timeline: from the shah to now

January 16, 1979
Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Iran's pro-Western monarch, is overthrown by an opposition movement led by the exiled Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini. The shah goes into exile, appointing leading secular opposition figure Dr. Shahpour Bakhtiar as prime minister.

February 1, 1979
Ayatollah Khomeini, head of the Shi'ite Islamization movement, is given a hero's welcome in Tehran as he returns after 15 years of exile in France.

April 1, 1979
Khomeini declares Iran an Islamic Republic.

November 4, 1979
Following the exiled shah's arrival in the U.S. for medical treatment, Iranian students storm the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and hold 52 Americans hostage.

January 1980
Liberal opposition figure Dr. Abolhassan Bani-Sadr is elected in the first presidential election, but ultimate power remains in the hands of Khomeini, the Supreme Leader. Bani-Sadr is later driven out by the mullahs and flees to France.

May 1980
A cultural revolution begins in Iran, resulting in the closure of all universities and higher education institutes for two years.

April 1980
The U.S. breaks off relations with Iran in order to increase economic pressure on Tehran.

September 22, 1980
Iraq attacks western Iran over territorial disputes, launching the longest conventional war this century, in which more than 1 million people are killed on both sides. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians are used as cannon fodder in "human wave" attacks on Iraqi artillery positions. The U.S. supplied weapons to both sides, while Iran was also armed by North Korea and China and Iraq by France and the Soviet Union.

January 20 1981
On the day of President Reagan's inauguration, U.S. hostages are released, after 444 days of confinement.

August 20, 1988
Iraq and Iran sign a cease-fire ending their eight-year war.

February 1989
Ayatollah Khomeini issues a fatwa (religious decree) ordering the death of British author Salman Rushdie, whose book "The Satanic Verses" he calls blasphemous.

June 4, 1989
Ayatollah Khomeini dies. Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khameini is elected as the new spiritual leader of the Islamic Republic.

August 1990
Iraq invades Kuwait. Iran condemns both the invasion and the allied Operation Desert Storm, which follows.

May 6, 1995
The U.S. bans all trade with Iran. A year later, a 1996 law orders the U.S. to apply sanctions against any non-U.S. companies investing in Iran or Libya. The European Union challenges the validity of such a law, and it is never enforced.

May 23, 1997
Mohammed Khatami is elected president with 69 percent of the popular vote. A moderate cleric and veteran of the revolution, Khatami promises to work for human rights, the rule of law and greater democratization, as well as to normalize relations with the West. The conservative backlash against his reforms have set the stage for the current power struggle over Iran's future.