The Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire breaks out.
The Arab Revolt (Arabic: الثورة العربية, al-Thawra al-‘Arabiyya; Turkish: Arap İsyanı) or the Great Arab Revolt (الثورة العربية الكبرى, al-Thawra al-‘Arabiyya al-Kubrá) was a military uprising of Arab forces against the Ottoman Empire in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. On the basis of the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence, an agreement between the British government and Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, the revolt was officially initiated at Mecca on June 10, 1916. The aim of the revolt was to create a single unified and independent Arab state stretching from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen, which the British had promised to recognize.
The Sharifian Army led by Hussein and the Hashemites, with military backing from the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force, successfully fought and expelled the Ottoman military presence from much of the Hejaz and Transjordan. The rebellion eventually took Damascus and set up the Arab Kingdom of Syria, a short-lived monarchy led by Faisal, a son of Hussein.
Following the Sykes–Picot Agreement, the Middle East was later partitioned by the British and French into mandate territories rather than a unified Arab state, and the British reneged on their promise to support a unified independent Arab state.