Chronology of Iranian History Part 3

1933 Threatened by the British, Reżā Shah, who had stood firm in demanding the abolishment of the D’Arcy oil concession, suddenly acquieces to British demands, much to the chagrin and disappointment of his Cabinet. A new agreement with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company is signed, with Persia abandoning many of its claims. Majles approves the new oil concession law that extends its term by 30 years.

1933 Inauguration of the Agricultural Bank of Iran (Bānk-e kešāvarzi-e Irān).

1933 Moḥammad-ʿAli Foruḡi assumes the premiership.

1933 ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Teymurtāš, minister of the royal court, one of the architects of the Pahlavi State and the modernization of the country, and for many years a close confidant of the Shah, is dismissed, imprisoned, and murdered in prison on the Shah’s orders.

1933 Guy Le Strange (b. 1854), British Orientalist, author of The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate: Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia from the Moslem conquest to the time of Timur (1905), and translator of Don Juan da Persia (1926), an account of Don Juan’s travels to, and sojourn in, Persia, dies.

1933 Fredrik Robert Martin (b. 1868), British art historian and author of The miniature painting and painters of Persia, India, and Turkey from the 8th to the 18th century (2 vols., 1912), dies.

1933 Sir Jivanji Jamshedji Modi (b. 1854), Zoroastrian priest, scholar of Iranian studies, speaker and traveler, author of The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Parsees (1922), and My Travels Outside Bombay (written in Gujarati, 1926), dies.

1933 ʿĀref Qazvini (b. 1880), popular poet and musician, dies.

1933-35 Term of the ninth Majles.

1934 Majles ratifies a law to establish 25 teacher training schools and a teacher training college within five years.

1934 Sardār ʿAsʿad Baḵtiāri (Jaʿfarqoli Khan, b. 1879), active in the Constitutional Revolution, former minister of war and close confidant of Reżā Shah, who had been dismissed from the Cabinet the previous year, is murdered in prison on the Shah’s orders.

1934 The administration of customs, which had been under the auspices of Belgian administrators since the early 20th century, is transferred to Persian officials.

1934 Reżā Shah visits Turkey and is impressed by Kemal Ataturk’s reforms, strengthening his resolve to accelerate the course of modernization in Iran, including the unveiling of women.

1934 Inauguration of the central postal building in Tehran.

1934 Formation of the Pārs News Agency.

1934 The International Ferdowsi Congress, commemorating the 1,000th anniversary of the poet’s death, is convened in Tehran with the participation of numerous foreign Iranologists. The monument of Ferdowsi’s tomb is inaugurated in Ṭus.

1935 Inauguration of the University of Tehran, incorporating six faculties: theology, letters and humanities, law, medicine, sciences, and technology, as well as a teacher’s training college.

1935 The Academy of Persian Language (Farhangestān) opens with Moḥammad-ʿAli Foruḡi as its Chair. It assumes the task of coining or selecting Persian words for some foreign words and concepts; in a spirit of nationalism, it also coins a number of Persian words to replace Arabic words, but its activities end in 1941 with the abdication of Reżā Shah.

1935 The government orders the adoption of Western-style uniform dress (lebās-e mottaḥed al-šekl) and Western hat (chapeau), forbidding all individuals from wearing the ʿabā (sleeveless cloak) and the turban without prior approval by the authorities.

1935 Uprising in the Gowharšād Mosque of Mashad against the Western-style uniform dress code results in heavy casualties after government troops fire on clerical elements and the general public in the shrine of the eighth Imam; Moḥammad-Wali Asadi, the superintendent of the Shrine, is executed as the culprit, for dereliction of duty.

1935 Establishment of the Military Academy (Dānešgāh-e jang).

1935 Inauguration of the Women’s Center (Kānun-e bānovān), with the participation of the leading figures involved in the women’s rights movement in Iran and the encouragement of ʿAli-Asˊágar Ḥekmat, the minister of education.

1935 Establishment of the Iran Insurance Company.

1935 Ḥasan Pirniā Mošir-al-Dawla (b. 1871), popular statesman, historian, and author of Tāriḵ-e Irān-e Bāstān (History of Ancient Iran, 3 vols.), dies.

1935 Maḥmud Jam assumes the premiership.

1935 Following a proposal by the Persian ambassador to Germany, foreign governments are requested to use “Iran” instead of Persia and its likes as the official name of the country.

1935 Friedrich Rosen (b. 1856), German Orientalist, diplomat, author of Elementa persica (1915), Persien in Wort und Bild (1926), a translation into German of the quatrains of Omar Khayyam (1930), and editor of a number of Persian texts, dies.

1935-37 Term of the tenth Majles.

1936 Reżā Shah’s queen and his daughters appear unveiled in a public ceremony at the new Teacher’s Training School in Tehran.

1936 Women are banned from wearing of the traditional veil (čador).

1936 US-Iran relations are broken off as a result of the arrest of Iran’s ambassador in Washington for a traffic violation.

1936 The adult literacy campaign begins with the establishment of adult classes, particularly for the lowest echelon of government employees.

1936 Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, Germany’s minister of finance, visits Iran, signaling the beginning of closer commercial relations between the countries.

1936 Shaikh Ḵazʿal (b. 1860), former patriarch of Khuzestan, dies.

1936 Mirzā Moḥammad Ḥosayn Nāʾini (b. 1860), religious leader who supported the Constitutional Revolution and argued that the concept of Constitutionalism was compatible with Shiʾism, dies.

1936 Antoine Meillet (b. 1866), outstanding French Indo-Europeanist, pioneering scholar of Iranian and Armenian philology, author of Études sur l’étymologie et le vocabulaire du vieux slave (2 vols., 1902–05), Grammaire du vieux perse (1915), and Trois conférences sur les Gāthās de l’Avesta (1925), dies.

1937 Ayatollah Shaikh ʿAbd-al-Karim Hāʾeri Yazdi (b. 1859), religious leader and founder of the Qom Religious Center who was highly instrumental in organizing theological teaching in Persia, dies.

1937 The statesman ʿAli-Akbar Dāvar (b. 1885), a bright star of the Pahlavi era and a dedicated force behind Iran’s drive towards modernization and the promulgation of new civic, commercial, and criminal laws, minister of justice, and later, minister of finance, commits suicide after falling out of favor with Reżā Shah.

1937 A group of 53 well-educated, left-leaning nationalists, led by Dr. Taqi Arāni, are arrested and jailed.

1937 The Saʿdābād Pact, a mutual non-aggression treaty aimed at promoting political alliance and economic cooperation, is signed between Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey.

1937 Sayyed Ḥasan Modarres, noted political cleric from Isfahan and former leader of the minority faction in the Majles, who opposed Reżā Shah’s plans, is murdered by police while in their custody in Kāšmar, Khorasan.

1937 Ṣādeq Hedāyat’s Buf-e Kur (The Blind Owl), the seminal work of modern Persian fiction, is published.

