Cairo fire

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The Cairo Fire (Arabic: حريق القاهرة), also known as Black Saturday, was a series of riots that took place on 26 January 1952, marked by the burning and looting of some 750 buildings—retail shops, cafes, cinemas, hotels, restaurants, theatres, nightclubs, and the city's Casino Opera —in downtown Cairo. The direct trigger of the riots was the Battle of Ismailia, an attack on an Egyptian police installation in Ismaïlia by British forces on 25 January, in which roughly 50 auxiliary policemen were killed. The spontaneous anti-British protests that followed these deaths were quickly seized upon by organized elements in the crowd, who burned and ransacked large sectors of Cairo amidst the unexplained absence of security forces. The fire is thought by some to have signalled the end of the Kingdom of Egypt. The perpetrators of the Cairo Fire remain unknown to this day, and the truth about this important event in modern Egyptian history has yet to be established. The disorder that befell Cairo during the 1952 fire has been compared to the chaos that followed the anti-government protests of 25 January 2011, which saw demonstrations take place amidst massive arson and looting, an inexplicable withdrawal of the police, and organized prison-breaking. In 1952, the British occupation of Egypt was entering its 70th year, but by then was limited to the Suez Canal zone. On the morning of 25 January 1952, Brigadier Kenneth Exham, the British commander in the region, issued an order to Egyptian policemen in Ismaïlia, demanding that they surrender their weapons and leave the canal zone. Exham's order came in response to attacks against British forces by fedayeen groups, which were being supported by Egyptian policemen. The Ismailia Governorate refused the British request, a refusal that was reiterated by interior minister Fouad Serageddin.