In 1969, a young army officer named Muammar Gaddafi overthrew Libya’s monarchy and declared a revolution promising to return the nation’s oil wealth to its people.

Over the next four decades, he transformed Libya into one of Africa’s most prosperous states, built the Great Man-Made River, and dreamed of a United States of Africa, complete with a gold-backed currency that could free the continent from Western control.

But in 2011, NATO launched a so-called “humanitarian war” that ended with Gaddafi’s death, and the collapse of one of Africa’s boldest experiments in independence.

This episode dives deep into Gaddafi’s Pan-African vision, Libya’s transformation, and how global powers conspired to destroy it, exposing the pattern of modern imperialism that still shapes Africa today.