1937 Edgard Blochet (b. 1870), French art historian, bibliographer, translator into French of selections from Rašid-al-Din’s Jāmeʿ al-tawāriḵ (1911), and author of Les peintures des manuscrits orientaux de la Bibliothèque nationale (1914-20), and dies.

1937 Abraham Valentine Williams Jackson (b. 1862), outstanding and pioneering American scholar of Iranian studies, professor at Columbia University, founder and editor of the Columbia University Indo-Iranian Series (13 vols., 1901-32), author of Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iran (1899), An Avestan Grammar in Comparison with Sanskrit (1892), From Constantinople to the Home of Omar Khayyam: Travels in Transcaucasia and Northern Persia for Historic and Literary Research (1911), and Researches in Manichaeism (1932), dies.

1937-39 Term of the eleventh Majles.

1938 Relations with France are broken off due to the publication of a newspaper article in the French press critical of Reżā Shah.

1938 Firuz Mirzā Noṣrat-al-Dawla, former minister of finance (1925-29) who had been dismissed from office in 1929, is murdered by police while in their custody in Semnān, having been out of favor with the Shah for many years.

1938 Tehran’s power plant begins operation.

1938 The Trans-Iranian railway system, constructed entirely with Iranian capital and financed primarily by sugar and tea customs duties, is opened by the Shah; it runs from Khorramshahr to Tehran to Bandar-e Shah, connecting the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea.

1938 Death of Mostefa Kemal Ataturk (b. 1881), founder of the Turkish Republic in 1923 and its first president; he strived towards the Westernization of his country, replaced the Arabic alphabet with the Latin, and encouraged the use of Turkish instead of Persian and Arabic words.

1939 Inauguration of the government-sponsored bank for personal loans, Bānk-e Rahni-e Irān.

1939 Marriage of Crown Prince Moḥammad-Reżā to Fawzia, sister of King Faruq of Egypt.

1939 Germany invades Poland; start of World War II.

1939 Iran declares its neutrality in the War.

1939 A new Penal Code is introduced.

1939 Inauguration of the Karaj Veterinary Institute.

1939 Moḥammad Farroḵi-Yazdi (b. 1889), poet and outspoken critic of the regime, is murdered in prison by the prison doctor.

1939 Hans Reichelt (b. 1877), Austrian comparative philologist, scholar of Indo-European and Iranian studies, and author of Avesta Reader (1911), dies.

1939 Ella Constance Sykes, British traveler and writer, sister of Sir Percy Sykes, author of Through Persia on a Side Saddle (1901), dies.

1939-41 Term of the twelfth Majles.

1940 Taqi Arāni (b. 1902), nationalist scholar, Marxist theoretician, leader of the 53 leftist intellectuals who were arrested and jailed, and the editor of the journal Donyā, dies in prison.

1940 Sir Edward Denison Ross (b. 1871), British Orientalist, professor of Persian at the University of London (UCL), author of “Babism,” in North American Review (1901), “Persian Mysticism,” in East and West (1902), and Eastern art and literature, with special reference to China, India, Arabia, and Persia (1928), dies.

1940 The first census of 18 major cities is conducted.

1940 ʿAli Manṣur-al-Molk, assumes the premiership.

1940 Kamāl-al-Molk (b. 1844), prominent painter of the realistic school of the Qajar and early Pahlavi periods, and the founder of the School of Art in Tehran, dies.

1940 Foreign schools, including American (Alborz) College, Jean d’Arc, St. Louis, Franco Persan, and the British Collge in Isfahan are taken over by order of Reżā Shah and placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Education.

1940 Radio Tehran begins broadcast operations.

1940 The Tehran-Zanjān railroad link begins service.

1940 David Samuel Margoliouth (b. 1858), British Orientalist, professor of Arabic at Oxford University, and author of “The Place of Persia in the History of Islam,” in Persia Society Monograph (1925), dies.

1941 Germany invades the Soviet Union.

1941 The Anglo-Soviet alliance is formed.

1941 The Anglo-Soviet alliance demands the expulsion of Germans from Iran.

1941 Anglo-Soviet forces invade Iran as Reżā Shah continues to maintain a position of neutrality; Persian forces collapse without much resistance.

1941 Moḥammad-ʿAli Foruḡi assumes the premiership.

1941 Reżā Shah is forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Crown Prince Moḥammad Reżā, 21, with the agreement of the Allies. Reżā Shah departs for the Maurice Islands, east of Madagascar, and later to Johannesburg, South Africa, along with some members of his family.

1941 The founding committee of the pro-Soviet leftist Tudeh Party is formed at the residence of Solaymān Mirzā Eskandari, a veteran of the Social Democratic Party.

1941 Mirzā Ṭāher Tonokāboni, philosopher and theologian, dies.

1941 The noted Persian poet Parvin Eʿteṣāmi (b. 1907), the first major female poet of modern times, dies.

1941-43 Term of the thirteenth Majles.

1942 British and American forces take over operation of the Trans-Iranian railway to facilitate the sending of supplies to the Soviet Union.

1942 The Tripartite Treaty is signed between Iran, Britain, and the Soviet Union, allowing the Allies to remain in Iran for the duration of the War.

1942 Mostafā Meṣbāḥzādeh, a professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Tehran, begins publication of Keyhān daily newspaper.

1942 Aḥmad Qawām-al-Salṭana assumes the premiership. After four months, his opponents mobilize a bread riot in Tehran; the riots end in the pillaging of Majles, and the burning of stores and the residence of the prime minister, to which Qawām responds by closing all newspapers.

1942 Abu’l-Ḥasan Ebtehāj, a capable administrator, assumes the management of the National Bank.

1942 Moḥammad-ʿAli Foruḡi (b. 1876), prominent scholar, statesman, former prime minister, and man of letters, dies.

1942 Workers’ Insurance Law is passed.

1943 The University of Tehran becomes independent from the Ministry of Education; Dr. ʿAli-Akbar Siāsi, professor of psychology and president of the progressive Klub-e Irān-e Javān (Young Iran Club) is elected president of the University.

1943 ʿAli Sohayli assumes the premiership.

1943 Iran joins the Allies in the War, declares war on Germany, and joins the United Nations.

1943 Second Millspaugh financial mission arrives in Iran.

1943 Formation of the Fedāʾiān-e Eslām, a politico-religious fundamentalist group.

1943 Sayyed Ziāʾ-al-Din returns to Iran; he is later elected a Majles deputy.

1943 Tehran Conference with Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin takes place, chiefly to discuss the opening of a “second front” in Western Europe. They declare and guarantee Iranian independence and territorial integrity, and agree to provide economic assistance to Iran after the war.

