Mohammed Zahir Shah

Mohammad Zahir Shah took the throne on 8 November 1933 and would hold it longer than any Afghan ruler since the Durrani Empire rose in the 18th century. Through the 1950s he modernized the country and opened diplomatic channels with both Cold War blocs, then ushered in a new constitution that made Afghanistan a constitutional monarchy. His reign was marked by a stability the country would not see again. In 1973, while he was in Italy for medical treatment, his cousin and former prime minister Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan staged a coup and declared a republic, ending more than two centuries of unbroken monarchy. Zahir Shah stayed near Rome until 2002, when the fall of the Taliban let him return. He came back not as king but as Father of the Nation, a title he carried until his death in 2007.