This could just kind of fizzle out, like 1848 did in Europe, but this is a rather graphic illustration of the breadth and scope of the protests.

Note that there are a number of factors that make this much more significant than Tunisia:

• Unlike Tunisia, the population is almost exclusively, and strongly Arab (Tunisia has significant Berber influences).
• Egypt has the largest population of any Arab nation in the world, having almost 30% of the world’s Arab population.
• It has been a center of Arab nationalism and Islamic thought for hundreds of years.

Even in the best case, I don’t imagine that this will result  in the spontaneous creation of a modern democracy with civil rights, but I do think that any changes would be an improvement over the current corrupt and brutal status quo.