Iran (Persia)

        Iran was once called Persia. The Iranians, an Indo-European group related to the Aryans of India, came from the East during the 2d millennium B.C. and took over an earlier agricultural civilization.

        In 549 B.C. Cyrus the Great [590-529 B.C.] united the Medes and Persians in the Persian Empire, conquered Babylonia in 538 B.C., and restored Jerusalem to the Jews. During his 21-year reign he extended the empire from the Indus River to the Mediterranean Sea.
        Darius I [549-485 B.C.] attemped to conquer the Greek mainland and failed September 15, 490 BC in the [3a] Battle of Marathon. The Persian army of 15,000 was repulsed by 11,000 Greeks under the leadership of Miltiades, who sent a soldier to take word of the victory back to Athens. Pheidippides [?-490 BC] ran the entire 42,192 meters, delivered his message, and then fell dead of exhaustion. Thus began a long period of conflict between Persia and Greece.

        The eunuch Bagoas [?-336 BC] attempted to rule Persia from behind the thrones of Arses and then, after murdering him, Darius III [380-330 BC] until Darius made him drink his own poison and began to rule for himself. Alexander the Great [356-323 BC] and his beloved horse Bucephalus [355-326 BC] led 5,000 cavalry and 30,000 foot soldiers against a Persian army and Memnon's [380-333 BC] Greek mercenaries at the Battle of the Granicus River. Alexander followed this victory with another against the main Persian army under Darius himself at the Battle of Issus, where he captured Darius' mother Sisygambis, his wife and daughters, and Memnon's Persian widow Barsine [363-309 BC]. Barsine bore him a son named Heracles [-309 BC]. Alexander's army swept down into Egypt and across to Babylon and Persepolis, the capital of the Persian Empire. Darius was murdered by Bessus [?-329 BC] who then declared himself king, only to be turned over to Alexander. Before moving on Alexander took another Persian wife in 327 BC. Deeply in love, Roxana [before 341-316 BC] followed him into India and back to Babylon, where she gave birth after his death to Alexander IV Aegus.
        All his wives and children died as Alexander the Great's family and generals fought over and split up the territory he had conquered. Eventually, in the next century, Persians regained their independence under the Parthians, and then, Sassanian Persians in A.D. 226.

        In 226 the [5a] Sassanian dynasty was inaugurated by the rebel prince Ardashir, grandson of Sassan, who 12 years earlier gained control of the region surrounding Persepolis and then defeated Artabanus IV at Hormuz.
        Arabs brought Islam to Persia, replacing the indigenous Zoroastrian faith. In 642 the Battle of Nehawand (Niharvand) gave Arabs a final victory over the Persians and ended 4 centuries of Sassanian rule. Although Yezdigird III, a grandson of the late Chosroes II (Khosro Parviz), appealed to the Chinese emperor for help, his provinces were added to the Arabian caliphate, and he was murdered in a miller's hut near Merv in 651.

        After Persians took back their political and cultural independence in the 9th century, the arts and sciences flourished for several centuries. Persian mathematician Muusa al-Khowarizm wrote a book in 835 on arithmetic procedures.

Gushtasp Slays the Wolf

        [7a] Persian poet Abu'l-Quasim "Firdawsi" Mansur [935-1020] presented his great illustrated epic poem [7b] The Book of Kings (Shahnameh) to the Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni in 1010. It is a story of the kings of Persia from mythical times down to the reign of Khosrow II (590-628). Dissatisfied with his reward the author added a hundred verses of satire about the sultan that were later expunged.

        In 1258 Persia's Hulagu Khan [1217-1265] routed the last army of the eastern Abbasid caliphate January 17; his Mongols looted Baghdad February 10, massacred tens of thousands in a single week, and ended the caliphate that had ruled from Baghdad since 762, making it one of the world's great centers of learning and culture.

        In 1380 Timur the Lame [1336-1405] and his Mongol-Turkish army invaded Persia. In 1453 the White Sheep dynasty that ruled Persia until 1490 came to power in the person of Uzun Hasan [1423-1478], who extended Turkoman authority over Armenia, Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, and Iran.

