| "I
hereby find that the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defense of the United
States" Franklin Delano Roosevelt (letter to Stettinius, February 18, 1943) in
Petrodollar Warfare, p. 43 |
"In
Saudi Arabia's eastern province of Hasa, Shiites make up one third of the population. Hasa
has more than seven hundred oil wells, accounting for 98 percent of the country's
production, which made the royals uneasy as Shiite tensions rose. - Secrets of the
Kingdom, p. 119 Majority
of Saudi Men Support Women's Rights |
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Saudi men in headscarf
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Saudi woman in full veil
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Iranian President
Khatami visited Riyadh in early May 1999, to strengthen ties between two countries |
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| Cities |
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- Riyadh (4,260,000)
- Jeddah (3,400,000)
- Madinah (1,300,000)
- Makkah (1,294,167)
- Dammam (690,000)
- Ta'if (521,273)
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- Qatif (474,573)
- Khamis Mushait (446,467)
- Tabuk (441,351)
- Buraidah (378,422)
- Hofuf (287,841)
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King Faisal's Great Fountain of
Jeddah (largest in world
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Floating Mosque of Jeddah
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| Demographics |
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- Population: 27,019,731
- Life Expectancy: 75.67 years
- Literacy: 78.8%
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- Median Age: 21.4 years
- Suffrage: adult male citizens age 21 or older
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King Abdullah Emerges from Holy Kaba
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Riyadh Desert
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Kingdom Tower in Riyadh
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| Geographics |
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- Land size: slightly more than one-fifth the size of the US
- total: 1,960,582 sq km
- water: 0 sq km
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Jazan Region
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Asir Region
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| History |
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- Ibn
Saud Invites Wahhab To Settle (1740)
- House of Saud
Conquers Mecca (1802)
- Ottoman-Saudi
War (1811-1818)
- Saudi Arabia Established (1932)
- Oil first discovered in Saudi Arabia (1938)
- Suez War (Sinai War, Suez Crisis) (1956)
- Oil Shocks (1973-1974)
- King Faisal promotes Sudan as "Bread-Basket"
- King Faisal assassinated (1975)
- Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan (1979)
- Terrorists drive by King Fahd's palace, shooting several times at the
entrance September 15, 1993
- Taliban recognized by only three countries: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and
United Arab Emirates
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- Saudi delegation led by Crown Prince Abdullah attended
the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit in Tehran, a first step towards
normalized relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, following the Khobar Towers bombing,
December 1997.
- Former President Rafsanjani traveled to Saudi Arabia for
a ten day visit, aimed at healing relations between the two countries, in the wake of the
Khobar Towers bombing. February 26, 1998.
- Housed Ugandan mass-murderer Idi Amin in exile from 1979 until his death
in 2003
- Taliban Revolution
- 15 schoolgirls burn to death when Saudi religious police prohibited
them from leaving a burning girl's school unveiled in Mecca, March 2002
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Riyadh International Airport
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Market
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