The Nile River was the wellspring of the Egyptian civilization and their Pharaoh was their god king on earth, charged with the responsibility and the divine power to ensure this life-giving river provided for its people. When this failed, it usually also signaled a change in the rulers for this ancient land. Indeed throughout its history, Egypt was ruled by thirty-two different dynasties, and sometimes by foreign rule. In fact from 342BCE. the Egyptian lost control of their own lands, and became a people subject to the rule of Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Ottoman Turks, French, and then the British, with de facto independence gained only after 1952CE.