Free French

State · 1940–1944 CE · at its largest around 1942 CE

Refusing France's surrender, Charles de Gaulle rallied resistance from London with his radio appeal of 18 June 1940. Free French forces fought from Africa's deserts at Bir Hakeim to the liberation of Paris, earning France a place among the victors.

On its lands while it lasted

Benito Mussolini (1883 CE – 1945 CE): Founder of Italian Fascism who ruled Italy as dictator from 1922 to 1943 and allied with Hitler. He was executed by Italian partisans in 1945.
David Ben-Gurion (1886 CE – 1973 CE): Zionist leader who proclaimed the State of Israel in 1948 and served as its first prime minister.
Haile Selassie (1892 CE – 1975 CE): Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974 who appealed to the League of Nations against the Italian invasion; deposed by the Derg military junta in 1974.
Josip Broz Tito (1892 CE – 1980 CE): Leader of the Yugoslav Partisans in World War II and ruler of socialist Yugoslavia from 1945 until his death, a founder of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Jomo Kenyatta (c. 1897 CE – 1978 CE): Kenyan anti-colonial activist imprisoned by the British, who became Kenya's first prime minister and president after independence in 1963.
Habib Bourguiba (1903 CE – 2000 CE): Tunisian nationalist leader who led the country to independence from France in 1956 and was its first president until 1987.
Kwame Nkrumah (1909 CE – 1972 CE): Leader of Ghana's independence movement, its first prime minister and president, and a leading advocate of Pan-Africanism.
Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918 CE – 1970 CE): Egypt's leader from 1954 until his death, a champion of Arab nationalism who nationalized the Suez Canal and built the Aswan High Dam.
British Mandate for Palestine (1920–1948 CE): Britain administered Palestine under a League of Nations mandate that included the Balfour Declaration's commitment to a Jewish national home, amid growing Arab–Jewish conflict.
Pope John Paul II (1920 CE – 2005 CE): Karol Wojtyla of Kraków became the first non-Italian pope in 455 years in 1978. His papacy, until 2005, supported the end of communism in Poland.
Idi Amin (c. 1925 CE – 2003 CE): Military dictator of Uganda from 1971 to 1979 whose regime killed an estimated 100,000 to 500,000 people and expelled the country's Asian minority in 1972.
Patrice Lumumba (1925 CE – 1961 CE): First prime minister of the independent Congo, deposed months after independence and executed in Katanga in January 1961.
Vichy (c. 1940 CE): Capital of Vichy France (1940–1943).
Muammar Gaddafi (c. 1942 CE – 2011 CE): Seized power in a 1969 coup and ruled Libya for 42 years until he was overthrown and killed in the 2011 civil war.
Second Battle of El Alamein (1942 CE): British Commonwealth forces under Bernard Montgomery defeated the German–Italian army of Erwin Rommel, a turning point of the North African campaign.