Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (; ; ; 20 October 2011), commonly known as Colonel Gaddafi, was a Libyan revolutionary and politician who governed Libya as its primary leader from 1969 to 2011. Taking power in a coup d'etat, he ruled as Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then as the "Brotherly Leader" of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011, when he was ousted in the Libyan Civil War. Initially developing his own variant of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism known as the Third International Theory, he later embraced Pan-Africanism and served as Chairperson of the African Union from 2009 to 2010.