1971 — The Three-Day Coup

On July 19, 1971, Major Hashim al-Atta and a group of leftist officers launched a coup in Khartoum, overthrowing President Gaafar Nimeiry while he was away. For three wild days, the communists held power, in what the record describes as the first and only communist government in the Arab world.

On July 22, loyalist troops crushed the coup and freed Nimeiry. What followed was a brutal purge: al-Atta was executed, and Sudan's Communist Party, once the strongest in the region, was destroyed. The coup's echo shaped Sudanese politics for decades, long after those three wild days had passed into national memory.