Overview
Pahlavi Iran (1925–1979) spans the reigns of Reza Shah (1925–41) and his son Mohammad Reza Shah (1941–79). Reza Shah’s forced modernization — railways, schools, secularization, autocracy — was cut short by the Anglo-Soviet occupation of 1941. The 1940s brought a more open but crisis-ridden politics: occupation, the Azerbaijan crisis of 1946, oil nationalization under Mossadegh in 1951, and the coup of 1953.
Key developments
After 1953 the shah rebuilt royal autocracy in alignment with the United States; the SAVAK security police, founded in 1957, became notorious for documented surveillance and torture of dissidents. The White Revolution of 1963 — land reform, a literacy corps, women’s suffrage — was top-down modernization that dislocated the old classes, and the 1963 protests around the arrest of Ruhollah Khomeini were violently suppressed, with Khomeini exiled in 1964. The oil boom of the 1970s brought soaring revenues, arms purchases, and the 1971 Persepolis celebration of 2,500 years of monarchy — a lavish spectacle widely criticized at home — followed by inflation and dashed expectations.
End and transition
A one-party state under Rastakhiz (1975), resentment of corruption, and cultural alienation combined to feed the revolution of 1978–79. The shah left Iran in January 1979, and the monarchy fell that February.