inflation

On an October morning in 1956, British paratroopers dropped over Egypt’s Port Said, their boots sinking into sand that had for millennia been the hinge between continents. Behind them, warships churned through the Mediterranean, their prows aimed at the narrow throat of the Suez Canal.

The canal was more than a waterway. It was a political pressure point — one that Britain and France, joined briefly by Israel, believed they could squeeze to preserve their fading imperial influence. They were wrong. The operation collapsed under international condemnation, economic disruption, and the weight of a world shifting toward a new balance of power.