Iran since 1979: A timeline of crises

The protests successful Iran are grabbing headlines, with the authorities and the absorption accusing each different of escalating violence. The authorities besides says that overseas interference is down the protests.

It is the latest circular of demonstrations against Iran’s governing strategy since the 1979 gyration that toppled the shah and ushered successful an Islamic republic.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 3Displaced citizens without a ballot Myanmar’s election
• list 2 of 3AFCON 2025 organisers analyse clashes astatine Nigeria, Morocco games
• list 3 of 3Myanmar Rohingya genocide lawsuit begins astatine International Court

But the state has besides faced different crises, including earthquakes, war, sanctions, atomic tensions, determination interventions and governmental drama.

Here is simply a timeline of immoderate of the large events from the past 5 decades.

1979

February: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returns aft 14 years of exile successful Iraq and France.

April: After a referendum, Iran is declared an Islamic republic

November: The United States imposes its archetypal sanctions connected Iran, justified by the seizure of American hostages held astatine the US Embassy successful Tehran. The US had supported the the overthrown shah, oregon monarch, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and, earlier, helped depose the democratically elected premier minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, successful a 1953 coup, besides supported by US and UK quality agencies.

1980

September: Iraq invades Iran. Estimates enactment the war’s decease toll astatine astir 500,000, with Iran suffering the heavier losses. The warfare was defined by large-scale trenches, machineguns and bayonet uses, akin to World War I. However, Iraq besides utilized chemic weapons against Iranians and Iraqi Kurds.

1981

January: All remaining US hostages are released, ending the Iranian hostage crisis.

June: A bombing astatine the Islamic Republican Party office successful Tehran kills dozens of elder officials, including the caput of the judiciary, Mohammad Beheshti, regarded arsenic the second-most important idiosyncratic successful Iran aft Khomeini.

August: President Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar are assassinated successful a bombing onslaught connected a gathering successful Tehran. Authorities blasted the leftist revolutionary-minded absorption Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) group, which had faced a crackdown the erstwhile year.

1982

June: Israel invades Lebanon. Iran starts backing what volition go the Lebanese absorption movement, Hezbollah.

1988

July: The USS Vincennes, a US Navy guided rocket cruiser, shoots down a civilian Iran Air Airbus level implicit the Gulf, sidesplitting each 290 radical connected board.

August: A ceasefire begins betwixt Iran and Iraq aft United Nations-brokered negotiations.

1989

June: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini dies connected June 3.

His successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is chosen by the Assembly of Experts the adjacent day.

1990

June: Iran is deed by a large earthquake. About 40,000 radical are killed.

1995

March and May: The US imposes lipid and commercialized sanctions connected Iran. It accuses Iran of sponsoring “terrorism” and seeking atomic arms.

1998

September: The Taliban admits that 8 Iranian diplomats and a writer had been killed successful Afghanistan the erstwhile month, during the group’s takeover of the bluish metropolis of Mazar-i-Sharif. Iran deploys thousands of troops to its shared borderline with Afghanistan successful response.

2002

January: US President George W Bush names Iran portion of the “axis of evil”, alongside North Korea and Iraq, saying the countries are supporters of “terrorism”.

2003

March: The US invades Iraq. Iran begins financing and supporting Shia militias and governmental groups connected the ground. Its power implicit specified groups is inactive prevalent today.

November: Iran announces it volition suspend its uranium enrichment programme and let much thorough UN inspections of its atomic sites. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says determination is nary grounds of a atomic weapons programme. This openness is simply a alteration aft Iranian officials had blocked oregon impeded past inspections.

December: The Bam earthquake successful confederate Iran kills up to 40,000 people

2006

December: the UN Security Council (UNSC) imposes sanctions connected Iran’s commercialized successful delicate atomic materials and technology, aft Iran failed to suspend its atomic programme successful speech for diplomatic and economical incentives from Germany and the 5 imperishable UNSC members – France, China, Russia, the UK, and the US.

2007

October: The US adds additional, progressively pugnacious sanctions connected Iran

2010

June: The UNSC imposes a 4th circular of sanctions connected Iran implicit its atomic programme. The sanctions see an expanded arms embargo and stricter fiscal regulations.

September: Iran accuses Israel and the US of infecting its atomic powerfulness works systems aft discovering malware connected systems utilized by unit successful the atomic sector.

2011

March: The authorities of President Bashar al-Assad successful Syria, an Iranian ally, brutally represses a fashionable uprising that started successful March connected the backmost of the Arab Spring protests. Later successful the year, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) sends Iranian and overseas militias to enactment al-Assad.

2012

January: The European Union begins boycotting Iranian lipid exports.

September: The IAEA claims it is obstructed from inspecting Iran’s Parchin subject tract and that Iran has accrued the magnitude of atomic centrifuges enriching uranium, raising fears that the state is getting person to obtaining a atomic weapon.

October: The Iranian rial falls to a grounds debased against the US dollar, losing 80 percent of its worth since 2011, mostly owed to planetary sanctions.

2015

July: Iran comes to an statement with the medication of US President Barack Obama, arsenic good arsenic the UK, France, Russia, China and the EU, to bounds its atomic programme successful instrumentality for sanctions relief. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is wide referred to arsenic the atomic deal, and the statement leads to celebrations from Iranians, hoping for an extremity to the country’s isolation.

2018

May: Obama’s successor, President Donald Trump, withdraws the US from the atomic deal, arguing that the JCPOA is excessively lenient connected Iran and should beryllium replaced by a “better deal”.

2020

January: Qassem Soleimani, the person of the IRGC’s Quds Force, is assassinated by a US drone onslaught successful Baghdad.

2024

April: Israel bombs Iran’s embassy successful Damascus, sidesplitting 7 people, including 2 IRGC generals.

May: Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi dies successful a chopper clang successful the country’s East Azerbaijan province.

July: Hamas main Ismael Haniyeh is assassinated successful Tehran, with Israel wide regarded arsenic being down the attack.

2025

June: Israel attacks Iran, starting a 12-day war betwixt the 2 sides that kills astatine slightest 610 Iranians and 28 Israelis.