Word: shahs
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...revolt had made rapid progress since it welled up less than two months ago. Most of Azerbaijan (see map) was already in rebel hands. Rebel columns sped along the swampy Caspian littoral to seize the town of Bandar Shah; they headed east toward Iran's sacred city of Meshed...
...life (26 years) sallow, dewy-eyed Mohamed Reza Pahlevi, Shah of Iran, had been anxious to please, an attitude largely conditioned by his autocratic father, the late, tough Reza Shah Pahlevi. Like his ten brothers and sisters, Mohamed Reza grew up in awe and admiration of the domineering old martinet who rose from the soil to root a dynasty in nothing more substantial than the high, dry air of Teheran's political intrigue...
...Reza Shah came from a family of small landholders in Mazanderan Province, rose to be colonel in the Iranian Army. When the decrepit regime of Ahmed Shah tottered after World War I, Reza Khan became successively Commander in Chief of the Iranian Army. Minister of War, Premier, finally Shah of Shahs-all in less than five years...
...years the old Shah's splenetic energy also bulldozed medieval Iran into building an 860-mile railroad to span the country from north to south, erecting schools and factories, changing the country's name from provincial Persia to national Iran, abandoning the veil for women, accepting movies and traffic lights...
This blend of barbarism and benevolence had its inevitable effect on the Crown Prince. He grew into a meek, friendly youth, given to expressing any inward effervescence by racing along the streets of Teheran in fast cars. The better to equip him for his royal duties, the Shah gave the boy five years of European schooling. The Shah had learned to read & write Persian only after becoming Minister of War; the Crown Prince became proficient in French, English and European manners in one of the most expensive private schools in Switzerland. But Mohamed Reza was not allowed to finish...