1979 Iranian Revolution, Explained | Last Persian Shah | Reupload

May 20, 2024 | Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's story begins with good ideas and ideals and ends in bloody chaos. On the one hand, he helped carry Iran into modernity. His wealth was legendary, and his marriages made tabloid headlines for years. However, his name also stands for a time of human rights violations, vicious oppression and intolerance. Had Shah Reza Pahlavi not come to power, it’s unlikely that radical Islam would have the widespread political and brutal effects it has today. The film shows what has remained of the legacy of the regime after the Islamic Revolution to this day combining his biography with the social, political, economic and religious tendencies of the time.

Iran’s Last Shah - the fifth estate | 1975

In 1975 for one of the first-ever episodes of the fifth estate, Adrienne Clarkson talked to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi -the Shah of Iran- about inflation in the West in the face of rising oil prices. The Shah contends that the West built itself at Iran’s expense and he is now putting things right. Clarkson raises the issues of Iran’s record with political prisoners and torture and his views on torture are unequivocal. The Pahlavi dynasty would end four years later in the wake of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Pahlavi died of cancer while in exile one year later.

the fifth estate is celebrating our 40th season and we are taking a look back at some of the people and places we have featured on the program.