TIMELINE IRANIAN REVOLUTION

Timeline Iranian revolution

1941

One of his sons, Mohammad, ascends to the throne

1970s

The propaganda of decline

1953

A tête-à-tête between Mohammad Mosaddegh, CIA and MI6

April 1 1979

The Islamic republic

November 9 1979

1941

The first crisis

January 1978

Along with Russia, the U.K. pushed Reza Shah into exile in 1941

The beginning of the revolution

Protest and Revolution

In January 1978, incensed by what they considered to be slanderous remarks made against Khomeini in Eṭṭelāʿāt, a Tehrān newspaper, protests began but were considered by the shah to be part of an international conspiracy against him.Thus, in spite of all government efforts, a cycle of violence began in which each death fueled further protest, and all protes was subsumed under the cloak of Shiʿi Islam and crowned by the revolutionary rallying cry Allāhu akbar (“God is great”), which could be heard at protests and which issued from the rooftops in the evenings. On September 8 the regime imposed martial law, and troops opened fire against demonstrators in Tehrān, killing dozens or hundreds. Weeks later, government workers began to strike. On October 31, oil workers also went on strike, bringing the oil industry to a halt, on December 10, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Tehrān alone. In January 1979 the shah and his family fled Iran.

The monarchy

The United Kingdom helped Reza Shah Pahlavi establish a monarchy in 1921, but then the U.K. kicked him out in 1941 for place his son in his place.

Tête-à-tête

In 1953, amid a power struggle between Mohammed Reza Shah and PM Mohammad Mosaddegh, CIA and MI6 orchestrated a coup against Mosaddegh’s government. Years later, Mohammad Reza Shah dismissed the parliament and launched the White Revolution.

Propaganda

Thousands of tapes and print copies of Khomeini’s speeches were smuggled back into Iran during the 1970s as an increasing number of unemployed and working-poor Iranians, mostly new migrants from the countryside, who were disenchanted by the cultural vacuum of modern urban Iran, turned to the ulama for guidance.

In addition to mounting economic difficulties, sociopolitical repression by the shah’s regime increased in the 1970s. Outlets for political participation were minimal, and opposition parties were marginalized or outlawed. Social and political protest was often met with censorship, surveillance, or harassment, and illegal detention and torture were common.

The new order

On April 1, following overwhelming support in a national referendum, Khomeini declared Iran an Islamic republic. Elements within the clergy promptly moved to exclude their former left-wing, nationalist, and intellectual allies from any positions of power in the new regime, and a return to conservative social values was enforced.

The first crisis

The militias and the clerics they supported made every effort to suppress Western cultural influence, and, facing persecution and violence, many of the Western-educated elite fled the country. This anti-Western sentiment eventually manifested itself in the November 1979 seizure of 66 hostages at the U.S. embassy by a group of Iranian protesters demanding the extradition of the shah, who at that time was undergoing medical treatment in the United States