The Iranian Revolution
A monarchy falls to a mass movement and is replaced by a clerical state.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 75 days
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
The Shah, installed with Anglo-American help after the 1953 coup against Mosaddegh, is overthrown in 1979 by a broad coalition that Khomeini's clerical faction then consolidates into an Islamic Republic. The hostage crisis follows, then eight years of war with Iraq costing perhaps a million lives. It demonstrates that political Islam can take state power, and reorients Middle Eastern politics for the next half century.