Hello and welcome to a special edition of the History Hour Podcast with me Rebecca

Keshbe on the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution.

It was a world-changing moment and in this program we'll hear from the people who were there

including the emotional experience of flying back to Tehran with a triumphant Ayatollah

hominie.

Whenever I see the excitement of the people, millions of people,

I start to cry.

Also an American hostage taken captive by the Ayatollah's supporters,

They stood there for a second,

and then they grabbed me, they tied my hands,

and then they pulled out a gun.

And why some Iranians became disillusioned with the Islamic element to the revolution.

My mother brought me a scarf and said that you cannot go into the street without the hijab.

They throw acid on you. So everybody was scared.

This week we're marking 40 years since an event so seismic it's had a profound effect on regional and global politics ever since

the Iranian Revolution of 1979. After years of bubbling tensions between the King or Shah of Iran and various groups who wanted change,

mass demonstrations eventually led to the fall of the autocratic Shah and the return from exile of the charismatic cleric Ayatollah

homene in February 1979. In this program we'll hear first-hand accounts of what it was like to be there, from flying home to Tehran

with the triumphant Ayatollah to being taken hostage by the revolutionaries.

First though, let's go back to the weeks and months that preceded the revolution, to the autumn

of 1978, when dissatisfaction with the Shah, his lavish lifestyle and

large protests were breaking out and as Goulnush-Golshani reports

...