        In 1501 Persia's Alwand of the White Sheep was defeated at the Battle of Shurur by the young Safavid leader Ismail [1487-1524]. Beginning the next year the Safavid dynasty that ruled Persia until 1736 was founded by the rebel leader Ismail, who had himself proclaimed shah. He reigned until 1524 and executed Sunnis who did not accept the state Shiite brand of Islam.

        Turks and Mongols ruled Persia in turn from the 11th century to 1502, when a native dynasty reasserted full independence. The British and Russian empires vied for influence in the 19th century, and Afghanistan was separated from Persia by Britain in 1857.

        In 1514 Persia was invaded by the Ottoman sultan Selim the Grim [1465-1520] who, determined to impose Sunnism on the Shiite Persians, slaughtered an estimated 40,000 of them. His 80,000 cavalrymen routed a Persian army August 23 in the Battle of Chaldiran; Shah Ismail was wounded but escaped to Dagestan, leaving behind the favorites of his harem. Selim entered Tabriz September 15 and massacred much of its population.

        In 1587 Isfahan became capital of Persia by order of the shah Abbas who undertook to make the city a showplace for the world. Abbas had so many palaces, mosques, gardens, bridges, and caravansaries constructed that its 600,000 residents came to say, "Isfahan is half the world".

        In 1601 the word coffee appeared in an English account of the Persian expedition of adventurer Anthony Sherley, who introduced coffee to London where it sold at 5 pounds per ounce.

        In 1711 Afghanistan gained independence after Persia's Shah Hussein sent a 25,000-man army to put down an Afghan uprising at Kandahar. The Afghan chief Mir Vais prepared his Sunni garrison to fight to the death, beat off Persian assaults on Kandahar. The Persian's Georgian general Khusru Khan was killed, and fewer than 1,000 Persians escaped.

        In 1722 Kandahar's Mir Mahmoud conquerd Afghanistan, invaded Persia with his Afghan army, routed a large Persian army at the Battle of Gulnabad, captured Farahabad, and took Isfahan October 12 after 7 months of fighting that left 80,000 dead and reduced the survivors to eating human flesh. Shah Hussein abdicated in favor of his son, who escaped to Mazandaran, tried to organize resistance, and nominally reigned until 1731 as Tahmasp II, but the Safavid dynasty was virtually ended. Mir Mahmoud made himself shah and began a 3-year reign of terror. Russia's Peter the Great invaded Persia from the north, saying he wanted to rescue the shah from Afghan tyranny.

        In 1735 Russia gave up Peter the Great's last Persian acquisitions and joined in an alliance against the Ottoman Turks with Persia's Nadir Qoli [1688-1747], who had won a great victory over the Turks. In 1739 Nadir defeated a huge Mughal army, then took and looted Delhi, capital of the Mughal Empire.

        In 1794 The Kajar dynasty that ruled Persia until 1925 was founded by Aga Mohammed, a brutal chieftain who took power following the defeat and death of Lutf Ali Khan, who had reigned since 1789 and whose death ended the Zand dynasty founded in 1750. Aga Mohammed was crowned in 1796 but assassinated the next year.

        The fourth Russo-Persian War over Russia's seizure of disputed territory ended in 1828. Persia ceded two territories that included part of Armenia and agreed to pay 20 million silver roubles. More importantly, however, Russia obtained exclusive rights to maintain a navy on the Caspian Sea.

        In 1901 Persia sold a 60-year concession to explore for oil in four-fifths of the country to English capitalist William Knox D'Arcy [1849-1917], who had made a fortune in gold mines in Australia. D'Arcy paid $20,000 for the concession. The resulting company, Anglo-Persian Oil Company but now called British Petroleum, almost went bankrupt before it struck oil in 1908.

