Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was born on January 5, 1928, in Larkana, Sindh, into one of the wealthiest landowning families in what was then British India. He was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Christ Church, Oxford, before studying law at Lincoln's Inn in London. He returned to Pakistan and entered politics, serving as Foreign Minister under President Ayub Khan before a falling-out over the conduct of the 1965 war with India led to his dismissal. In 1967, he founded the Pakistan Peoples Party on a platform of Islamic socialism, democratic governance, and populist economic reform that resonated with Pakistan's poor majority. He became the country's first elected prime minister after the 1971 war that split East Pakistan into the independent nation of Bangladesh, inheriting a nation humiliated by military defeat and territorial dismemberment. He nationalized major industries, launched Pakistan's nuclear weapons program in response to India's 1974 nuclear test, and hosted the 1974 Islamic Summit Conference in Lahore. His 1977 reelection was contested amid widespread allegations of vote rigging. General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq staged a military coup, arrested Bhutto, tried him for conspiracy to murder a political opponent on evidence that international legal observers widely criticized as fabricated, and hanged him on April 4, 1979. He was fifty-one. His daughter Benazir became prime minister twice. His son-in-law became president. The Bhutto name has dominated Pakistani politics for over half a century.
January 5, 1928
98 years ago
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