Saddam Hussein was born.
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti ( Arabic : صدام حسين عبد المجيد التكريتي ; 28 April 1937 -- 30 December 2006 ) was the fifth President of Iraq , serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003 . Saddam formally rose to power in 1979 , although he had been the de facto head of Iraq for several years prior . In 2003 , a coalition led by the U.S. invaded Iraq to depose Saddam , in which U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair accused him of possessing weapons of mass destruction and having ties to al-Qaeda . On 5 November 2006 , Saddam was convicted of charges of crimes against humanity related to the 1982 killing of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites , and was sentenced to death by hanging .