        In 1925 Gen. Reza Khan Pahlevi [1878-1944] deposed the absent shah and began his own dynasty. He modernized the country and ordered the name changed to Iran. In late August 1941 British and Soviet troops invaded Iran to prevent it from joining Germany in World War II. Reza Pahlevi abdicated in favor of his more cooperative son Mohammed Reza Pahlevi [1919-1980]. Iran continued to undergo economic and social change while political opposition was suppressed. Population pressures contributed to the tensions. Without much arable land, its rising population depends heavily on food imports.
        In 1960 Iran and other countries founded the OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) to help contril oil prices.

        Iran's holy city of Qom had religious riots January 7--the 15th anniversary of the shah's land reform and women's emancipation decrees, both despised by the nation's 180,000 Muslim preachers.
        The shah had the chief of the SAVAK secret police arrested June 9 on charges of corruption and torturing prisoners. A packed movie theater at Abadan burned down August 20 with a loss of 377 lives; opponents of the shah charged that SAVAK agents had set the fire, while the government blamed Islamic Marxists. The prime minister resigned August 27 and the shah, hoping to appease his opponents, closed gambling casinos and dismissed high-ranking members of the Bahai sect, including his personal physician.
        Martial law was imposed in Teheran and 11 other cities after 100,000 marched in an anti-shah demonstration. Troops opened fire in Jaleh Square, killing 121 demonstrators and wounding 200 others. The cabinet resigned and Iran's first military government since 1953 came to power.
        A mob trying to storm the U.S. embassy December 24 was driven away by Marine guards using tear gas. The shah asked a leader of the opposition National Front to form a new civilian government and Shahpur Bakhtiar assumed power. The shah left Iran Jan. 16, 1979.

        Exiled religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini [1900-1989] named a provisional government council in preparation for his return to Iran, Jan. 31. Clashes between Khomeini's supporters and government troops culminated in a rout of Iran's elite Imperial Guard Feb. 11, leading to the fall of Bakhtiar's government.
        The Iranian Revolution was marked by revolts among the ethnic minorities and by a continuing struggle between the clerical forces and westernized intellectuals and liberals. The Islamic Constitution established final authority to be vested in a Faghi, the Ayatollah Khomeini.
        Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy, Nov. 4, 1979, and took 62 Americans hostages. Despite international condemnations and U.S. efforts, including an abortive Apr. 1980 rescue attempt, the crisis continued until Jan. 21, 1981, when hostages were released and the U.S. agreed to release frozen Iranian assets.

        A dispute over the Shatt al-Arab waterway that divides the two countries brought Iran and Iraq, Sept. 22, 1980, into open warfare. Iraqi planes attacked Iranian air fields including Tehran airport. Iranian planes bombed Iraqi bases. Iraqi troops occupied Iranian territory including the port city of Khorramshahr in October. Iranian troops recaptured the city and drove Iraqi troops back across the border, May 1982. Iraq, and later Iran, attacked several oil tankers in the Persian Gulf during 1984. Saudi Arabian war planes shot down 2 Iranian jets, June 5, which they felt were threatening Saudi shipping. In Aug. 1988, Iran agreed to accept a UN resolution calling for a cease-fire, but lost more than a million people in the conflict.

        The U.S. Navy warship Vincennes shot down an Iranian commercial airliner, July 3, 1988, after mistaking it for an attacking F-14 fighter jet; all 290 aboard the plane died.

        Published in 1988 the book The Satanic Verses incensed Muslim readers with its alleged blasphemies. Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini offered a $3 million reward for the death of British author Salman Rushdie. Although Khomeini died on June 4, his offer remained good for many years. Protected by British authorities Rushdie escaped harm, but Prof. Hitoshi Igarashi [1947-1991], translator of the Japanese edition, was stabbed to death at Tsukuba University.

        A major earthquake struck northern Iran June 21, 1990, killing more than 45,000, injuring 100,000, and leaving 400,000 homeless. A U.S. offer of assistance was accepted by the Iranian government.

        Following the Persian Gulf War some one million Kurdish refugees crossed Iran's border to escape Iraqi forces.

        Without much suitable farm land, the country depends heavily on imported food.