Facts about Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak

Key events in the rule of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

- Mubarak took office in 1981 after his predecessor Anwar Sadat was assassinated by Islamic militants during a military parade. Mubarak, Sadat's vice president, escaped with only a minor hand injury.

- In 1981, Mubarak implemented emergency laws, which expand police powers and sharply curtailed rights to demonstrate and organize politically. The restrictions were meant to stifle the Islamic militant movement.

- In one of his first moves, he reasserted that Egypt would stick to the landmark 1979 peace treaty with Israel signed by Sadat, the first by any Arab nation with the Jewish state. The contentious treaty was one of the reasons Islamic militants assassinated Sadat.

- Mubarak became a major mediator in the Arab-Israeli peace process. He remained a consistent ally of the United States, bolstered by billions in U.S. aid because the peace with Israel.

- During the 1990s, militants launched a violent uprising aimed at deposing Mubarak and setting up an Islamic state. Gunmen attacked police, assassinated politicians and targeted one of the cornerstones of Egypt's economy by carrying out bloody shootings and bombings of foreign tourists. In 1995, militants attempted to assassinate Mubarak as he visited Ethiopia.

- Mubarak responded by arresting thousands, crushing the movement by 1997.

- Throughout his reign, Mubarak prized stability in the country above all else, maintaining it even if it meant a widely criticized human rights record and a regime many saw as riven by corruption. Under the emergency laws, police and internal security forces gained enormous power by leading the fight against Islamic militants but also became infamous among Egyptians for torture, bribe-taking and other abuses.

- Under Mubarak, government subsidized goods like bread, cooking oil and diesel gasoline became fixtures of Egyptian society. When bread riots turned violent in 2008, he fired up military ovens to help quell popular discontent.

- He marshaled constitutional amendments that critics said gave free rein to security forces and guaranteed ruling party victories in presidential and parliament elections. In one amendment, he banned religious political parties, constitutionally preventing the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's strongest opposition force, from ever forming a party and officially participating in political life.

- Mubarak was re-elected three times in staged, one-man referendums in which he routinely won more than 90 percent approval.

- In 2005, Mubarak allowed the first ever multi-candidate presidential elections, which he won easily over 10 other candidates amid charges of voter fraud and intimidation.

- In the following parliamentary elections, when the Brotherhood won a surprising number of parliamentary seats, Mubarak responded with a widespread political crackdown. He crippled other secular opposition parties, arresting rival presidential candidate Ayman Nour. Police arrested mass numbers of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most popular but outlawed opposition party.

- The subsequent 2011 parliamentary elections were widely deplored as rigged, and the Muslim Brotherhood responded by withdrawing all its candidates.

- His reign of nearly 30 years is the longest Egypt has seen in nearly 150 years.