born April 28, 1937 , Tikrit, Iraq
Hussein grew up in Auja, a village of mud-brick huts northwest of Baghdad. His parents were poor farmers, but inspired by his uncle Khayrallah Tulfah, an Iraqi army officer and crusader for Arab unity, Hussein gravitated to politics as a teenager
Saddam joined the socialist Baath party when he was 19 (1957). In 1959 he participated in an unsuccessful attempt by Ba'thists to assassinate the Iraqi prime minister