Iranian Hostage Crisis By Courtnay Edwards

How it all Started Oil was discovered in Iran in 1908 and attracted attention from the West The US traded Military Equipment for oil The German’s played a dominant role in Iran until World War II Then the Soviet Union joined the U.S. to keep the Germans out Until 1953 the U.S. stayed on the sidelines helping the them stay under independent leadership by the young king Reza Shah Pahlavi

However, resentment towards the U.S. started to grow. The causes were: ◦The uneven distribution of wealth ◦The U.S. influences in the country The Shah stopped all the uprisings by sending the leader of the uprisings into exile in Iraq, Ruhollah Khomeini But some were still happening without him knowing

ShahKhomeini

Protestors

On New Years Eve 1977 the president of the United States chose to ignore that Iran was in serious trouble with the rebellions The Shah had serious cancer and more uprisings were occurring The Shah made the mistake of using his military to stop the protesters which just fueled the hatred towards him The U.S. decided to help the Shah by allowing him to travel to the U.S. for cancer treatment and get away from his angry citizens

His absence fueled the hatred towards the U.S. because they allowed him to travel to the U.S. which lead to the Iranian Hostage Crisis It started on November 4, 1979 A group of Iranian students stormed into to the U.S. Embassy in Tahran They took more then 60 Americans hostage for 444 days The students decided they would not release the Americans until the U.S. returned the Shah for trial and gave Iran billions of dollars that they claimed the U.S. had taken from their citizens

The American Hostages photo-of-the-day/

President Carter was doing as much as he could from the U.S. trying to formulate different plans to get the Iranian students to release the American Hostages On April 11, 1980 President Carter took a risk and attempted at a rescue mission using helicopters This mission was called “Desert One” The helicopter ended up crashing into a transport plane while taking off The Iranians broadcasted the footage using it against the U.S.

Desert One

Iran’s past ruler was put in power, Khomeini Finally in September he decided that Iran was no longer gaining anything from keeping the Americans hostage so he released them

Hostages going home

Youtube Video rrHHQ

Works Cited ence/features/general-article/carter- hostage-crisis/ ence/features/general-article/carter- hostage-crisis/ hostage-crisis hostage-crisis XrrHHQ