1943 The first issue of the monthly literary journal Soḵan is published; the last issue is published in 1978.

1943 M. Th. Houtsma (b. 1851), Dutch Orientalist, an editor of the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam (1913-38) as well as several other historical texts, and author of “Some Remarks on the History of the Saljuks,” in Acta Orientalia 3 (1924), dies.

1943 Edward Heron-Allen (b. 1861), English researcher of diverse and heterogeneous topics including Persian studies, author of a prose translation of the Rubāʿiyāt of Omar Khayyām (1898), and a verse translation of the quatrains of Bābā Ṭāher (1902), dies.

1943 Robert Laurence Binyon (b. 1869), prolific English poet, translator, art historian, and critic of Oriental art, author of Persian Painting of the Sixteenth Century (1930), and Persian Miniature Painting (1933), dies.

1943 Wilhelm Geiger (b. 1856), German scholar of Iranian philology, professor of Aryan philology at the University of Munich, author of Ostiranische Kultur im Altertum (1882; English translation as Civilization of Eastern Iranians in ancient time, 2 vols.,1885-86), translator of the Pahlavi Ayādgār ī Zarērān, and the editor, with Ernst Kuhn, of Grundriss der iranischen Philologie (2 vols,1895-1904), dies.

1944 The Tudeh party gains nine seats in Majles elections with the help of the Red Army.

1944 Dr. Moḥammad Moṣaddeq is elected a Majles deputy.

1944 Moḥammad Sāʿed assumes the premiership.

1944 Prime Minister Sāʿed refuses the Russian demand for oil concession; Moṣaddeq introduces a law prohibiting discussion of oil concession by the Majles before the evacuation of foreign forces.

1944 Moḥammad-ʿAli Mojtahedi becomes principal of Dabirestān-e Alborz (Alborz High School), a continuation of the American College in Tehran, a post he capably holds until 1979.

1944 Dr. Arthur Millspaugh leaves Iran as a result of his differences with Abu’l-Ḥasan Ebtehāj, director of the National Bank, and after the repeal of his powers by Majles.

1944 Reżā Shah (b. 1878) dies in Johannesburg, South Africa. His body is transferred to Cairo, then back to Tehran in 1950, where he is buried in a special mausoleum near Shah ʿAbd-al-Aẓim; his body is once again transferred to Cairo on the eve of the 1979 Revolution, and his mausoleum is subsequently demolished and desecrated by Islamic revolutionaries.

1944 According to a prior agreement with the Allies, the Iranian government requests the evacuation of Allied troops from Iranian territory.

1944 Mortażāqoli Bayāt assumes the premiership.

1944 Franz Heinrich Weissbach (b. 1865), German Orientalist, cuneiform and Old Persian expert, and author of Die Keilinschriften der Achameniden (1911), dies.

1944-46 Term of the fourteenth Majles.

1945 British and American troops evacuate Iran.

1945 The revolt, in Mashad, of military officers affiliated with the communist Tudeh Party and their defeat and flight to the Soviet Union, where many are subjected to prison terms for crossing the border without permits.

1945 World War II ends in Europe with the defeat of Germany.

1945 Ebrāhim Ḥakimi assumes the premiership.

1945 Ferqa-ye demokrāt-e Āḏarbāyjān (Democratic Party of Azerbaijan) is formed in Azerbaijan with Soviet backing, striving for self-government; the movement is headed by Jaʿfar Pišavari, an elected Majles deputy whose credentials had been rejected by the Majles.

1945 Formation of separatist Azerbaijan Republic with the support of the Red Army and with Jaʿfar Pišavari elected as its president.

1945 With the backing of the Soviet army, Qāzi Moḥam-mad claims Kurdistan as an autonomous Republic.

1945 Arthur Christensen (b. 1875), prominent and prolific Danish Iranist, historian of Sasanid Iran, professor at the University of Copenhagen, author of Le premier homme et le premier roi dans l’histoire légendaire des Iraniens (1917), Le regne du roi Kawadh I et le communism Mazdakite (1925), Les Kayanides (1931), Essai sur la démonologie iranienne (1941), and most importantly, L’Iran sous les Sassanides (1944), dies.

1945 Reynold A. Nicholson (b. 1868), prominent scholar of Islamic mysticism and Persian literature, professor of Arabic at Cambridge University, author of The literary history of the Arabs (1907), Studies in Islamic mysticism (1921), and editor, translator, and annotator of Rumi’s Mathnawi (8 vols., c. 1926-40), dies.

1945 Friedrich Paul Theodor Sarre (b. 1865), prominent German art historian of Iran and the Middle East, author of Denkmäler persischer Baukunst (7 vols., 1901-10), and Die Kunst des alten Persiens (1922), dies.

1945 Sir Percy Molesworth Sykes (b. 1867), British envoy and traveler who spent nearly 25 years in Persia, author of Ten Thousand Miles in Persia, or Eight Years in Iran (1902), and the comprehensive, if now rather dated A History of Persia (2 vols., 1915), which treats Persian history from ancient times to 1930 and the rise of Reżā Shah, dies.

1945 On December 30, on the last day prior to prime minister Ebrāhim Ḥakimi’s resignation, Sayyed Ḥasan Taqizādeh, the Iranian ambassador to London, submits a complaint to the Security Council of the United Nations against Russia, whose forces had remained in Iran contrary to a prior agreement. The United Nations convenes in February 1946 to hear the complaint with Taqizādeh heading the delegation that presents Iran’s grievances.

1946 Qawām-al-Salṭana assumes the premiership.

1946 Qawām-al-Salṭana visits Stalin in Moscow to discuss withdrawal of Russian forces from Azerbaijan.

1946 Qawām-al-Salṭana forms the Ḥezb-e demokrāt-e Irān (Democratic Party of Iran) to bolster his political position vis-à-vis the Tudeh Party.

1946 Qawām-al-Salṭana includes three Tudeh party leaders, Dr. Fereydun Kešāvarz, Dr. Mortażā Yazdi, and Iraj Eskandari, in his Cabinet.

1946 Assassination of Aḥmad Kasravi (b. 1890), historian, jurist, ideologist, noted for his outspoken views on several cultural and religious issues, including refutations of, or attacks on, Sufism, Sufistic poets, Shiʿism, Bahāʾism, and Imāmzādas; author of Āzari yā zabān-e bāstān-e Azarbāijān (1925), Šahriārān-e gomnām (1928), Tāriḵ-e pānṣad sāle-ye Ḵuzestān (1933), and editor and publisher of Peymān periodical and Parčam newspaper. He is killed at the hands of Sayyed Ḥosayn Emāmi, a member of the fundamentalist religious group, Fedāʾiān-e Eslām.

1946 Ḥosayn ʿAlāʾ, head of the Persian delegation to the United Nations during the premiership of Qawām-al-Salṭana, vigorously pursues Persian complaints before the United Nations against the Russian forces’ refusal to evacuate Persian territory.

