Story
The story of Tahrir Square
Tahrir means "Liberation", but this square has carried many names. It began as Ismailia Square, after Khedive Ismail, who commissioned the new downtown district as a "Paris on the Nile". After the revolution of 1919, people widely called it Tahrir.
In 1933 King Fuad I officially named it after his father, Khedive Ismail, and under King Farouk a pedestal was set up for a statue of Ismail that never arrived. The name Tahrir became official in 1953. In 1981 it was renamed Anwar El Sadat Square, but the new name never entered popular use, and the empty pedestal was finally removed in 1987, when the Sadat metro station was built beneath. The square has long been the focus of political demonstrations, and the 2011 Egyptian revolution and the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak took place here.
In 2020 an obelisk of Ramses II from Tanis was raised at its centre, with four ram-headed sphinxes moved from Karnak.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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