Great Figures of Algeria
A small museum of the people who shaped Algerian history — explore their stories, why they matter, and one striking fact each.
🕵️ Try the Guess the Figure quizHe lived to nearly 90 and was said to ride at the head of his cavalry well into old age.
When marched in chains through Rome, he is said to have cried out: "Rome is for sale."
Her nickname "al-Kahina" means "the soothsayer" — given by chroniclers impressed by her foresight in battle.
Years later, in exile in Damascus, he saved thousands of Christians during sectarian violence — an act that earned him medals from across the world.
His failed defense of Constantine in 1837 still cost the French one of their highest-ranking officers in the campaign.
She was barely in her twenties when her name began to spread across Kabyle villages as a symbol of hope.
After his death in battle, his brother Boumezrag took over the revolt and kept the fight alive for months.
He insisted on two famous principles: the priority of the political over the military, and of the interior over the exterior.
He spent years in the maquis without ever sleeping in the same place two nights in a row.
Asked about "bombs in baskets", he is famously remembered to have answered: give us your planes, we will give you our baskets.
His remains were hidden for decades after independence and only returned to a public resting place in 1984.
His 1943 "Manifesto of the Algerian People" became one of the founding texts of modern Algerian nationalism.
Much of the Muqaddimah was written at the castle of Qal'at Ibn Salama, in present-day Tiaret region.
He kept a journal during the war that was published after his death and remains a key document of those years.
Her real name was Fatma-Zohra Imalayène; she chose her pen name as a young writer.
His song "A Vava Inouva" was translated into more than a dozen languages and broadcast across continents.
He survived a serious shooting and a kidnapping before being assassinated in 1998 — events that deeply marked Algerian society.
He died in Roman captivity, ending the western Numidian kingdom as an independent power.
His son, Juba II, would later be raised in Rome and become a famous scholar-king of Mauretania.
He married Cleopatra Selene II, daughter of Cleopatra VII of Egypt and Mark Antony.
His war lasted nearly seven years before he was finally killed in battle.
He died in Hippo in 430 AD as the Vandals besieged the city.
He greatly expanded the Roman city of Lambaesis (Lambèse) in present-day Batna province.
He died in battle near Mams in present-day Algeria around 688 AD.
Tahert was nicknamed "the Iraq of the Maghreb" for its diversity of scholars and traders.
His dynasty ruled Tlemcen and its hinterland for more than three centuries.
His shrine in El Eubbad, near Tlemcen, has drawn pilgrims for centuries.
He became Grand Admiral of the Ottoman fleet under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.
He was killed in 1815 in a sea battle against a U.S. squadron led by Commodore Decatur.
The 1775 defeat became a humiliation in Spain that delayed further attempts on Algiers for years.
He continued resistance from across the Moroccan border for many years.
He was arrested at over 80 years old and died in detention shortly after.
He escaped from death row in Constantine prison before returning to the maquis.
He was barely 28 years old when he died.
After independence he served as president of the National Assembly for many years.
His televised assassination in June 1992 shocked Algerian society.
He was overthrown in 1965 and spent many years under house arrest before a long exile.
Under his rule, Algeria nationalized its hydrocarbons sector in 1971.
His followers, called Messalists, came into deep conflict with the FLN during the war.
He led an armed opposition movement in Kabylie in 1963 against the new central power.
August 20 is also the date of the Soummam Congress one year later — both now national days.
She was killed in 1957 in the explosion of the safehouse of Ali La Pointe in the Casbah.
He was killed with comrades in October 1957 when French paratroopers blew up his Casbah safehouse.
International protests led to her death sentence being commuted, and she was freed at independence.
Pablo Picasso drew her portrait, which appeared on the cover of a famous book about her case.
His book "The Wretched of the Earth" was written while he was already gravely ill.
He famously called the French language "a spoil of war" for Algerian writers.
The cancellation of one of his lectures in 1980 helped trigger the "Berber Spring" in Kabylie.
His first novel, "La Grande Maison", appeared in 1952, before the war of independence.
After independence he chose silence in French rather than continue writing in a language he saw as imposed.
He withdrew almost entirely from public life in his later years, adding to his legend.
He performed for decades at the Casbah's cafés and helped raise chaâbi to national stages.
Her songs were broadcast on Radio Algiers in support of the FLN as a teenager.
His song "Aïcha" became a hit across Europe in the late 1990s.
She has long collaborated on research about Pierre Bourdieu's early Algerian fieldwork.
Emperor Caligula reportedly had him executed for wearing a too-splendid purple cloak.
His Apologia is one of antiquity's earliest surviving courtroom speeches in self-defence.
His brother Gildo would later launch a second major rebellion against Rome.
Gibraltar takes its name from Jabal Tariq — "Tariq's mountain."
His city of Ashir, in the central Algerian highlands, was praised as a model of Berber urban design.
He is often named as the founder of medieval Algiers (al-Jazair).
The ruins of Qal'at Bani Hammad are today a UNESCO World Heritage site.
He founded the city of Marrakesh as the Almoravid capital in 1070.
He died before his movement seized power; his disciples carried his project forward.
Under him, the Almohad capital at Marrakesh became a major intellectual centre.
He lost an arm in battle and was nicknamed "Silver-Arm" for the prosthetic he wore.
He died of plague in 1556, just before launching another major campaign.
From his rule onward, the dey of Algiers was effectively the country's true ruler.
His example helped pave the way for Lalla Fatma N'Soumer's later resistance.
He fought alongside the rising of Ouled Sidi Cheikh against the French.
The Ouled Sidi Cheikh revolts kept large French forces tied down in the south for years.
He was deported by the French to New Caledonia for years before being allowed to return.
He stepped aside in 1962 amid the political crisis that followed independence.