What became known as the Iran hostage crisis began on November 4, 1979. A group of anti-American demonstrators in Tehran, the capital city of Iran, stormed the American embassy, trapped fifty-two American workers there, and held them hostage for 444 days.

Carter was a symbol of hatred for revolutionary Iranians because his administration showed support for Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919-1980), the Shah (sovereign leader) of Iran. The conflict between the Shah and Islamic fundamentalists in Iran dated back to the 1950s. (A fundamentalist is someone who believes all social systems and interaction should be based strictly on religious teachings; a fundamentalist Christian follows the Bible as law, and an Islamic fundamentalist uses the Koran.) The Shah had ruled since 1941, when he was twenty-one years old. With help from the United States, he modernized his nation after World War II and accumulated wealth by exporting oil...