1946 Outfoxing Stalin, Qawām-al-Salṭana obtains Russian agreement for the withdrawal of troops from Azerbaijan with the promise of oil concession, the formation of a Soviet-Iranian oil company, and the granting of greater autonomy to Azerbaijan, all subject to the approval of the Majles; the Majles, however, nullifies the oil concession.

1946 Following agreement with the Soviets, the Persian army enters Azerbaijan, bringing it under control; Pišavari and his associates flee to the Soviet Union.

1946 The first fascicle of ʿAli-Akbar Dehḵodā’s Loḡat-nāma is published, aided by a bill approved by Majles the previous year. The editing and publication of the completed Loḡat-nāma continues after Dehḵodā’s death in 1956, under the supervision of Moḥammad Moʿin with Sayyed Jaʿfar Šahidi; by the time of its completion in 1975, the Loḡat-nāma had grown to be 26,475 triple-column pages.

1946 Ministry of Labor and trade union organization established and a minimum wage rate is fixed.

1946 The First Congress of Iranian Writers is convened in Tehran at the Iran-Soviet Cultural Association, headed by Malek-al-Šoʿarāʾ Bahār; the participants include Parviz Nātel-Ḵānlari, Fāṭemeh Sayyāḥ, and Eḥsān Ṭabari.

1946 Grand Ayatollah Ḥājj Sayyed Abu’l-Ḥasan Eṣfahāni dies in Kāẓemayn.

1947 Dr. Moḥammad Moṣaddeq is re-elected to the Majles.

1947 Establishment of the Royal Organization for Social Services under the patronage of Princess Ašraf Pahlavi.

1947 Franz Valéry Cumont (b. 1868), Belgian classical philologist, historian of religion, expert in Mithraic studies, author of Textes et monuments relatifs au culte de Mithra (2 vols., 1893), Les mystères de Mithra (2 vols. 1899), and Les mages hellénisés (1938), dies.

1947-49 Term of the fifteenth Majles.

1948 The Shah and Queen Fawzia divorce.

1948 ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Hažir assumes the premiership.

1948 Dissention of a number of Tudeh Party members, led by Ḵalil Maleki, mainly on account of the Party’s subservience to the interests of the Soviet Union, rather than the promotion of Iranian national interests.

1948 Moḥammad Sāʿed assumes the premiership.

1948 Ernst Emil Herzfeld (b. 1879), eminent German explorer, archeologist, historian, linguist, discoverer of many archeological sites in Iran and Iraq, excavator at Persepolis, author of Am Tor von Asien (1920), Paikuli, Monument and Inscription of the Early History of the Sasanian Empire (1924), Iran in the Ancient East (1941), and Zoroaster and his World (2 vols., 1947) dies.

1948 Sten Konow (b. 1867), Norwegian Orientalist, a co-founder and chief editor of the periodical Acta Orientalia who published a pioneering work on Khotanese Saka, dies.

1949 An attempt is made on the Shah’s life and suspicion falls on the Tudeh Party; the party is officially outlawed and its leaders are arrested and jailed.

1949 The Iranian armed forces adopt American-style military uniforms.

1949 The Constituent Assembly convenes and grants the Shah power to dissolve Majles.

1949 Moḥammad-Reżā Shah visits the United States, consolidating his relations with President Truman.

1949 The Plan Organization (Sāzmān-e Barnāma), a new government agency, is established to oversee Iran’s economic development; proposal of a seven-year plan of economic development is made under American direction.

1949 The first piped water system in Iran is set up in Shiraz, sponsored by Moḥammad Nemāzi.

1949 Establishment of Jebha-ye Melli (National Front), founded by Moḥammad Moṣaddeq, a loose association of diverse political groups sharing the common goals of Persian independence, freedom, and resistance to foreign intervention, with the Iran Party serving as its backbone and Moḥammad Moṣaddeq as its leader.

1949 ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Hažir (b. 1902), court minister and former prime minister is assassinated by Sayyed-Ḥosayn Emāmi, a member of the fundamentalist group Fedāʾiān-e Eslām.

1949 Founding of the Amir Kabir Publishing House by ʿAbd-al-Raḥim Jaʿfari, which grows into the most important private publisher. After the 1979 Revolution, it is appropriated and run by agents of the Islamic Republic, with greatly reduced output.

1949 Moḥammad Qazvini (b. 1877), erudite and meticulous scholar of Persian and Arabic literatures, Persian history, and lexicography, editor and annotator of important Persian texts including Varāvini’s Marzobān-nāma, Jovayni’s Tāriḵ-e jahāngošā, Šams-e Qeys al-Moʿjam, ʿAwfi’s Lobāb al-albāb, the Divān of Ḥāfez (with Q. Ḡani), and author of the collection Bist maqāla-ye Qazvini (1928), edited by E. Purdāvud, author of Čahār maqāla (1962), and Yāddāšthā-ye Qazvini, edited by Iraj Afšār (10 vols., 1954-84), dies.

1950 Inauguration of Bānk-e Bāzargāni-e Irān (Commercial Bank of Iran), the first private bank in Persia, established by Moṣtafā Tajaddod.

1950 The National Front Party makes gains in Majles elections.

1950 Military supplies agreement reached between Iran and the United States.

1950 Establishment of the Senate as the upper house of the Majles, and the election of Sayyed Ḥasan Taqizādeh as its president.

1950 General Ḥājj-ʿAli Razmārā is appointed prime minister with the tacit support of the United States and Britain.

1950 Hyacinth Louis Rabino (b. 1877), British diplomat, intelligence officer, industrious scholar, and author of “Coins of the Shahs of Persia,” in Numismatic Chronicle (1908), Les provinces Caspiennes de la Perse: Le Guilan (1917), and Mazandaran and Astarabad (1928), dies.

1950-52 Term of the sixteenth Majles.

1951 ʿAli Manṣur assumes the premiership.

1951 The Shah marries Sorayya Esfandiari.

1951 Assassination of prime minister Ḥājj-ʿAli Razmārā (b. 1902), by Ḵalil Ṭahmāsbi, a member of the fundamentalist group Fedāʾiān-e Eslām.

1951 Ḥosayn ʿAlā assumes the premiership.

1951 The Oil Nationalization Law is passed; Britain boycotts the purchase of Iranian oil and appeals to the United Nations Security Council. Moṣaddeq presents Iran’s case to the Council, which in turn refers the case to the International Court of Justice at The Hague; a ruling is made Iran’s favor.

1951 The popular Majles deputy, Moḥammad Moṣaddeq, leader of the National Front, a symbol of Persian independence and a champion of the nationalization of oil, is named prime minister.

1951 To undo Reżā Shah’s almost forcible acquisition of vast tracts of land in Mazandaran, the Shah begins to return most of the lands to their original owners at a low price.

