History of the Republic of Egypt
On 22–26 July 1952, the Free Officers, a group of disaffected officers in the Egyptian army founded by Gamal Abdel Nasser, and headed by General Muhammad Naguib, initiated the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 with the overthrowing King Farouk, whom the military blamed for Egypt's poor performance in the 1948 war with Israel and lack of progress in fighting poverty, disease, and illiteracy in Egypt. In the following two years, the Free Officers consolidated power, and, following a brief experiment with civilian rule, abrogated the 1953 constitution, and declared Egypt a republic on 18 June 1953, Muhammad Naguib as Egypt's first President.
Egyptians
For a while Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic (UAR). When the union was dissolved, Egypt continued to be known as the UAR until 1971, when Egypt adopted the current official name, the Arab Republic of Egypt. The Egyptians' attachment to Arabism was particularly questioned after the 1967 Six-Day War. Thousands of Egyptians had lost their lives, and the country became disillusioned with Arab politics. Although the Arabism instilled in the country by Nasser was not deeply embedded in society, a certain kinship with the rest of the Arab world was firmly established and Egypt saw itself as the leader of this larger cultural entity. Nasser's version of pan-Arabism stressed Egyptian sovereignty and leadership of Arab unity instead of the eastern Arab states.