Iranian Revolution
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Iranian Revolution occured in 1979, in the Shi'ite Muslim country Iran. The reason for the revolution (a violent overthrow of a government) was that many Iranians disliked the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, because he was an ally of the United States, and his government was not Islamic. The new government turned Iran into a republic, where no one becomes ruler just because their parents were important, and an ecclesiastocracy, where religious officials held power. The leader of the revolution was Ayatollah Khomeini. Shortly after the revolution, Iraq, which bordered Iran on the west, invaded, because the governments disliked each other. This war ended in 1988. Today, Iran is called the Islamic Republic of Iran, and supporters of the revolution are still the leaders of the country.