1951 Moḥammad-Taqi Bahār (known as Malek-al-Šoʿarāʾ, b. 1886), outstanding Persian poet, scholar, journalist, and politician, professor of Persian literature at the University of Tehran, editor of the periodical Dāneškada, author of Sabk-šenāsi (in 3 vols.), and editor of Tāriḵ-e Sistān and Mojmal al-tawāriḵ, best known for his eloquent qaṣidas in the classical style, dies.

1951 Ṣādeq Hedāyat (b. 1903), Persian writer, author of the novella Buf-e kur (1937; English tr. by D. P. Costello as The Blind Owl, 1957), the most important work of fiction in modern Persian literature, and many short stories such as “Dāš Ākol,” “Sag-e velgard,” “Zenda be gur,” “ʿAlawiya ḵānom,” and “Se qaṭra ḵun,” commits suicide in Paris.

1952 Moḥammad Moṣaddeq resigns and is succeeded by the pro-Western Aḥmad Qawām-al-Salṭana; after only five days, however, widespread rioting leads to Qawām’s resignation and Moṣaddeq’s return to power.

1952 Unable to reach a settlement in the oil dispute, and facing British intrigues, Moṣaddeq breaks off diplomatic relations with Britain.

1952 Qāsem Ḡani (b. 1893), physician, scholar, and politician, author of Bahṯi dar taṣawwof (1952), whose diaries have been published in 12 volumes as Yāddāšthā-ye Doktor Qāsem Ḡani (1983), and co-editor, with M. Qazvini, of Diwān-e Ḥāfeẓ (1986), dies.

1952 The monument of Saʿdi’s tomb opens in Shiraz.

1952 Inauguration of Bānk-e Ṣāderāt-e Irān (Export Bank of Iran). As of 2006, it is one of the largest banks in Iran, with over 34,000 banches.

1952 Majles ratifies a bill to establish piped water and sewage system utilities for Tehran.

1952 Point 4, a program of cooperation whereby the United States would offer developing countries its scientific, educational, and financial assistance, is established in Tehran headed by William E. Warne as Country Director to Iran, a position he holds until 1955.

1952 René Grousset (b. 1885), French historian, professor at the École des Langue Orientales, a co-founder of the “Société des études iraniennes et de l’art persan (1930),” author of Histoire de l’Asie (3 vols. 1921-22), Les civilisations de l’Orient (4 vols., 1929-30), L’empire des steppes . . . (1939), and Histoire de l’Arménie, des origines à 1071 (1947), dies.

1952 Sven Hedin (b. 1865), prolific Swedish explorer who traveled throughout Persia and many other Asian regions, author of Genom Persien, Mesopotamien och Kaukasus. Reseminnen (Memories of a Journey Through Persia, Mesopotamia and the Caucasus, 1887), and Zu Land nach Indien durch Persien, Seisten, Belutschistan (1910), dies.

1952 Michael Ivanovitch Rostovtzeff (b. 1870), Russian Orientalist, historian, archeologist, professor at Yale University, author of Iranians and Greeks in South Russia (1922), Caravan Cities (1932), and Dura-Europos and its Art (1938), dies.

1952-53 Term of the seventeenth Majles.

1953 With American and British backing, prime minister Moṣaddeq is dismissed by the Shah after Moṣaddeq dissolves the Majles, inadvertently giving the Shah a free hand to choose another premier; Moṣaddeq’s resistance to this move fails and General Fażl-Allāh Zāhedi takes over as prime minister; the move is generally conceived as a coup d’état by the Shah and his foreign allies.

1953 The Shah and his queen, who had left Iran for Rome uncertain of the effects of his dismissal of Moṣaddeq, returns to Iran, assuming almost absolute power.

1953 General Zāhedi’s government announces an agreement to reestablish diplomatic relations with Britain and to reach a negotiated settlement in the oil dispute.

1953 Inauguration of the well-equipped Nemāzi hospital in Shiraz.

1953 Bongāh-e tarjoma o našr-e ketāb (The Institute for Translation and Publication of Books) is founded on the initiative of Eḥsan Yāršaṭer with support from Asad-Allāh ʿAlam. It begins a systematic translation of world classics and later, of several other series, including reading material for the young, critical editions of Persian texts, and translations of works on Iran by Iranologists; it continues until the 1979 Revolution.

1953 Soldiers kill three students at the Faculty of Technology of the University of Tehran on December 7. This day has since been celebrated annually by students in Iran as “Student Day.”

1953 Trial of Moḥammad Moṣaddeq by a military tribunal; the tribunal sentences him to three years’ imprisonement, but he is subsequently allowed to serve his time under house arrest in Aḥmadābād, a village he owned near Tehran.

1954 Celebrations commemorate the 1,000th anniversary of Avicenna’s birth.

1954 The government reaches agreement with a consortium of Western oil companies to resume work in the Iranian oil industry; the agreement is ratified by the Majles.

1954 Abu’l-Ḥasan Ebtehāj becomes Managing Director of The Plan Organization, overseeing Iran’s economic development.

1954 Discovery of a Tudeh Party cell in the military results in the trial and execution of a number of officers.

1954 Moḥammad Amin Rasulzādeh (b. 1884), ideological proponent of social democracy in Iran, dies.

1954 Michail Aleksandrovich Diakonoff (b. 1907), prominent Russian archeologist and historian in the field of ancient and medieval Central Asia and the Middle East, author of Ocherk Istorii Drevnego Irana (A Sketch of the History of Ancient Iran, posthumously published, 1961), dies.

1955 Anti-Bahāʾi movement is set in motion in Tehran and Shiraz; soldiers occupy the Bahāʾi Center in Tehran, led by General Nāder Bātmānqelič, and dismantle and destroy the dome of the Center.

1955 Aḥmad Qawām (Qawām-al-Salṭana, b. 1882), prominent statesman who served five terms as premier and was instrumental in solving the Azerbaijan Crisis of 1946 as well as in promoting US-Iran relations, dies.

1955 Iran joins the Baghdad Pact, with Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom.

1955 Louis Herbert Gray (b. 1875), American philologist, professor of linguistics at Columbia University, author of Indo-Iranian Phonology (1902), and The Foundations of the Iranian Religions (1929), dies.

1955 Johannes Hertel (b. 1872), German Sanskritist and Iranist, professor of Indology at the University of Leipzig, author of Achaemeniden und Kayaniden: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte Irans (1924), and Die Zeit Zoroasters (1924), dies.

1955-57 Premiership of Ḥosayn ʿAlāʾ.

1955-68 The French, Scottish, and German Freemasonry Lodges flourish in Iran, increasing to 30 Lodges and several hundred members in the period.

1956 Piped water is available for the first time in Tehran.

1956 The first National Census of Population and Housing is conducted; the population of Persia totals 19 million.

1956 Sayyed Mojtabā Nawwāb-Ṣafavi (b. 1923), founder of the Fedāʾiān-e Eslām organization, is captured and executed, along with his lieutenants, after an assassination attempt on the life of premier ʿAlāʾ.

