Hussein of Jordan

HUSSEIN OF JORDAN d1999. King of Jordan from August 11th 1952 until his death from cancer on February 7th 1999 aged 63. At the time of his accession in 1953, Jordan was a young nation and controlled the West Bank. The country had few natural resources and a large Palestinian refugee population as a result of the 1948 war. He led his country through four turbulent decades of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Cold War, successfully balancing pressures from all sides and transforming Jordan by the end of his 46-year reign into a stable modern state. After 1967, he increasingly engaged in efforts to solve the Palestinian problem. He acted as a conciliatory intermediate between various Middle Eastern rivals and came to be seen as the region's peacemaker. He was revered for pardoning political dissidents and opponents and giving them senior posts in the government. He survived dozens of assassination attempts and plots to overthrow him and was the region's longest-reigning leader