The first inhabitants of Libya were the Berber tribes, In the 7th century B.C..
Phoenicians colonized the eastern section of Libya, called Cyrenaica, and Greeks
colonized the western portion, called Tripolitania. Tripolitania was for a time under
Carthaginian control. It became part of the Roman Empire from 46 B.C. to A.D. 436,
after which it was sacked by the Vandals. Cyrenaica belonged to the Roman Empire from
the 1st century B.C. until its decline, after which it was invaded by Arab forces in 642.
Beginning in the 16th century, both Tripolitania and Cyrenaica nominally became part of the Ottoman Empire.
Tripolitania was one of the outposts for the Barbary pirates who raided Mediterranean merchant ships or
required them to pay tribute. In 1801, the pasha of Tripoli raised the price of tribute, which led to
the Tripolitan war with the United States. When the peace treaty was signed on June 4, 1805, U.S. ships
no longer had to pay tribute to Tripoli.
Following the outbreak of hostilities between Italy and Turkey in 1911, Italian troops occupied Tripoli.
Italian sovereignty was recognized in 1912. Libyans continued to fight the Italians until 1914, by which
time Italy controlled most of the land. Italy formally united Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in 1934 as the colony
of Libya.
Libya was the scene of much desert fighting during World War II. After the fall of Tripoli on Jan. 23, 1943, it
came under Allied administration. In 1949, the UN voted that Libya should become independent, and in 1951 it
became the United Kingdom of Libya. Oil was discovered in the impoverished country in 1958, and eventually
transformed its economy.
On Sept. 1, 1969, 27-year-old Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi deposed the king and revolutionized the country,
making it a pro-Arabic, anti-Western, Islamic republic with socialist leanings. It was also rabidly anti-Israeli.
A notorious firebrand, Qaddafi aligned himself with dictators, such as Uganda's Idi Amin, and fostered
anti-Western terrorism.
On Aug. 19, 1981, two U.S. Navy F-14s shot down two Soviet-made SU-22s of the Libyan air force that had
attacked them in air space above the Gulf of Sidra. On March 24, 1986, U.S. and Libyan forces skirmished
in the Gulf of Sidra, and two Libyan patrol boats were sunk. Qaddafi's troops also supported rebels in
Chad but suffered major military reverses in 1987. A two-year-old U.S. covert policy to destabilize the
Libyan government ended in failure in Dec. 1990.
On Dec. 21, 1988, a Boeing 747 exploded in flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, the result of a terrorist bomb,
killing all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground. This and other acts of terrorism, including the bombing
of a Berlin discoteque in 1986, and the downing of a French UTA airliner in 1989 that killed 170, turned Libya
into a pariah in the eyes of the west. Two Libyan intelligence agents were indicted in the Lockerbie bombing,
but Qaddafi refused to hand them over, leading to UN-approved trade and air traffic embargoes in 1992. In 1999,
Libya finally surrendered the two men, who were tried in the Netherlands in 2000–2001. One was found guilty of
mass murder; the other defendant was found innocent. Libya had hoped its faint-hearted cooperation would lead to
suspended sanctions, which had severely affected the Libyan economy. The UN did suspend its sanctions, but they
were not formally removed for another four years, until Sept. 2003, when Libya finally admitted
its guilt in the Lockerbie bombing and agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the families. In 2004, Libya also agreed to
compensate the families of the victims of the UTA airliner bombing ($170 million) and the Berlin disco bombing
($35 million).
After months of secret talks with the U.S. and Britain, Qaddafi surprised the world in Dec. 2003 by announcing
he would give up the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and submit to full UN weapons inspections. After
inspections at four secret sites, the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that Libya's progress on a
nuclear bomb had been in the very nascent stages. In June 2004, the U.S. and Libya restored diplomatic relations
after a 24-year hiatus.