History

The event of September 17, 1978, widely remembered in Iran as Black Friday (Shanbeh-ye Siah) and in some accounts as the “September 17 Massacre”, stands as one of the most decisive and tragic moments in the final year of the Pahlavi monarchy. On that Friday morning, in Tehran’s Jhaleh Square (today Martyrs’ Square on Mojahedin-e-Islam Street), government forces opened fire …

Houshmand Aghili (August 2, 1937 – September 14, 1404) was an Iranian singer, composer, and performer of traditional and classical Persian music. Over the span of seven decades, his voice became associated with refinement, elegance, and nostalgia, bridging generations both inside Iran and in the diaspora. Aghili’s career began in the mid-1950s, and from the very start, his training under …

In the early days of Shahrivar 1343 (September 1964), the people of Tehran witnessed a sight unlike any before in their city’s history: the passing of the Olympic torch through their streets. The torch, lit on the slopes of Mount Olympia in Greece, symbolized the ideals of peace, unity, and competition that the modern Olympic Games carried across borders and …

Ustad Akbar Golpayegani (1933–2023), widely known by his artistic name Golpa, occupies a towering place in the history of traditional Iranian music. He is remembered as one of the great radif singers, a master of Persian classical vocal performance, and an innovator who bridged the older traditions of tazieh and religious recitation with modern performance styles on radio, stage, and …

Abbas Masoudi (1915–1974) stands as one of the most influential figures in the history of Iranian journalism. Best remembered as the founder of Ettelaat newspaper, which remains one of Iran’s most widely read and longest-running publications, Masoudi was not merely a journalist but also a politician and cultural mediator. His career straddled journalism, printing, and politics, and his life provides …

The cultural atmosphere of Iran in the 1950s was characterized by a dynamic and often conflictual relationship between tradition and modernity. At least two major cultural trends dominated society during this period. On the one hand stood the traditional atmosphere, rooted in customs, rituals, and values that had survived from ancient Iranian culture and evolved under Islamic civilization since the …

It was one of those suffocating hot days in August 1935. The summer sun stood mercilessly over Tehran, beating down on the city with an intensity that seemed to silence even the wind. In those years, Tehran had no air conditioners, no electric fans in every home, and no mechanical cooling systems that modern life has since made indispensable. People …

Alinaghi Vaziri (October 9, 1886 – September 8, 1979), commonly remembered as Colonel Vaziri, occupies a unique and transformative place in the history of Iranian music. At once a soldier, intellectual, composer, educator, and reformer, Vaziri bridged the traditional musical culture of Iran with the notational and pedagogical methods of the West. His impact was so great that nearly every …

On 19 August 1953 (28 Mordad 1332 in the Iranian calendar), a dramatic political coup unfolded in Iran, reshaping the nation’s political trajectory and reverberating across the Middle East for decades. Known inside Iran as the Mordad 28th coup d’état (Kudeta-ye 28 Mordad), this operation toppled the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, a nationalist leader who had sought to …

[custom_adv] In the mid-1930s, Iran stood at a crossroads between tradition and modernity. The reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi (1925–1941) marked a decisive period in which sweeping reforms reshaped every dimension of society—politics, economy, infrastructure, education, and culture. Among these transformations was a project that, while less known than industrial or military reforms, had profound significance for the nation’s cultural …