His rule was marked by dramatic political and social change, attempting to modernize Afghanistan on Western designs, which he did not fully succeed in, due to an uprising by Habibullah Kalakani and his followers. On 14 January 1929, Amanullah abdicated and fled to neighbouring British India as the Afghan Civil War began to escalate. From British India he went to Europe where after 30 years in exile, he died in Italy, in 1960 (yet apparently and reportedly according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica: Amānullāh Khan would have died in Zürich in Switzerland). His body was brought to Afghanistan and buried in Jalalabad.