Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

In 1939, he married Dilawar Princess Fawzia of Egypt, daughter of King Fuad I of Egypt. They had one child together, Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi, but the couple later got divorced.

In 1951, Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari, a half-German half-Iranian woman, became his second wife. However, when it became apparent that even with help from medical doctors she could not bear children, he divorced her.

Then he married Farah Diba and they were blessed with four children; two sons, Prince Reza Pahlavi and Prince Ali-Reza Pahlavi, and two daughters, Princess Farahnaz Pahlavi and Princess Leila Pahlavi .

He, along with his twin sister, Ashraf, was born on October 26, 1919, to Reza Pahlavi and his second wife, Tadj ol-Molouk. He was the third child and the eldest son of the father’s eleven children from four wives.

In 1925, when he was five years old, his father overthrew the Qajar Dynasty with British assistance, founded the Pahlavi Dynasty, and became the Shah of Iran. Upon his father’s coronation in April 1926, he was proclaimed crown prince.

In 1931, he went to the ‘Institut Le Rosey’ in Switzerland becoming the first Iranian heir apparent to study overseas. In 1936, he graduated from a high school in Iran and spent the following two years at the military academy in Tehran.

In the fall of 1941, his father was forced to abdicate the throne by the British and Russian forces who had occupied the country after a short struggle and he was crowned as the new Shah of Iran.

When World War II ended in 1945, the US and Britain withdrew from their spheres, but the Soviets refused to leave. With considerable American help, his government was able to pressurize the Soviet into withdrawing from northern Iran.

Later, with assistance from the United States, he started the ‘White Revolution’ in which he nationalized forests and water, established profit-sharing plans for the workers, emancipated women, and established literacy, sanitation, and development corps.

Gradually, he grew increasingly autocratic and took the extreme measure of outlawing all political parties except for his own favored Rastakhiz Party, thus abolishing the multi-party system. Displeased with his rule, his opponents soon began to hold strikes and street rallies to which he responded by deploying the army on the streets of Tehran.

On September 8, 1978, his troops opened fire on a demonstration by religious dissidents, killing many people. This event, known as ‘Black Friday’ turned out to be the beginning of the end for him as a ruler.

He introduced a national development program called the ‘White Revolution’ that included construction of an expanded road, rail, and air network, the encouragement and support to industrial growth, and land reforms.

He also established literacy and health corps for the isolated rural population. In the 1960-70s, he sought to develop a more independent foreign policy and established working relationships with the Soviet Union and eastern European nations.