* 1917 – World War I: Arabian troops led by T. E. Lawrence (" Lawrence of Arabia ") and Auda ibu Tayi capture Aqaba from the Ottoman Empire during the Arab Revolt.

* The Suez Canal appears in the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, where it marks the end of T. E. Lawrence's march across the Sinai Peninsula to report to his superiors in Cairo.

* In the film Lawrence of Arabia ( 1962 ) T. E. Lawrence, played by actor Peter O ' Toole, quotes Themistocles saying, " I cannot fiddle, but I can make a great state from a little city.

The late 1950s and 1960s also brought some more thoughtful big war films like Andrei Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood ( 1962 ), David Lean's Bridge on the River Kwai ( 1957 ), and Lawrence of Arabia ( 1962 ) as well as a fashion for all-star epics based on battles which were often quasi-documentary in style and filmed in Europe where extras and production costs were cheaper.

Many 1950s and 1960s war films, including the Oscar-winning films Patton, Lawrence of Arabia, and Spartacus, were shot in Spain, which had large supplies of both Allied and Axis equipment.

Lawrence of Arabia won Best Picture.

** T. E. Lawrence (" Lawrence of Arabia "), British liaison officer during the Arab Revolt, writer, and academic ( d. 1935 )

* December 10 – David Lean's epic film Lawrence of Arabia, featuring Peter O ' Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and Anthony Quinn premieres in London.

* May 19 – T. E. Lawrence ( Lawrence of Arabia ) dies in a motorcycle accident in Dorset, England.

** T. E. Lawrence, English soldier ( Lawrence of Arabia ) ( b. 1888 )

Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 British epic film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence.

In fact, there were numerous British officers such as Colonel Cyril Wilson, Stewart Francis Newcombe and Colonel Pierce C. Joyce, all of whom arrived before Lawrence serving in Arabia.

Even during the war, Lowell Thomas wrote in With Lawrence in Arabia that he could take pictures of him only by tricking him, although Lawrence did later agree to pose for several pictures for Thomas's stage show.

Although the film does show that Lawrence could speak and read Arabic, could quote the Quran, and was reasonably knowledgeable about the region, it barely mentions his archaeological travels from 1911 to 1914 in Syria and Arabia, and ignores his espionage work, including a pre-war topographical survey of the Sinai Peninsula and his attempts to negotiate the release of British prisoners at Kut in Mesopotamia in 1916.

Biographer Michael Korda, author of Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia, offers a different opinion.

When Lawrence of Arabia was first announced, Lawrence's biographer Lowell Thomas offered producer Spiegel and screenwriters Bolt and Wilson a large amount of research material he had produced on Lawrence during and after his time with him in the Arab Revolt.