In the second half of the 19th century, Egypt, formally part of the Ottoman Empire, became dependent on Great Britain. Soon after the end of the First World War, the country gained independence, which in fact turned out to be fictitious. Power in the country still belonged to the British, who ruled Egypt with the help of puppet governments. The Suez Canal remained in their hands, bringing huge profits to the colonialists. In 1952, a young Egyptian officer, Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970), led a coup d'etat that ended Egypt's almost colonial dependence. This event awakened the entire Arab world, forcing other Arab peoples to begin the struggle for their true independence. Nasser proved himself to be a skillful politician. In 1954, he ensured that the British agreed to withdraw troops from the Suez Canal zone. After the last English soldier left Egyptian soil in the summer of 1956, Nasser announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal, the right to manage which Egypt had lost in the 19th century. In response, Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt, but the Suez crisis was stopped thanks to international protests and diplomatic intervention from the United States and the Soviet Union. On June 23, 1956, Egypt's first republican constitution was adopted in a national referendum. That same year, Nasser was elected president of Egypt, and two years later became president of the United Arab Republic (UAR). The years of Nasser's rule were marked by a significant rapprochement between Egypt and the Soviet Union. As a result of land reform in the late 1950s and the nationalization of industry and financial institutions in the early 1960s, Egypt's economy became almost socialist, with the public sector accounting for more than 80 percent. Nasser's policies gave rise to the Arab socialist revival movement, which aimed to create a unified Arab state, but Nasser never succeeded in achieving this goal. After his death, Nasser's Fourth Arab-Israeli War broke out. The Arab states presented a united front for the last time. After this, the Arab world finally split. Having lost hope for a peaceful “Arab revival,” some Arabs turned to the ideas of Islamic fundamentalism.