On August 19, 1953, United States and British covert spy agencies CIA and MI-6 overthrew the government of Iran led by democratically elected Mohammad Mossaddegh and reinstated the Shah (King), Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Digging Deeper
Pahlavi had first taken power when his father abdicated during World War II. The impetus for overthrowing the elected government by the US and Britain was not only to gain an important ally on the borders of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but also because Iran was attempting to nationalize their oil industry to the detriment of American and British oil companies.
Installing the Shah as a Western puppet served as a bulwark against the Soviets and calmed the consternation of Western oil firms. Unfortunately, the Shah, a secular oriented Muslim lost the support of his conservative Islamic people and was overthrown himself in the 1979 revolution. The King of Kings (Shahanshah) as he called himself was forced to flee into exile and never returned to Iran, dying only a year later.
