So while technically Egypt had been independent since 1922, it was very dependent independence. But that changed in the 1950s, when the king was overthrown by the army. The army commander who led that coup was Gamal Abdel Nasser, who proved brilliant at playing the US and the USSR off each other to the benefit of Egypt. Nasser's was a largely secular nationalism, and he and his successors saw one of the other anti-imperialistic nationalist forces in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, as a threat. So once in power, Nasser and the army banned the Muslim Brotherhood, forcing it underground, where it would disappear and never become an issue again. Wait, what's that? Really?