Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi took the throne in 1941 after the Anglo-Soviet invasion forced his father's abdication. In 1953, the Iranian military - backed by the United Kingdom and the United States - overthrew prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had nationalized British-owned oil; foreign companies returned under the 1954 Consortium Agreement, and power centralized under the Shah. He launched the White Revolution in 1963: land redistribution, profit-sharing for workers, nuclear facilities, and nationalist economic policies that insulated new Iranian industries from foreign competition. Real GDP per capita nearly tripled between 1950 and 1979. He also ruled as an authoritarian, curtailing human rights and drawing mounting internal opposition. By the late 1970s - after the Cinema Rex fire and Jaleh Square massacre - his Western allies concluded at the 1979 Guadeloupe Conference that the monarchy could not be saved. He left Iran in January 1979; Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini abolished the monarchy and established the Islamic Republic. Pahlavi died in exile in Egypt in 1980.