmaster of Alexandria. He witnessed first hand such problems like landlessness, Wafd exploitation, diseases, malnutrition, and poverty which the rural dwellers were facing.

As he grew up, he became a positive dreamer - a determined, courageous forward-looking man. He began to be imbibed with deep sense of nationalism.

He left the rural people and enrolled in a secondary school. Here, Nasser concerned himself with politics.

At 17 years old while at secondary school, Nasser wrote, "Egyptian government is based on corruption and favours. Who can change it?" Between 1935-36 Nasser and other concerned students tried to revive this lost nationalism by organising a protest against the British security guards put in Egypt.

From secondary, Nasser proceeded to a law college in Cairo but he cut short his law study and turned to the army.

In 1937, Nasser enrolled in a military academy and made a great career in the army.

In 1942, during the course of World War II, Nasser was deployed in Sudan.

In Sudan, Nasser and other officers formed a secret movement within the army called "Free Officers". The objective of this group was to expel the British out of Egypt.

When the state of Israel was created in 1948 through taking the Arab land by the Jews, Arab states contributed military contingents to fight Israel. Egypt sent the largest number of soldiers to go and fight in Palestine.

Furthermore, during the Palestine war of 1948 - 49, Nasser put down, in writing, his nationalistic version in his book known as "The Philosophy of the Revolution. In this book, he planned to turn Egypt into the nucleus or hub of Arab, Muslim and African interests.

By 1948, Nasser had achieved the necessary attributes of truly a national leader. He was cool headed, tactical and attractive.

Foreign domination of Egypt, parasitic monarchy, conditioned Nasser and other Free Army Officers to dethrone King Farouk in a nearly bloodless coup staged on 23.7.1952.

Early in 1954, disputes emerged between Nasser and Neguib over the issues of treatment of the notorious "Muslim Brotherhood", and over the issue of return to civilian rule. Nasser settled the matter by deposing Neguib in November 1954.

He subsequently negotiated a treaty with the British, by which Egypt was evacuated after 72 years of occupation. Nasser was officially elected president in 1956.

Following the Bandung Conference (1955), at which he emerged as a world figure, having espoused a policy of nonalignment (see Nonaligned Movement), Nasser's relations with the West deteriorated.

In 1956 Britain and the United States withdrew their financial support from his Aswan High Dam project. In order to obtain funds for the project, Nasser then nationalized the Suez Canal.

This brought aggression from France and Britain in alliance with Israel. Under pressure from the U.S., however, the three were forced to withdraw, and a United Nations emergency force was subsequently placed as a buffer between Egypt and Israel.

By this time Nasser had become a hero in the Arab world. In 1958 Syria and Egypt united under his presidency, forming the United Arab Republic. The union, however, broke up in 1961 after a coup in Syria. Nasser subsequently espoused a program of Arab socialism, in which banks and utilities were nationalized to finance a program of industrialization.

By 1967 the Arab-Israeli situation had deteriorated. After the UN peacekeeping force, at Nasser's request, had been withdrawn, and Egyptian guns blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli ships, Israel attacked Egypt and occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula up to the Suez Canal (see Six-Day War).

Nasser, taking responsibility for the debacle, resigned, but the people took to the streets, demanding his return to government. He never, however, regained his previous stature. On September 28, 1970, he died suddenly of a heart attack.

Opinion about Nasser is sharply divided. His detractors stress his police-state methods and criticize his foreign policies, which also involved Egypt in a war in Yemen (1962-67).

Others praise his internal reforms and see him as the man who wrested Egypt from the grasp of foreigners and a decadent monarchy and gave it back to the Egyptians. Beyond doubt, he was the foremost Arab leader of his time, who restored Arab dignity after the long humiliation of Western domination.