Hussein of Jordan

Hussein bin Talal was born in Amman in 1935, eldest son of the crown prince and a 40th-generation descendant of Muhammad. His grandfather Abdullah I was assassinated; his father Talal took the throne in 1951 but was forced to abdicate a year later due to illness. Hussein was enthroned at seventeen in 1953, inheriting a young country with the West Bank, few resources, and a flood of Palestinian refugees from 1948. He allowed Jordan's only democratically elected government in 1956, then forced it out within months, imposing martial law and banning parties. Jordan fought Israel three times under his watch - the 1967 Six-Day War cost him the West Bank. In 1970 he expelled Palestinian militants in Black September. He renounced claims to the West Bank in 1988 after the PLO was recognized as the Palestinians' sole representative, lifted martial law in 1989 amid riots, and in 1994 became the second Arab leader to sign a peace treaty with Israel. He spent his final decades as the region's peacemaker, pardoning dissidents and giving them posts, balancing nationalists and monarchists and superpowers. He died of cancer in 1999 at sixty-three, the longest-reigning leader the M