The Iranian Revolution of 1978 to 1979, heralded a turbulent time in work politics prompting the coming to pair of the Islamic leader, Ayatollah Khomeini and the over throw of the “Shah”, who left the country in 1979. The change in ruler had particular ramifications for the US, which had long supported the Shah’s regime.
When the ailing Shah requested permission to visit the US for medical reasons, the Iranian reaction was one of anger. A hastily planning protest was organized by a group of militant Iranian students calling themselves the Muslim student followers of the Iman’s line but as soon snow balled into something much more significant.
Early in the morning of the fourth of November 1979, the group stormed the American Diplomatic mission in Iran to voice their objections to US influence in Iran. Unexpectedly finding themselves strongly supported by the Ayatollah, now dubbed the supreme leader of Iran. The students extended their protest, which swiftly developed into a hostage situation.
Initially, 63 US diplomats and three other US citizens were held hostage with six other US diplomats escaping during the confusion, taking refuge in the nearby Canadian and Swedish embassies until finally leaving the country using Canadian passports in January 1980.
Most of the women and all but one of the African Americans, 13 hostages all together were released a few weeks later and means hostage taker declarations of solidarity with other oppressed minorities and a special place of women in Islam.
The 52 remaining hostages were in for the long hold however, their ordeal eventually lasting 444 days. During that time of captivity, the hostages were described about their captors as guest of the Ayatollah but their treatment did not reflect such a claim.
Blind folded, they would be paraded before the crowds and media outside and much of the time they were separated from each other and kept in solitary confinement. In the US, President Jimmy Carter decided against their violent response preferring to appeal for the hostages release on humanitarian grounds. Then he sought to put economic and diplomatic pressure in the country by ending all imports from Iran in November 1979 and freezing Iranian assets held in the US.
For in diplomats and ambassadors were allowed to visit the hostages and through them, hostage Bruce Laingen was able to convey messages to the US government. But the crisis stretching out with no feasible and insight, Carter eventually decided more of thirty factions called for.
In April 1980, he gave the Green light to a rescue attempt resulting the failed operation Eagle claw. The botched operation, which featured the helicopters breaking down and another one crashing in the Great Salt desert caused the lives of 5 US airman and three marines and in old probability, cut his own presidential career.
The November 1980 elections saw Carter removed from the White House and a landslide victory for Ronald Reagan and the political starts to fall into alignment with all the hostages released on the 21st of January 1981, minutes after Reagan’s fully sworn in as president, the timing of which still fuels conspiracy theories to this day.
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