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Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, it's Eaves. Just wanted to let you know

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Speaker 1: that you'll be hearing an episode from me and an

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Speaker 1: episode from Tracy V. Wilson today. I hope you enjoyed

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Speaker 1: the show. Welcome to this day in History class. It's

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Speaker 1: July twenty three today. In nineteen fifty two, a revolution

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Speaker 1: began in Egypt, and we got to back up a

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Speaker 1: little bit before we get to the revolution part. Britain

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Speaker 1: occupied Egypt in the late eighteenth century and that continued

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Speaker 1: all the way until World War One. When that war

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Speaker 1: was over, Egypt declared its independence on February nine. The

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Speaker 1: resulting Kingdom of Egypt was, at least in theory, a

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Speaker 1: constitutional monarchy. Even though men had the right to vote

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Speaker 1: and half of the Senate were elected positions, the general

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Speaker 1: population did not have a lot of voice in the government. Really,

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Speaker 1: there were three powers that were all struggling for dominance.

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Speaker 1: There was the British, who still had a huge presence

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Speaker 1: in Egypt. There was the monarchy, and there was the

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Speaker 1: oft which is a political party that for a time

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Speaker 1: was really the only national political party in Egypt. The

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Speaker 1: Wafts power declined after World War Two, and other political

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Speaker 1: parties rose up. A lot of them pushing to really

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Speaker 1: remove the British influence completely from Egypt. They wanted an

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Speaker 1: end to British presence in neighboring countries as well. By

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Speaker 1: the late nineteen forties, there was a lot of unrest

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Speaker 1: with opposition to the monarchy and to British involvement in

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Speaker 1: Egypt coming from all over the political spectrum. So regardless

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Speaker 1: of what people's other political views were, where they fell

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Speaker 1: in all kinds of issues, really a lot of them

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Speaker 1: were united in the idea that the British needed to

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Speaker 1: go within. The military tensions started to rise after Egypt's

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Speaker 1: defeat in the Arab Israeli War. They felt like the

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Speaker 1: king had really abandoned them during all of this, so

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Speaker 1: Colonel Gamal abdel Nasser established the Free Officers Movement in

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Speaker 1: ninety nine. The purpose of the Free Officers Movement was

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Speaker 1: to try to overthrow the monarchy and end its connections

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Speaker 1: with the British Empire. One of its more prominent figures

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Speaker 1: was General Muhammad Nageeb. They took down the government in

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Speaker 1: a coup. The coup this episode is about on July

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Speaker 1: twenty nine, fifty two. They forced the king, King Ferouke

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Speaker 1: to abdicate and to leave the country, and the king

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Speaker 1: did this. He abdicated in favor of his son, who

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Speaker 1: was at the time only seven months old. At least

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Speaker 1: in name, his son reigned as the king of Egypt

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Speaker 1: in the Studan until the monarchy was abolished in nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty three. This coup played out over only nine and

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Speaker 1: a half hours, and afterward Nagib named himself commander in

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Speaker 1: chief of the Egyptian Army. So an odd thing about

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Speaker 1: this coup. A lot of times when you hear about

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Speaker 1: overthrowing governments, the people doing the overthrowing have a very

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Speaker 1: clear sense of what the government should be like after

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Speaker 1: that happens, and that wasn't so much the case here.

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Speaker 1: The free officers didn't have a specific plan of what

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Speaker 1: they wanted the government of Egypt to be like after

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Speaker 1: this coup. They were just motivated by a very more

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Speaker 1: general sense of Egyptian nationalism. They did, though, start trying

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Speaker 1: to make some changes. There were a lot of reforms

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Speaker 1: they tried to put into place. Some of these were successful.

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Speaker 1: They did install a more democratic government. There were land reforms,

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Speaker 1: including redistributing land from the wealthy to poorer people. There

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Speaker 1: were new educational opportunities, especially for impoverished children. There were

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Speaker 1: advances and voting rights, including for women, and an anti

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Speaker 1: corruption campaign that was successful in some ways and not others.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, there's some debate about whether

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Speaker 1: it's better to call this whole thing a revolution or

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Speaker 1: a coupe, especially since so many of the Egyptian leaders

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Speaker 1: that followed this event were all members of the military

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Speaker 1: and part of the Free Officers movement. This was the

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Speaker 1: first of many military coups in the Arab world. Though

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Speaker 1: it had a huge effect not only on the nation

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Speaker 1: of Egypt, but on the rest of the Middle East

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Speaker 1: as well, and this was especially true as Nasa, who

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Speaker 1: was appointed the first president of Egypt in nineteen fifty four,

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Speaker 1: advocated for Arab unity and for independence from the other

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Speaker 1: colonized nations in the Arab world. Nasa, by the way,

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Speaker 1: was the first native Egyptian to rule the country in

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Speaker 1: well over two thousand years when he was appointed. When

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Speaker 1: Nasa died of a heart attack in nineteen seventy, his

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Speaker 1: funeral drew at least five million attendees, making it one

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Speaker 1: of the largest gatherings in human history, and of course

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Speaker 1: this was not remotely the end of revolution or of

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Speaker 1: unrest in Egypt that has had a whole history in

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Speaker 1: the roughly half a century since this time. But today

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Speaker 1: Revolution Day is a public holiday in Egypt commemorating this event.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Christopher Hasiotis and his research on today's episode,

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Speaker 1: and for Tari Harrison who edits all of these episodes,

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Speaker 1: you can subscribe to This Day in History class on

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and wherever else you get your podcasts. Tomorrow,

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Speaker 1: we have a disaster on the water that was ironically

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Speaker 1: the unintended result of improved safety standards. Hi there, welcome

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Speaker 1: to This Day in History class, where we sift through

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Speaker 1: the artifacts of history seven days a week. The day

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Speaker 1: was July three. The Ford Motor Company sold its first

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Speaker 1: Ford Model A to a Chicago dentist name Ernst Finning.

