Armed Forces Day

Armed Forces Day, public holiday observed in Egypt on October 6, celebrating the day in 1973 when combined Egyptian and Syrian military forces launched a surprise attack on Israel and crossed into the Sinai Peninsula, which marked the beginning of the October (Yom Kippur) War. (Read Britannica’s 1980 interview with Anwar Sadat.) Egyptian Pres. Anwar Sadat planned the attack in an attempt to bolster Egyptian and Arab morale and to regain control of the Sinai...