Iranians waving flags and carrying a poster featuring Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the emperor of Iran before the revolution, during a gathering held in Tehran on February 11, 2008. (Credit: Atta Kenare/AFP)
It was 1:15 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 1979, and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi advanced in uniform on the tarmac at Tehran airport. He was accompanied by his wife, Farah Diba, dressed as a modern empress: fur toque and leather boots. He stood tall with a defeated gaze, she had a drooping but proud eye. After a few months, the fairy tale turned into a Greek tragedy.The revolutionaries were about to shatter the Iranian dynasty, along with 2,500 years of monarchy and empire. The sovereign and the First Lady were living their final moments on the ancestral land. It was the ultimate departure, the last act. The couple boarded a Boeing 707 bound for Cairo, with "tears in their eyes." The shah clutched a small box to his chest, in which he carried "Iranian soil.""I don’t know when I will return," he said. After 37 years of...
It was 1:15 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 1979, and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi advanced in uniform on the tarmac at Tehran airport. He was accompanied by his wife, Farah Diba, dressed as a modern empress: fur toque and leather boots. He stood tall with a defeated gaze, she had a drooping but proud eye. After a few months, the fairy tale turned into a Greek tragedy.The revolutionaries were about to shatter the Iranian dynasty, along with 2,500 years of monarchy and empire. The sovereign and the First Lady were living their final moments on the ancestral land. It was the ultimate departure, the last act. The couple boarded a Boeing 707 bound for Cairo, with "tears in their eyes." The shah clutched a small box to his chest, in which he carried "Iranian soil.""I don’t know when I will return," he said. After 37 years...
