Sa'ud, having consolidated Najd, leads his father's army west to the Ottoman Hejaz on the northwestern coast of Arabia in 1802; his goal, the capture of Mecca itself.

The people of At-Ta'if, forty miles from Mecca, resist the invading Sa'udis and are slaughtered.

The terrified citizens of Mecca open their gates to avoid a similar fate.

Meeting no resistance, the Sa'udi forces pillage the town, sack the sacred places, and prevent pilgrims from performing Haij, robbing them of their belongings.

Ibn Sa'ud's Ikhwan, prosecuting their 1924 campaign against Caliph Husayn, besiege At-Ta'if outside Mecca, and massacre several hundred of its male inhabitants.

Cultural life in the new Sa’udi kingdom flourishes, primarily in the Hejaz, which is the center for newspapers and radio.

Although the kingdom retains its fundamentalist, puritanical principles, the Saudis tolerate some of the practices that had taken root in the Hejaz and other areas as the result of foreign contacts.

The ban on music, for example, is progressively circumvented by the radio, which the Saudis employ as a tool to unite the kingdom and increase military efficiency.

The primary basis of the kingdom's revenues—the pilgrimage, customs duties, and taxes—continue to decrease as a result of the world economic depression of the 1930s.

The United States military establishes its primary air command at Taif Air Base, a two-hour drive from Jiddah, and even closer to Mecca, the holiest city of Islam, at the invitation of the Saudi government.

Osama bin Laden and many others regard this as an occupation of the cradle of Islam by armed infidels.

The dissident movement in the country gathers force, seeking to oust the Saudi government, which is closely allied to US interests.

However, as many of Saudi Arabia's citizens derive their living from either the government or the US troops, it is not in their economic interests to change governments.