Mustapha Kemal – celebrated in history as Kemal Atat?rk – swept Turkey into the 20th century when he was elected the country’s president in 1923. His new laws included replacing an Islamic state with a liberal secular one, and that didn’t make him everyone’s favourite.

Zir Hurshid and 14 co-conspirators decided that the reformist president must die. They planned to assassinate him outside a hotel in Istanbul, but the plot was betrayed. The conspirators were found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death.

On Wednesday, July 14th 1926, five were hanged outside the hotel where the assassination was to have taken place and the other 10, all soldiers, were hanged in a public park near their barracks. Each had a note hung around his neck saying that his crime was attempting to murder the man “who is the saviour of Turkey’s honour.”

Kemal Atat?rk continued to lead the country until his death in 1938. To date this has been the only serious attempt to overthrow Turkey’s secular aspirations.