The U.S. embassy in Tehran was seized, starting a 444-day hostage crisis
On this day · 4 November 1979
Iranian students stormed the American embassy in 1979, holding dozens of diplomats captive for a span that doomed a presidency.
On November 4, 1979, a crowd of Iranian students — calling themselves the Students Following the Line of the Imam — surged over the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and seized the compound. Within hours they had taken dozens of American diplomats, Marine guards, and staff captive.
The spark was the United States’ decision to admit Iran’s deposed Shah for cancer treatment, which the country’s new revolutionary government, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, treated as proof of American meddling. Rather than disperse the occupiers, Iran’s leadership embraced them.
What followed became one of the defining ordeals of the era. A military rescue attempt in 1980 ended in disaster in the desert, and negotiations dragged on for more than a year.
The crisis ended with the release of the hostages after a captivity of 444 days, from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981.
The final 52 hostages walked free minutes after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated — a humiliation that had already helped sink Jimmy Carter’s reelection bid.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
