Tripolitania

Tripolitania /trɪpɒlɪˈteɪniə/ (Arabic: طرابلس), historically known as the Tripoli region, is a historic region and former province of Libya, located in the region that bordered Egypt to the east.

The region had been settled since antiquity, first coming to prominence as part of the Carthaginian empire. Following the defeat of Carthage in the Punic Wars, Ancient Rome organized the region (along with what is now modern day Tunisia and eastern Algeria), into a province known as Africa, and placed it under the administration of a proconsul. During the Diocletian reforms of the late 3rd century, all of North Africa was placed into the newly created Diocese of Africa, of which Tripolitania was a constituent province.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, Tripolitania changed hands between the Vandals and the Byzantine Empire, until it was taken during the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the 8th century. It was part of the region known to the Islamic world as Ifriqiya, whose boundaries roughly mirrored those of the old Roman province of Africa Proconsularis. Though nominally under the suzerainty of the Abbasid Caliphate, local dynasties such as the Aghlabids and later the Fatimid Caliphate were practically independent. The native Berbers, who had inhabited the area locally for centuries before the arrival of the Arabs, established their own native Hafsid dynasty over Ifriqiya in the 13th century, and would control the region until it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, who established Ottoman Tripolitania as a distinct province. Tripolitania became an Italian colony during the Italo-Turkish War in 1911.

After the 1934 formation of Libya, the Tripolitania province was designated as one of the three primary provinces of the country, alongside Cyrenaica province to the east and Fezzan province to the south.

Following the expulsion of Axis forces (German Afrika Korps and Italian Colonial Divisions) by the British and Allied forces in February 1943, Libya was placed under Allied military administration. Libya remained legally an Italian colony until the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, when Italy officially renounced all claims to its African colonies including Somalia. On Christmas Eve 1951, Libya declared its independence which became the first country to achieve independence through the United Nations after the territory was divided into two main zones of control between the British Military Administration (BMA) controlled Tripolitania and Cyrenaica and the French Military Territory of Fezzan-Ghadames.

Muammar Gaddafi was born to a Bedouin family of the Qadhadhfa tribe in 1942 near Sirte. Influenced by Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, he led the Free Officers Movement to overthrow King Idris in a bloodless coup on 1 September 1969, declaring Libya an Arab Republic and establishing the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) until its dissolution in 1977, when Libya adopted a new, plain green flag with no design, emblem, or insignia, making it the only country in the world at that time to have a flag with no design. Following the publication of The Green Book (first volume 1975), which outlined his "Third International Theory" as an alternative to capitalism and communism, he instituted a "cultural revolution". On 2 March 1977, he restructured the government into the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya ("state of the masses"), Gaddafi officially stepped down from executive power, because he did not consider himself as "President" or the "Prime Minister", he retained absolute control which he used the title as the "Brotherly Leader". In 1986, he officially renamed the country the "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya".