Iranian Hostage Crisis
By: Cristo Caldera & Jesus Martinez
Summary
It was also a way to raise the intra- and international profile of the revolution’s leader, the anti-American cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The students set their hostages free on January 21, 1981, 444 days after the crisis began and just hours after President Ronald Reagan delivered his inaugural address. Many historians believe that hostage crisis cost Jimmy Carter a second term as president.
Thousands of other protesters pressed around the compound, responding to a call by the country's new leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, to attack US and Israeli interests.
They planned to land aircraft in the desert allowing special forces to infiltrate Tehran and free the 52 hostages.
But the planning failed, and the mission had to be aborted when two helicopters were damaged in a sandstorm and failed to reach the rendez-vous point.
But for the rest of the year the building serves as a museum to the revolution, opened in 2001.
Important terms/people
Jimmy Carter - 39th president and president at the time of the Iranian Crisis
Operation Eagle Claw - an operation to save the hostages that failed and ended up with 8 casualties and the destruction of 2 aircraft
Ronald Reagan- after his election as US president the iranian students set free the hostages