1956 ʿAli-Akbar Dehḵodā (b. 1879), scholar, liberal journalist, poet, lexicographer, author of Loḡat-nāma-ye Dehḵodā (1946-75), the largest Persian dictionary, and the humorous satirical pieces, Čarand parand (1962), dies.

1957 Inauguration of the railway service linking Tehran and Mashad.

1957 The formation of SAVAK, the Iranian secret police, with advice from the United States.

1957 Abu’l-Ḥasan Ṣabā, master teacher and composer of Persian music, virtuoso violin and donbak player, dies at 57.

1957-58 Formation of a two-party system by two of the Shah’s confidants: the Mardom (People) Party led by Amir Asad-Allāh ʿAlam, and the Melliyun (Nationalist) Party headed by Manučehr Eqbāl.

1957-60 Premiership of Manučehr Eqbāl.

1958 Businessman Ḥabib Ṯābet establishes the first television station in Iran.

1958 Formation of the Pahlavi Foundation, headed by Asad-Allāh ʿAlam, the former head of Crown Properties, ostensibly to provide social, educational, and philanthropic services.

1958 A coup d’état in Iraq results in the assassinations of King Faisal, premier Nuri al-Saʿid, and scores of other high officials.

1958 Amineh Pākravān (b. 1890), professor of French at the University of Tehran, historian of the Qajar era, novelist, and author of Le prince sans histoire (1951), the first novel by a Persian author in French (awarded the Prix Rivaro in France), dies.

1959 Bilateral defense agreement made between Persia and the United States, which is bitterly resented by the Soviet Union.

1959 Nimā Yušij (born Ali Esfandiāri in 1896), generally regarded as the first modernist poet, who radically broke away from the ingrained conventions of Persian poetry, dies.

1959 The Shah, who had divorced Queen Ṯorayyā due to her inability to bear his children, marries Faraḥ Dibā.

1960 Inauguration of The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with Iran as a founding member; Iran’s Foʾād Ruḥāni serves as OPEC’s first Secretary-General from 1960 to 1964.

1960 John F. Kennedy is elected President of the United States. His criticism of the Shah’s regime leads to a series of reforms in Iran.

1960 Queen Faraḥ gives birth to a son, Prince Reżā, who as the first-born male becomes heir to the Pahlavi throne.

1960 Inauguration of the Central Bank of Iran.

1960 William Morgan Shuster (b. 1877), American lawyer, civil servant, publisher, employed by the Persian government as treasurer-general before being forced to leave the country by the machinations of the Russians, and author of The Strangling of Persia . . . (1912 and 1920), dies.

1960-61 Premiership of Jaʿfar Šarif-Emāmi.

1961 Grand Ayatollah Ḥosayn Borujerdi Ṭabāṭabāʾi (b. 1875), the leading source of emulation in the Shiʿite world, under whose guidance Qom became the most important clerical center of Shiʿism, dies.

1961 National strikes and teacher demonstrations are organized to demand increased salaries; a teacher is killed by police, leading to the resignation of prime minister Šarif-Emāmi.

1961 Ernst Diez (b. 1878), Austrian historian of Iranian and Islamic art, member of an expedition to Khorasan (1912-14), who published the results of his studies and observations in two volumes, Churasanische Baudenkmäle (1918) and Persien, islamische Baukunst in Churasan (1923), dies.

1961 Jamshedji Maneckji Unvala (b. 1888), noted Parsi scholar, author of Observations on the religion of the Parthians (1925), and Contribution to modern Persian dialectology: the Luri and Dizfuli dialects (1959), dies.

1961-62 Premiership of the reformist ʿAli Amini, a candidate favored by the Americans.

1961-62 Ḥasan Arsanjāni, former journalist, radical, and minister of agriculture in ʿAli Amini’s Cabinet begins a program of land reform to distribute agricutural lands among the cultivating peasantry; the program exceeds the moderate land reforms envisioned by the Shah and the Kennedy administration.

1961-62 The “tight-belt” financial policies of the government lead to an economic recession.

1962 Inauguration of Iran Air, the national airline.

1962 Šurā-ye ketāb-e kudak (The Council of Children’s Books) is established, headed by Tourān Mirhādi.

1962 Sayyed Moḥammad Ṣādeq Ṭabāṭabāʾi, veteran of the Constitutional Revolution and a former president of the Majles, dies.

1962 Formation of the Iran National Car Company to design and manufacture automobiles and buses by brothers Maḥmud and Aḥmad Khayami, and later directed by Maḥmud Khayami alone. It grew into the largest industrial factory in Iran exporting cars to a number of countries.

1962 Ayatollah Sayyed Abu’l-Qāsem Kāšāni (b. 1882), religious leader, politician, Majles deputy, and an erstwhile ally of Dr. Moḥammad Moṣaddeq, dies.

1962 An earthquake on September 1, measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale causes extensive damage and results in over 12,000 fatalities in Buʾin-Zahrā, southeast of Qazvin.

1962 Ḥosayn Kāẓemzādeh-Irānšahr (b. 1884), nationalist, scholar interested in social reform and education, member of the Berlin Circle headed by Sayyed Ḥasan Taqizādeh, publisher of the political and cultural journal Irānšahr, who later in life developed mystical ideologies and guided a group of believers in Switzerland, dies.

1962 David Lockhart Robertson Lorimer (b. 1876), British Iranologist, linguist, collector of Lori folkloric tales, military and intelligence officer, author of Syntax of Colloquial Pashtu (1915), and The Phonology of the Bakhtiari, Badakhshani, and Madaglashti dialects of modern Persia (1922), dies.

1962 Louis Massignon (b. 1883), French Orientalist and Islamicist specializing in Sufism, author of Essai sur l’origine du lexique technique de la mystique musulmane (1922), and The Passion of al-Hallaj, mystic and martyr of Islam (English tr. by H. Mason, 4 vols., 1982), dies.

1962 Victoria Sackville-West (b. 1892), British poet and novelist, author of Passenger to Teheran (1926), dies.

1962-64 Premiership of Asad-Allāh ʿAlam.

1963 A Grand Congress of 3,500 peasants is convened in Tehran to approve the Shah’s six programs of reform, which are later labeled “the White Revolution of the Shah and the People.” It includes land reform and other programs such as women’s right to vote, nationalization of the forests, sale of shares in state-owned industries as a financial resource for land reforms, granting a share of the profits of industrial establishments to workers, and the formation of Literacy Corps for compulsory education in rural areas.

1963 The first volume of the Persian dictionary Farhang-e Moʿin, is published; the sixth and final volume is published in 1973.

1963 Ayatollah Khomeini launches a campaign against the Shah’s reforms; his ensuing imprisonment leads to anti-government rioting in Tehran and elsewhere, which are decisively crushed by prime minister Asad-Allāh ʿAlam.

