Shah Overthrown: Iran's Islamic Revolution Victorious
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's revolutionaries seized control of Tehran on February 11, 1979, completing the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had fled Iran three weeks earlier. The Shah had modernized Iran's infrastructure and economy but maintained power through SAVAK, a secret police force notorious for torture and political disappearances. Khomeini, who had spent fourteen years in exile in Iraq and France, returned to Tehran on February 1 to crowds estimated at five million people. Within months, he consolidated power by establishing a theocratic government that merged Islamic law with republican institutions under the concept of velayat-e faqih, or guardianship of the Islamic jurist. The revolution transformed Iran from America's closest Middle Eastern ally into its most vocal antagonist. The seizure of the US Embassy in November 1979 and the 444-day hostage crisis that followed cemented this hostility for decades.
February 11, 1979
47 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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