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The Bat Bomb Invention and Other Odd Facts from History and War

Khalid Elhassan May 10, 2020 33 min

27. The Kleptomaniac King

King Farouk I posing with Winston Churchill, from whom the Egyptian monarch stole a family heirloom watch. Pintrest

King Farouk I (1920 – 1965) ruled Egypt from 1936 until his overthrow in a military coup in 1952. His years in power were marked by endemic corruption, incompetent governance, and bizarre conduct. Among other things, Farouk was a kleptomaniac who could not resist stealing things and picking people’s pockets.

Farouk took pick-pocketing lessons, and his victims included Winston Churchill, whom the Egyptian king invited to a dinner during World War II. At the meal, Churchill discovered that his pocket watch – a prized family heirloom that had been a gift from Queen Anne to his ancestor John Churchill, First Duke of Marlborough – had gone missing. After an outcry and search, Farouk, who had been seated next to Churchill, sheepishly turned it in, claiming to have “found” it.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.