FIRE IN CAIRO
The Cairo Fire, also known as Black Saturday, was a series of riots that took place on January 26, 1952, marked by the burning and looting of some 750 buildings and the country’s Opera House in downtown Cairo. It was triggered by the killing of 50 Egyptian auxiliary policemen by British occupation troops a day earlier. The spontaneous anti-British protests that followed these deaths were quickly seized upon by organized elements in the crowd, who burned and ransacked large sectors of Cairo amidst the unexplained absence of security forces. King Farouk appointed a series of short-lived cabinets but they failed to restore public confidence. As a result, instability over the next six months helped pave the way for the Free Officers coup on July 23, 1952. That in turn resulted in Farouk’s forced abdication and the abolition of the monarchy a year later.
