The main event in Tehran yesterday was to be a rally at the former embassy and an address by Iranian army commander General Abdolrahim Mousavi. A caption on it read: “We are the superpower.”What exactly led to the 1979 takeover of the embassy remained obscure at the time to Americans who for months could only watch in horror as TV newscasts showed Iranian protests at the embassy. The shah, dying from cancer, fled Iran in January 1979, paving the way for the country’s Islamic Revolution. That lit the fuse for the Nov. 4, 1979, takeover by Islamist students, who initially planned a sit-in at the embassy. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the long-exiled Shiite cleric whose return to Iran sparked the Islamic Revolution, gave his support to the takeover.

Source: Taipei Times November 04, 2019 16:08 UTC