As the battle to wrestle Libya from the grip of Colonel Gaddafi's rule continues, the Huffington Post looks back at his 42 years in power.
Gaddafi is the longest-serving leader in both Africa and the Arab World, having hatched plans of toppling the monarchy when he was still at military training college in the 1960s.
He detailed his political philosophy in an 82-page document known as the Green Book. A rambling text, it covers everything from the evils of sports clubs to the tenderness of women via his Communist ideals of a system of 'people's committees'.
Gaddafi had a notable tendency of trying to exert his influence outside Libya, often supporting militia
or terror groups, or latterly courting Western powers.
1969. Gaddafi seized power at the age of 27, in a coup d’etat that toppled King Idris I. He launched the coup from Benghazi, now a famous as a rebel stronghold.
1973. He deployed an army into Chad, where they occupied the north.
1975. Green Book published, which revealed his principles as an idiocyncratic mixture of Islam and some aspects of Socialism. He later developed his 'state of the masses' idea which involved power held by thousands of committees.
1984. British policewoman, Yvonne Fletcher, shot dead when diplomats inside the Libyan embassy opened fire on protestors gathered outside.
1986. President Reagan bombed Tripoli and Benghazi after it was thought Gaddafi was behind a bomb in a German Nightclub in Germany which killed American servicemen.
1980s. He sent Semtex to IRA, which was used in their bombing of Enniskillen in 1987 and Harrods in 1983
1988. The bombing of a Pan AM jet over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, resulted in 270 deaths.
2003. After two decades of pariah status a rapprochement with the West began. Gaddafi took responsibility for Lockerbie, abandoned his plans to develop weapons of mass destruction and agreed to join war on terror.
2011. In February he made a famously rambling speech for over an hour in which he promised that he would 'die a martyr' when protests began to destabilise his regime. He called protesters rats and drug addicts. By May, the International Criminal Court prosecutor was seeking his arrest for crimes against humanity.