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30 Facts About the Rise and Fall of Saddam Hussein, the Butcher of Baghdad

Trista December 25, 2018 13 min

Saddam Hussein circa 1979, the year he assumed the Iraqi presidency. INA (Iraqi News Agency) – Dar al-Ma’mun from the book “Arabische Strategie weist Herausforderungen zurück”/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain.

20. Hussein Became President in 1979

Saddam had been the de facto leader of Iraq for years, and in 1979, he forced al-Bakr to resign. This event happened the same year as the Iranian Revolution, and the world watched anxiously to see what effects the revolution would have on Iraq’s Shi’a majority.

Check this out: 22 Images of the Iranian Revolution.