1963 The Irān-e Novin Party is formed by Ḥasan-ʿAli Manṣur, a son of the former prime minister ʿAli Manṣur-al-Molk. It replaces the Melliyun Party as the majority party.

1964 Premiership of Ḥasan-ʿAli Manṣur, with Amir-ʿAbbās Hoveydā as his minister of finance.

1964 Ayatollah Khomeini strongly criticizes the Shah after a law is passed extending diplomatic immunity to all American servicemen in Iran. Ayatollah Khomeini is forcibly exiled from Iran to Turkey, eventually settling in Najaf, Iraq, from where he continues his anti-monarchy rhetoric.

1964 Bernhard Geiger (b. 1881), Austrian Iranist, an emigré to the United States from Nazi Germany, instructor of Iranian and related languages at the Asia Institute in New York and at Columbia University, dies.

1964 Ernst Kühnel (b. 1882), German scholar of Islamic art, author of Miniaturmalerei im Islamischen Orient (1922), and Antique Rugs from the Near East (with Wilhelm von Bode, English tr. by C. G. Ellis, 1984), dies.

1965 Assasination of prime minister Ḥasan-ʿAli Manṣur (b. 1923) by Moḥmmad Boḵārāʾi, a member of the pro-Khomeini fundamentalist group, Jamʿiyathā-ye Moʾtalefa-ye Eslāmi.

1965 Kānun-e parvareš-e fekri-e kudakān o nowjavānān (Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Adolescents), responsible for the establishment of a number of libraries throughout the country and the publication of books aimed at the youth, is founded by Lili Jahānārā and Homā Zāhedi and Eḥsān Yāršāṭer, with the support of Queen Farah.

1965 ʿAbd-al-ʿAẓim Qarib (b. 1879), prominent scholar of Persian language and literature with a long teaching career culminating with a professorship at the University of Tehran, author of the first modern grammar of Persian and a series of textbooks for elementary and secondary schools, and editor of Saʿdi’s Golestān and Kalila o Demna, dies.

1965 Ruḥ-Allāh Ḵāleqi (b. 1906), master of Persian music, outstanding composer, a follower of ʿAli-Naqi Vaziri’s methods who taught at the Tehran School of Music and composed music for Iran, ey marz-e por gohar, written by Ḥosayn Golgolāb, which has virtually become the national anthem among Persians in diaspora, dies.

1965 A series of reforms shift Iran’s educational model from a French-based system to an American-based system.

1965-77 Premiership of Amir ʿAbbās Hoveydā.

1966 An Iran-Soviet agreement to establish a steel mill in Isfahan is signed.

1966 55 members of a clandestine group, Ḥezb-e melal-e eslāmi (Party of Islamic Nations), who had been arrested earlier, are tried by a military tribunal and receive sentences of 5-10 years in prison.

1966 National Iranian television begins broadcasting.

1966 Saʿid Nafisi (b. 1895), prolific scholar, historian of Persian literature, novelist, translator, professor at the University of Tehran, author of Aḥwāl wa ašʾār-e Rudaki (3 vols., 1931-40) containing the poet’s biography and his poems, editor of Qābus-nāma (1933), editor and annotator of Tāriḵ-e Bayhaqi (1963), author of Tāriḵ-e Naẓm o naṯr-e Fārsi (1965), and translator of the Illiad and Odyssey from French into Persian, dies.

1966 Vladimir Fedorovich Minorsky (b. 1877), outstanding Russian scholar of Persian history, literature, and the history of the Caucasus, professor of Persian studies at the University of London (SOAS), editor, translator, and annotator of the earliest extant geographical work on Iran, Ḥodud al-ʿālam (The Regions of the World, 1937), editor, translator, and annotator of Samiʿā’s Taḏkerat al-moluk as Tadhkirat al-Muluk: A Manual of Safavid Administration (1943), contributor of authoritative articles on Tabriz, Tehran, the Kurds, and the Lors to the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, and author of Studies in Caucasian History (1957), dies.

1967 A $110 million arms deal with the Soviet Union is disclosed.

1967 The poet Foruḡ Farroḵzād (b. 1935), one of the most prominent and innovative modernist poets of Persia, author of the collections Asir (1955), Divār (1957), Oṣyān (1958), and Tawallodi digar (1964), dies in an automobile accident at the age of 32.

1967 Moḥammad Moṣaddeq (b. 1882), former premier of Iran, dies in Aḥmadābād.

1967 Sayyed Faḵr al-Din Šādmān (b. 1907), scholar, social critic, and politician, minister of justice in General Zāhedi’s Cabinet, dies.

1967 Ṣamad Behrangi (b. 1939), teacher, social critic, folklorist, translator, and short story writer, author of Kand o kāv dar masāʾel-e tarbiati-e Irān (1965) and Māhi-e siāh-e kučulu (1968), dies.

1967 First issue of Āyandagān newspaper is published (it is banned in August 1979).

1967 Iran National Car Company begins assembly of the British Hillman Hunter, produced under the “Peykan” name for the domestic market; it is so popular that it soon becomes known as the national car of Iran and by 1977 over 100,000 units a year were being produced.

1967 The Family Protection Law is ratified by the Majles, promoting women’s rights, including a requirement of securing a court order for divorce.

1967 Walter Bruno Henning (b. 1908), eminent Iranist, authoritative philologist, and professor of Iranian studies at the University of London (SOAS), and later the University of California, Berkeley, who elucidated a number of ill understood Middle Iranian inscriptions, including the inscription of Šāpur I at Naqš-e Rostam, the inscriptions of kerdīr, the inscription of Narseh at Paikuli, and the Bactrian inscription of kaniška at Sorḵ-kotal in Afghanistan, editor of “Ein manichäisches Bet-und Beichtbuch” (1937), author of Sogdica (1940), and “Mitteliranisch,” in Handbuch der Orientalistik (Iranistik, vol. IV, 1st section, 1958), dies.

1968 Ebrāhim Purdāvud (b. 1886), eminent scholar, poet, translator and annotator of the Avesta, professor of the ancient culture of Iran at the University of Tehran, ardent promoter of the study of pre-Islamic Iranian culture and Zoroastrianism, author of Hormozd-nāma (1952), and Farhang-e Irān-e Bāstān (1977), dies.

1968 Charles Ambrose Storey (b. 1888), British scholar of Iranian bibliography, professor at Cambridge University, and author of Persian Literature: A Bio-bibliographical Survey (1927-90), dies.

1968 Marshall Hodgson (b. 1922), historian of Islam who emphasized the significance of Persian culture and its renaissance in Islamic history, professor at the University of Chicago, and the author of The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization (3 vols, 1975-77), dies.

1968 Jan Rypka (b. 1886), Czech historian of Persian literature and the author of the well-known History of Iranian Literature (English tr. edited by Karl Jahn, 1968), dies.