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Speaker 1: Henry Ford built the Quadricycle, his first guest powered vehicle

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Speaker 1: in The Quadricycle was powered by a four horsepower engine

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Speaker 1: and it's chassis was a buggy frame mounted on four

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Speaker 1: bicycle wheels. The vehicle had a tiller instead of a

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Speaker 1: steering wheel. Ford sold his Quadricycle to improve his prototype

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Speaker 1: and finance the construction of more vehicles. Ford attracted financial

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Speaker 1: investors with his vehicles, and in eight nine he joined

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Speaker 1: a group that founded the Detroit Automobile Company later called

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Speaker 1: the Henry Ford Company. But while his backers were ready

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Speaker 1: to put an automobile on the market, Ford was focused

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Speaker 1: on improving his models. After building several race cars, he

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Speaker 1: left the Henry Ford Company, which was soon reorganized as

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Speaker 1: the Cadillac Motor Car Company. In nineteen o three, the

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Speaker 1: Ford Motor Company was incorporated with the twenty eight thousand

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Speaker 1: dollar cash investment. One of the company's investors rented a

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Speaker 1: factory building on mac Avenue in Detroit to Ford, and

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Speaker 1: the company began production on the first Ford Model A

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Speaker 1: in the summer of nineteen o three, but the company's

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Speaker 1: assets quickly ran out, and by June of nineteen o

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Speaker 1: three there were only three salaried and eployees. By mid July,

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Speaker 1: the company was almost out of cash, but on July

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Speaker 1: the Ford Motor Company sold the Model A to earn

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Speaker 1: spinning for a hundred and fifty dollars. The vehicle was

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Speaker 1: sent to finding a little over a week later. The

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Speaker 1: Model A, designed mainly by Ford's assistant see Harold Willis,

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Speaker 1: was big enough for two people. It had no top

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Speaker 1: and had a two cylinder eight horsepower engine. It could

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Speaker 1: go up to thirty miles per hour or forty eight

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Speaker 1: kilometers per hour. By September, nearly two hundred vehicles were

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Speaker 1: produced and sold at the mac Avenue plant. By October,

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Speaker 1: the company had turned a profit of thirty seven thousand dollars.

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Speaker 1: The company was doing well. Ford even founded his first

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Speaker 1: international plant in Canada in h four, but the company

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Speaker 1: had to keep up with competition too. At the time,

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Speaker 1: Oldsmobile was one of Ford's biggest competitors, and it was

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Speaker 1: producing more cars than Ford. Ford purchased another site in

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Speaker 1: Detroit and built a larger factory where more models were assembled.

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Speaker 1: Ford stopped production on the Model A in nineteen o four.

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Speaker 1: During the company's first five years, it produced eight different models.

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Speaker 1: By nineteen o eight, the Ford Motor Company was producing

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Speaker 1: a hundred cars a day. But it was the Model

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Speaker 1: T that really brought Ford success. Introduced in nineteen o eight,

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Speaker 1: the Model T was a more affordable and reliable vehicle

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Speaker 1: that was not just a luxury for rich people. It

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Speaker 1: sold for a hundred and fifty dollars, which was a

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Speaker 1: decent price, but still inaccessible to many workers and disenfranchised

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Speaker 1: people in the US. The Ford Motor Company built another

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Speaker 1: factory and made the assembly line process more efficient, making

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Speaker 1: it quicker to turn out the Model TS. In nineteen eighteen,

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Speaker 1: Henry Ford purchased the newspaper The Dearborn Independent and began

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Speaker 1: publishing a series of anti Semitic articles in it. The

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Speaker 1: papers shut down in seven after a libel lawsuit, but

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Speaker 1: while the newspaper ran, Ford sent the newspaper out to

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Speaker 1: his dealers and had them conduct subscription campaigns and add

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Speaker 1: the newspaper to customers purchase of Model TS. Demand for

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Speaker 1: the Model T was high, and by the time the

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Speaker 1: last Model T was produced in ninete, Ford had sold

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Speaker 1: tens of millions of the cars in the US and abroad.

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Speaker 1: I'm Eve Jeffcote and hopefully you know a little more

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Speaker 1: about history today than you did yesterday. You can learn

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Speaker 1: more about history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and

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Speaker 1: Instagram at t d I h C podcast. Thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for listening, and I hope to see you

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Speaker 1: again tomorrow for more tidbits of history. Yeah. For more

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Speaker 1: podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows