Protests across Iran today continued to grow despite a nationwide blackout implemented overnight,

with sources telling the news hour it is the largest ever cutoff in Iran's history.

What started as street marches against crippling inflation in the autocratic state

have quickly grown to become one of Iran's largest protest movements in years

as calls for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini's ouster mount.

Stephanie Sybe begins our coverage.

In Iran, defiance reignited.

Hundreds of thousands marched across the nation,

tearing up flags of the Islamic Republic

and chanting death

to the dictator, Ayatollah Hamanae.

This bloodied protester yells, I am not scared.

I have been dead for 47 years.

That was when Iran's Shah Reza Pahlavi was deposed in the Islamic Revolution, and Ruhalla

Khomeini took power.

It's the former monarch's son, the exiled crown prince, who has gone on social media to call

for nightly protests in recent days and deal the, quote, final blow to the regime.

Some Iranians are nostalgic for the past, hanging the pre-revolutionary flag on statues

of the ruling clerics and waving it in the streets.

The protests began nearly two weeks ago, amid a failing economy and rising prices, and quickly morphed into mass protests

across all 31 provinces, with many protesters calling for an end to a government that

gives religious leaders ultimate control.

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