Iranian Revolution
The 1978–1979 mass revolution that overthrew Iran’s Pahlavi monarchy and established the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
White Revolution: A reform program launched by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1963 that expanded land reform, education, and women's suffrage. Its rapid, state-directed reforms reshaped society while intensifying opposition to the shah.
Black Friday (Iran): The September 8, 1978 killing of demonstrators by Iranian security forces in Tehran's Jaleh Square. The deaths intensified unrest and undermined claims that the state could restore order.
Mehdi Bazargan: An Iranian engineer and politician who headed the provisional government formed after the monarchy fell. His premiership marked the brief effort to govern through a moderate, constitutional transition.
Islamic Republic of Iran: Iran's political system, founded in 1979, combining elected institutions with clerical oversight. It was the revolutionary order established after the monarchy was abolished.
Iranian constitutional revolution: Iran's 1905–1911 revolution that established a constitution and parliament while challenging royal power. It pursued constitutional limits on monarchy, unlike the 1979 revolution's eventual clerical state.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi: Iran's last monarch, who ruled from 1941 until his overthrow in 1979. His centralization of power and modernization policies became major targets of revolutionary protest.
Iranian Revolution strikes: Work stoppages during 1978–1979 that disrupted Iranian industries, government offices, and oil production. Strikes weakened the monarchy's revenue and administrative control.
Shapour Bakhtiar: Iran's last prime minister under the Pahlavi monarchy, appointed in January 1979. His government attempted reforms but could not prevent the monarchy's collapse.
Iran hostage crisis: The 1979–1981 seizure of the United States Embassy in Tehran and detention of its staff. The crisis hardened the new republic's conflict with the United States.
Iranian national movement: A mid-twentieth-century movement seeking Iranian sovereignty, especially over oil and foreign policy. Its nationalist goals overlapped with, but did not determine, the revolution's religious and political outcomes.