What No One Ever Told You About the History of Iran with Bill Federer
I Don't Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST
Dr. Frank Turek
4.9 • 5.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 March 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After 47 years, is a regime change in Iran finally on the horizon? Or are we about to repeat history yet again? As tensions rise and the U.S. and Israel work to counter the Ayatollah’s nuclear ambitions, many Americans know the danger but not the backstory.
In this episode, Frank sits down with historian Bill Federer to explain the "why" behind the war, trace Iran’s journey from ancient Persia to the Islamic Revolution, and uncover the historical forces that shaped today’s Middle East. Tune in as they answer questions like:
- What happened when Frank traveled to Tehran in 2006?
- What is the ancient history of Iran (previously known as Persia)?
- What's the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam?
- What was the Islamic "Golden Age" and who brought it to an end?
- How did the collapse of the Ottoman Empire lead to radicalism?
- What is the chilling origin story of the word "assassin"?
- How does the Sunni-Shia divide continue to fuel the fires of modern Middle Eastern conflict?
- What was the real catalyst behind the fall of the Persian Shah and the rise of the current Ayatollah regime?
- What was Winston Churchill's "hiccup"?
- What is the Muslim Brotherhood and what role did they play in the history of Iran?
Frank and Bill cover thousands of years of history in less than an hour, but this is only the beginning! Be sure to tune in next week as they continue their discussion on how the Ayatollah took power over Iran in 1979 and what may lie ahead.
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Resources mentioned during the episode:
Donate to CrossExamined - https://donor.crossexamined.org/
The American Minute - https://americanminute.com/
What Every American Needs to Know About the Quran by Bill Federer - https://bit.ly/4baFLJE
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | 20 years ago this June, June of 2006, I went to Tehran with about 20 other guys. |
| 0:12.0 | We were on a Noah's Ark expedition because the Bible says that Noah's Ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat, not Mount Ararat. |
| 0:22.3 | We had some reason to believe Noah's Riz could have been on a mountain in Iran, which was an area known as Ararat. |
| 0:32.9 | So we went to Tehran. I don't have time to tell you all the details here. |
| 0:36.9 | But we happened to land in Tehran on the 17th anniversary of Ayatola Khomeini's death. |
| 0:45.4 | So all the streets had banners of Ayatola Khomeini no matter where we went. |
| 0:52.3 | And we told our guide, the bus driver there, we wanted to see the embassy, the embassy that was |
| 0:57.9 | raided by the Iranians in 1979 shortly after the Ayatollah took over. |
| 1:05.2 | For those you were old enough, you might remember that the Iranians took a number of American |
| 1:10.3 | hostages and held them for 444 days |
| 1:14.0 | until the afternoon Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president, January 20th, 1981. |
| 1:24.4 | Anyway, we're in Tehran. The people are very friendly. We enjoyed our time there. It actually is a pretty city, although a bit run down. Some other time, I'll tell you some of the other things that happened there. There was a point where I didn't know I was going to get out of there alive, |
| 1:45.0 | not because I was worried I was going to be accosted by the government, but because the driving |
| 1:51.6 | was so crazy that we were literally driving on the sidewalk in Tehran. And we were not stopping |
| 1:59.3 | for lights. We were plowing right through lights because my |
| 2:01.8 | Iranian driver was trying to get me to the airport on time. In any event, long story short, |
| 2:08.7 | here we are 20 years later and now America and Israel are in a operation to take out the nuclear capabilities and also to take down the regime of the Ayatollah. |
| 2:24.4 | In this podcast, this radio program today, we're going to try and look into some questions. |
| 2:31.6 | How did the Ayatollah take power over Iran in 1979, which up to that |
| 2:36.6 | point was a constitutional monarchy? What president gave him the green light to take over? What lies |
| 2:42.4 | did this Ayatollah tell America in order to take power? Who did he execute immediately when he took |
| 2:48.1 | power? And what kind of laws and restrictions did he put in place? |
... |
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