Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq was a Pakistani general who ruled Pakistan from his coup in 1977 until his death in an airplane crash in 1988. He served as the chief martial law administrator from 1977 to 1985, and as the president of Pakistan from 1978 until his death. Zia was also the chief of the army staff of the Pakistan Army from 1976. He remains Pakistan's longest-serving de-facto ruler to date, and his political ideology is known as Ziaism.
Biography from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Also born on August 12
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