Uthman establishes Jiddah, a port in the Hejaz on the Red Sea for Muslim pilgrims making the required Hajj to Mecca, forty-five miles (seventy-two kilometers) east.

The Mamluk fleet, under Amir Husain Al-Kurdi, leaves Suez in November and travels by sea to Jidda, where they fortify the city.

The fleet then prepares to depart for Aden.

This coincides with the dispatch of the seventh Portuguese India armada into the Indian Ocean, under Francisco de Almeida.

Ibn Sa'ud changes his title of sultan of Nejd in 1927 to king of Nejd and its dependencies, the two parts of his dual kingdom being administered for the time being as separate units.

In this year also, the Treaty of Jiddah, negotiated by him with Sir Gilbert Clayton, places his relations with Great Britain on a permanent footing as the British fully acknowledge Sa'udi independence.

The Sa'udis sponsor Muslim conferences in the Hejaz that result in the legitimization of their presence as rulers.

Construction magnate Sheik Muhammad bin Laden reportedly helps to forge an alliance between King Sa'd and his half-brother, Crown Prince Faisal, who serves as Foreign Minister.

When Saud is deposed by religious leaders, senior members of the ruling family, and the Council of Ministers, bin Laden is reportedly among the few people who succeeded in convincing King Sa'ud to abdicate, thus allowing his brother to assume the Saudi throne, as King Faisal, in November 1964.

A grateful Faisal issues a royal decree that every contractor must work through bin Laden, who becomes Saudi Arabia's leading construction magnate.

On his death in a plane crash near San Antonio, Texas, in 1968, Sheik Muhammed leaves behind not only an industrial and financial estate, but also a progeny made up of fifty-two sons and daughters, the fruit of ten marriages.

The lastborn entered the world in 1967.

Osama, eleven or twelve at the time of his father's death, may have inherited any where from $20 million to $80 million to as much as $300 million -- estimates vary.

Osama, or Usama, bin Muhammed bin Awas bin Laden (rhymes with sadden), his father's seventeenth son, is born July 30, 1957 to a family of Yemeni origins.

His mother was Palestinian or Syrian, one of several wives of Muhammed bin Oud bin Laden, a member of a Chafeite (Sunni) family from Hadhramaut in east-central Yemen (a part of the former South Yemen) who earned local fame as successful merchants and businessmen.

Muhammed bin Laden migrated north to Arabia at the beginning of the twentieth century, according to some sources, or, according to others, in 1932.

After moving to Jiddah, he reportedly worked as either a laborer or a bricklayer and, in three years, became one of the biggest building contractors in Saudi Arabia, but the circumstances of his rise remain shrouded in mystery.

Supposedly, having satisfied King Abdul Aziz with construction work on the royal palace, Muhammed bin Laden was awarded a much more prestigious contract: the renovation of Mecca.

In the late '50s or early '60s, he reportedly convinced King Abdul Aziz' ibn Sa'ud's son and successor, King Sa'ud, to take over the bid to build one or two of his palaces.

From that time, bin Laden became the royal family's official building contractor.

The Saudi royal family gave the bin Laden family and construction group exclusive rights to all construction of a religious nature, whether in Mecca, Medina, or the Holy Places in Jerusalem.

King Faysal, who dies on March 25, 1975, requests in a will to his brothers that they look after the late Muhammad bin Laden's sons, whose collective inheritance is estimated to be anywhere from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars.

As a teenager, Osama is said to have flown often to Beirut, Lebanon, where he reportedly partied in casinos and nightclubs, chased women, and got into occasional brawls.

However, these reports may have Osama confused with one of his twenty half-brothers.

He enrolls in Jiddah's King Abdul Aziz University at eighteen, reportedly to study civil engineering.

Osama bin Laden graduates from Jiddah's King Abdul Aziz University in 1979 or 1981. (Some sources have him graduating with a degree in civil engineering in 1979; others credit him with a degree in management and economics, and still others with a degree in public administration earned in 1981.)

Osama bin Laden returns a hero, following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989, to work in the family business, the Bin Laden Construction Group, but his radical Islamic contacts cause friction with Saudi authorities, and the government prohibits him from leaving the country.

He reportedly has a revelation that Iraq's ruler, Saddam Hussein, will invade Saudi Arabia and writes confidential letters to the king, as well as speaks of it in the mosques.

He warns those who will listen of the dangers of Ba'ath (Renaissance)—the Arab political party advocating the formation of a single Arab socialist nation—and their ambitions, in the person of Saddam—to invade Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

The government, displeased by bin Laden's speeches, advises him to stay in Jiddah, and places him under a sort of house arrest.

Osama bin Laden suggests to the Saudi government, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, that he bring together all his supporters and, with them under his command, defend the country.

Instead, the Saudi government responds by permitting the US to establish bases in Saudi Arabia, and places bin Laden under genuine house arrest.

Osama bin Laden, still under house arrest in Jiddah, denounces the House of Saud for allowing US troops into the country, but he is protected by his family's wealth from serious punishment.

Using his brothers' influence, he gains permission from the government to return briefly to Pakistan to finish some political business there, and promises to return promptly to Saudi Arabia.