Suez Crisis

The Suez Crisis was a brief war fought from 29 October to 7 November 1956 after Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal on 26 July that year, taking the waterway from the Anglo-French company that had operated it. Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula, and Britain and France followed with their own intervention, ostensibly to separate the combatants but in fact aimed at retaking the canal and toppling Nasser. Intense diplomatic pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union, acting in rare Cold War concert, forced all three invading powers to withdraw; Israel held Sinai and Gaza only until March 1957. The episode confirmed Nasser as a hero of Arab nationalism, exposed Britain and France as declining imperial powers, and prompted the creation of the first United Nations peacekeeping force to police the ceasefire.