Who they were
Hosni Mubarak (1928–2020) was a career air force officer, and as air force commander he was credited with the opening air strike of the October War in 1973. He became vice-president in 1975 and president in October 1981, after Sadat’s assassination, holding office until February 2011.
What they did
Mubarak ruled for nearly 30 years under a continuous state of emergency; his era brought stability and Western alignment, but also documented political repression, police abuses, and elections widely judged unfree. Abroad he preserved the peace treaty with Israel, restored Egypt’s place in the Arab League — whose headquarters returned to Cairo in 1990 — remained a close ally of the United States, and joined the 1991 Gulf War coalition against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait; he survived assassination attempts, notably in Addis Ababa in 1995. The economy saw liberalization and growth in the 2000s alongside persistent poverty, unemployment, and grievances over corruption, and the apparent grooming of his son Gamal as successor was widely resented.
Legacy
Mubarak was ousted by the 2011 revolution, resigning on 11 February 2011. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2012 over the deaths of protesters, then retried and acquitted on those charges by 2017; separately, he and his sons were convicted of embezzlement in 2015. He died on 25 February 2020 and received a military funeral.