1968 Otakar Klima (b. 1908), Czech scholar of Iranian studies and author of Mazdak: Geschichte einer sozialen Bewgung im sassanidischen Persien (1957), and Beiträge zur Geschichte des Mazdakismus (1977), dies.

1968 Aleksandr Arnoldovich Freĭman (b. 1879), Russian Iranist, philologist, founder and head of the Soviet school of the comparative-historical method in Iranian linguistics, a pioneer of Ḵʷārazmian studies, author of Khorezmiĭskiī yazyk (1951), dies.

1969 Formation of the Grand Freemasonry Lodge of Iran, with the Shah’s candidate, Jaʿfar Šarif-Emāmi, as its Grand Master. It ruled over 27 Lodges with some 700 members. The three German Lodges, with Sayyed Ḥasan Taqizādeh, Ḥosayn ʿAlāʾ, and ʿAbd-Allāh Enteẓāmi, veterans of freemasonry and their respective Lodges, did not join, preferring independence.

1969 Ministry of Justice appoints a number of female judges.

1969 Ḵalil Maleki (b. 1901), scholar and political thinker who led the famous split with the Tudeh Party, dies.

1969 Jalāl Āl-e Aḥmad (b. 1923), writer, essayist, political and social critic, husband of the novelist Simin Dānešvar, author of Modir-e madrasa (1959), Ḡarbzadegi (1961; English translation by P. Sprachman as Plagued by the West [1981]), Nefrin-e zamin (1978), Dar ḵedmat o ḵiānat-e rowšanfekrān (2 vols., 198-), and several collections of short stories, dies.

1969 Arthur J. Arberry (b. 1905), British Arabist and Iranist, historian of Iranian literature, professor of Arabic at Cambridge University, frequent translator from Persian and Arabic literatures, including an elegant translation of the Qorʾān into English (1955), author of The Legacy of Persia (1953), Fifty Poems of Ḥāfiz (text and translation, 1947), and Classical Persian Literature (1958), translator of a selection of stories from Aṭṭār’s Taḏkerat al-awliāʾ entitled Muslim Saints and Mystics (1966), and 400 selected ḡazals of Rumi entitled Mystical Poems of Rumi (2 vols., 1968-79), dies.

1969 Henri Massé (b. 1886), French scholar, professor of Persian at the École national des langues orientales, author of Essai sur le poète Saadi (1919), and the pioneering work on Persian folklore Croyances et coutumes persanes, suivies de contes et chansons populaires (2 vols., 1938), dies.

1969 Arthur Upham Pope (b. 1881), American historian of Iranian art and architecture, eloquent speaker and skillful promoter of Persian art, founding director of the Asia Institute in New York, the editor, with his wife Felix Ackerman, of the famous A Survey of Persian Art (published in six large tomes with ample color illustrations, 1938-39, reprinted several times and supplemented), dies and is buried in Isfahan in accordance with his wishes.

1970 An Iranian-backed attempt at a coup-d’état in Baghdad fails when Saddam Hussein infiltrates the ranks of the conspirators, resulting in the execution of 29 Iraqi military officers suspected of involvement in the coup attempt.

1970 The Academy of Persian Language (Farhangestān), which was active during 1935-41, resumes its operations.

1970 Sayyed Ḥasan Taqizādeh (b. 1878), eminent scholar, statesman, erstwhile revolutionary, prominent deputy and orator in the first and second Majles, dies.

1970 The Shah relinquishes Iran’s claim to Bahrain following UN-sponsored elections to determine Bahrain’s preferences.

1970 SAVAK agents assassinate General Teymur Baḵtiār, the founder of SAVAK, in response to his machinations against the Shah from exile in Iraq.

1970 Grand Ayatollah Moḥsen Ḥakim (b. 1888), dies.

1970 Badiʿ-al-Zamān Foruzānfar (b. 1900), noted scholar of classical Persian and Arabic literature, an expert on Rumi and Islamic mysticism, dean of the Faculty of Theology, senator, author of Soḵan wa soḵanva-rān (1933), and editor of Divān-e šams, dies.

1970 Kaj Barr (b. 1896), Danish classical philologist and Iranist, professor at the University of Copenhagen, and author of Bruchstücke einer Pehlevi-Übersetzung der Psalmen (1933, based on F. C. Andreas’s papers), dies.

1970 Vladimir Alekseevich Ivanow (b. 1886), Russian Orientalist and a leading pioneer in modern Ismaʿili studies, Assistant Keeper of Oriental Manuscripts at the Asiatic Museum in St. Petersburg, author of A Guide to Ismaili Literature (1933), and Ismaili Literature: A Bibliographical Survey (1963), dies.

1970 Heinrich Franz Josef Junker (b. 1889), German philologist, scholar of Iranian studies, professor at the University of Hamburg, and editor of Frahang ī Pahlavik (1912), dies.

1971 Iran occupies the Abu Musa Island in the Persian Gulf.

1971 The first overt armed operations against the security forces by the Fedāʾiān-e ḵalq guerilla group take place in Siāhkal, Gilan.

1971 Celebrations mark the 2,500th anniversary of the foundation of the Persian monarchy; 69 heads of state or their representatives take part in the ceremonies at Persepolis.

1971 Moḥammad Moʿin (b. 1917), noted professor of Persian literature at the Faculty of Letters, University of Tehran, successor to Dehḵodā in completing his Loḡat-nāma, author of Ḥāfeẓ-e širin-soḵan, and most importantly Farhang-e Moʿin in six volumes, dies after having been in a coma for several years.

1971 Ṣādeq Reżāzādeh-Šafaq (b. 1895), professor of philosophy at the University of Tehran, author of Tāriḵ-e adabiyāt-e Fārsi (1977), active in the Constitutional Movement, and later a senator from Tabriz, dies.

1971 The emergence as an overt entity of the Sāzmān-e mojāhedin-e ḵalq-e Irān, a guerilla organization with a mixture of Islamic and left wing ideologies, established in the mid-1960s to undertake attacks against the Shah’s regime.

1972 President Richard Nixon visits Iran; leftist guerilla groups carry out several acts of sabotage during his visit, and his motorcade is pelted with stones by University of Tehran students.

1972 The first group of female police officers enter the service.

1972 Rudolph Gelpke (b. 1928), Swiss scholar, writer, and translator of Persian literature including The Story of Layla and Majnun (1966), dies.

1973 Lieutenant Colonel Lewis L. Hawkins, a U.S. military advisor in Tehran, is assassinated by the Mojāhedin-e ḵalq guerilla group.

1973 In what is known as the “OPEC oil crisis,” Arab members of OPEC boycott oil exports to Western countries that had supported Israel during the Arab-Israeli War; the price of oil quadruples with Iranian oil revenues increasing to over $20 billion.

1973 A coup d’état in Afghanistan by Moḥammad Dāwud Khan leads to the formation of a Republican regime.

1973 Le p