Childhood: 1942/43–50
Muammar Gaddafi was born in a tent near Qasr Abu Hadi, a rural area outside the town of Sirte in the deserts of western Libya.[13] His family came from a small, relatively un-influential tribal group called the Qadhadhfa,[14] who were Arabized Berber in heritage.[15] His father, Mohammad Abdul Salam bin Hamed bin Mohammad, was known as Abu Meniar (died 1985), and his mother was named Aisha (died 1978); Abu Meniar earned a meager subsistence as a goat and camel herder.[14] Nomadic Bedouins, they were illiterate and kept no birth records.[16] As such, Gaddafi's date of birth is not known with certainty, and sources have set it in 1942 or in the spring of 1943, although biographers Blundy and Lycett noted that it could have been pre-1940.[16] His parents' only surviving son, he had three older sisters.[16] Gaddafi's upbringing in Bedouin culture influenced his personal tastes for the rest of his life. He repeatedly expressed a
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Led by Gaddafi, they met clandestinely and were organised into a clandestine cell system, offering their salaries into a single fund.[36] Gaddafi travelled around Libya gathering intelligence and developing connections with sympathisers, but the government's intelligence services ignored him, considering him little threat.[37]
Graduating in August 1965,[38] Gaddafi became a communications officer in the army's signal corps.[38] In April 1966, he was assigned to the United Kingdom for further training; over 9 months he underwent an English-language course at Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, an Army Air Corps signal instructors course in Bovington Camp, Dorset, and an infantry signal instructors course at Hythe, Kent.[39] Despite later rumours to the contrary, he did not attend the Royal Military Academy