decades

On June 19, Kuwait became fully independent following an exchange of notes with the United Kingdom that terminated the AngloKuwaiti Treaty of 1899 and therefore provided for Kuwaiti independence.

Moroccan King Hassan II orders “The Green March” in November. Thousands of Moroccans march into the western Sahara to assert Morocco’s claim to the territory being vacated by Spain.

Ben Ali was appointed Prime Minister of Tunisia in October. He assumed the Presidency on 7 November in a bloodless coup d'état that ousted President Habib Bourguiba by declaring him incompetent.

The Yemeni Civil War began; the civil war was fought between the two Yemeni forces of the pro-union northern and the socialist separatist southern Yemeni states and their supporters. The war resulted in the defeat of the southern armed forces.

The 1969 Sudanese coup d'état was a successful coup, led by Colonel Gaafar Nimeiry, against the government of President Ismail al-Azhari. The coup signaled the end of Sudan's second democratic era, and saw the beginning of Nimeiry's 16 year rule

Death of Taha Hussein on October 28. Hussein was a pioneer in the modernist movement in Arabic literature. Born on November 14, 1889, poor and blind from a young age, he became best known as a novelist. Death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the political and spiritual leader of Iran since the 1979 revolution.

Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani female education activist, was born on the 12 July in the Swat District of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, into a lowermiddle-class family.