The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic standoff between the United States and Iran. Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981, after a group of Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Operation Eagle Claw, known as Operation Tabas in Iran, was a United States Armed Forces operation ordered by U.S. President Jimmy Carter to attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis by rescuing 52 embassy staff held captive at the Embassy of the United States, Tehran on 24 April 1980. Its failure, and the humiliating public debacle that ensued, damaged U.S. prestige worldwide. Carter blamed his loss in the 1980 U.S. presidential election mainly on his failure to secure the release of the hostages.
Mark Robert Bowden is an American journalist and writer. He is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He is best known for his book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (1999) about the 1993 U.S. military raid in Mogadishu, Somalia. It was adapted as a motion picture of the same name that received two Academy Awards.
Mehdi Bazargan was an Iranian scholar, academic, long-time pro-democracy activist and head of Iran's interim government, making him Iran's first prime minister after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. He resigned his position as prime minister in November 1979, in protest at the US Embassy takeover and as an acknowledgement of his government's failure in preventing it.
Sadegh Ghotbzadeh was a close aide of Ayatollah Khomeini during his 1978 exile in France, and foreign minister during the Iran hostage crisis following the Iranian Revolution. In 1982, he was executed for allegedly plotting the assassination of Ayatollah Khomeini and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
Death to America is an anti-American political slogan and chant which has been in use in Iran since the inception of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Ayatollah Khomeini, the first leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, popularized the term. He opposed the chant for radio and television, but not for protests and other occasions.
The Grand Mosque seizure occurred during November and December 1979 when armed civilians calling for the overthrow of the House of Saud took over Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The insurgents declared that the Mahdi had arrived in the form of one of their leaders, Mohammed Abdullah al-Qahtani, and called on Muslims to obey him. For nearly two weeks Saudi Special Forces, advised by three GIGN French commandos, fought battles to reclaim the compound.
Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha is an Iranian cleric and secretary general of the reformist Association of Combatant Clerics. He was the founder of the now defunct Salam and is a member of the Expediency Discernment Council.
United States v Iran [1980] ICJ 1 is a public international law case brought to the International Court of Justice by the United States of America against Iran in response to the Iran hostage crisis, where United States diplomatic offices and personnel were seized by militant revolutionaries.
Mahmoud Taleghani was an Iranian theologian, Muslim reformer, democracy advocate and a senior Shi'a cleric of Iran. Taleghani was a contemporary of the Iranian Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and a leader in his own right of the movement against Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. A founding member of the Freedom Movement of Iran, he has been described as a representative of the tendency of many "Shia clerics to blend Shia with Marxist ideals in order to compete with leftist movements for youthful supporters" during the 1960s and 1970s. His "greatest influence" has been said to have been in "his teaching of Quranic exegesis," as many later revolutionaries were his students.
Ebrahim Asgharzadeh is an Iranian political activist and politician. He served as a member of the 3rd Majlis from 1988–1992 and as a member of the first City Council of Tehran from 1999–2003. His career in politics started as one of the leaders of the group Muslim student followers of the Imam's line that took over the American embassy and held American embassy staff hostage for 444 days.
The Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, also called the Muslim Students of the Imam Khomeini Line, was an Iranian student group that occupied the U.S. embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979. The students were supporters of the Islamic Revolution who occupied the embassy to show their support for Ayatollah Khomeini and their outrage that the ex-Shah of Iran was admitted to the United States for cancer treatment, instead of being returned to Iran for trial and execution. The occupation triggered the Iran hostage crisis where 52 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days.
Mohammad Hashemi is an Iranian businessman and former intelligence officer. He was one of "the core group of leaders" of the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line involved in the Iran Hostage Crisis, the first deputy of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security for some years. From 2003 to 2004, when the venture went bankrupt, he was a developer of a proposed vacation resort on the Caspian Sea called Cham Paradise. He is the husband of Masoumeh Ebtekar, another well-known Iranian and former spokesperson for the hostage takers.
This article is a timeline of events relevant to the Islamic Revolution in Iran. For earlier events refer to Pahlavi dynasty and for later ones refer to History of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This article doesn't include the reasons of the events and further information is available in Islamic revolution of Iran.
On June 29, 2005, shortly after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the Iranian presidential election, several major news outlets publicized allegations that he gunned down several Americans in the 1979–1981 Iran Hostage Crisis.
The consolidation of the Iranian Revolution refers to a turbulent process of Islamic Republic stabilization, following the completion of the revolution. After the Shah of Iran and his regime were overthrown by revolutionaries in February 1979, Iran was in a "revolutionary crisis mode" from this time until 1982 or 1983. Its economy and the apparatus of government collapsed. Military and security forces were in disarray.
The Award for Valor is an obsolete award of the United States Department of State. It has since been replaced with the Award for Heroism. It was presented to employees of State, USAID and Marine guards assigned to diplomatic and consular facilities in recognition of acts of valor or outstanding performance under unusually difficult or dangerous circumstances, whether or not in connection with the performance of assigned duties.
The Iran hostage crisis negotiations were negotiations in 1980 and 1981 between the United States Government and the Iranian Government to end the Iranian hostage crisis. The 52 American hostages, seized from the US Embassy in Tehran in November 1979, were finally released on 20 January 1981.
The following lists events that happened during 1981 in Iran.
Victor L. Tomseth is a former American diplomat and U.S. Ambassador (1993–1996) to Laos. He was Deputy Chief of Mission in Tehran, Iran and was among the Americans taken hostage by the Iranians from 1979 to 1981.
