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Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who became Shah in 1941, found it difficult to secure political legitimacy -- he ruled dictatorially, stepping beyond his defined role as a constitutional monarch. Even his modernizing gestures such as the 1963 "White Revolution," which included land reforms, women's suffrage, and economic incentives, failed to satisfy the Shah's critics, who saw him as beholden to the West. The Shah turned to the Persian legacy, in 1967 crowning himself -- as seen in the ceremony pictured here -- as King of Kings and Emperor of Iran. His resurrection of the Persian cultural legacy continued with an extravagant celebration of at Persepolis in 1971, marking the 2,500-year anniversary of the Persian empire and asserting his place in an unbroken lineage of Persian kings. Further gestures such as replacing the Islamic lunar calendar with the Zoroastrian solar calendar may have appealed to Persian nationalism but did little to build support for continued royal rule, especially in the face of an opposition movement that had grown increasingly Islamic and resented Pahlavi's appeals to ancient royalty as much as they had his secularism. By 1978, widespread protests forced the Shah into exile, opening the way for the Islamic Revolution.
CREDIT: Dmitri Kessel/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
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