Twenty-nine years ago, on February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini landed in Tehran after a 25-year exile. Ten days later, he dissolved the monarchy and established the Islamic Republic of Iran, nearly four weeks after the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, sick with lymphoma and unable to control his kingdom, had fled the country.
For months before Khomeini's arrival, millions of Iranians demonstrated against the Shah. He had domineered Iran since the CIA's 1953 coup that ousted the nation's first democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq. While the army, trying to impose order, killed thousands of demonstrators, and strikes of all kinds were crippling Iran's economy, Khomeini consolidated power from his perch of exile in France. By November 1979, Iranian student militants took over the American Embassy in Tehran and kept its personnel hostage for 444 days. That event has marred American policy toward Iran for nearly three decades.
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