Working in tandem with the NDC, staff at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum were able to release additional records related to the Hostage Crisis that had not been previously available. National Archives Identifier February 1, 1979. U.S. marines search for survivors in the rubble of their Beirut barracks after an attack by the militant group Hezbollah. 561, was issued on January 19th, 1981, the day before the hostages were released. Officials from China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union gather after finalizing the Iran nuclear agreement. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright talks about the U.S. decision to lift a ban on Iranian goods imports. A demonstrator in Tehran carries a portrait of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who leads the Iranian Revolution from Paris. The approach of the 35th anniversary of the end of the Iran Hostage Crisis in January 2016 led the National Declassification Center (NDC) to begin reviewing certain records series related to the Crisis and prepare them for release.
The Carter Library has a web page dedicated to the topic, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North is sworn in before a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the Iran-Contra affair. The images scanned for this release are a sampling of the records, about 1000 pages from a total of 7200 pages. In June, the White House sanctions five Iranian ship captains involved in the delivery to discourage trade between Iran and Venezuela. Since the release of the hostages, a large body of literature has been written about this event.
Americans welcoming the six freed hostage by Canadian diplomats during the Iran hostage crisis, 1980. U.S. President Bill Clinton signs into law a bill to punish foreign companies that invest in oil and gas projects in Iran and Libya. Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shiite cleric who opposed the shah’s Westernization of Iran, returns to the country after fourteen years in exile.
A majority of the records came from the Department of State and documented the work done by various Department of State officials and working groups in trying to bring about a diplomatic end to the crisis. The Iran Hostage Crisis was a major international crisis caused by the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and its employees by revolutionary Iranian students, who then held the Embassy employees as hostages, in direct violation of international law. The United States again blames Iran for attacks on oil tankers in the region in the following months and tries to seize an Iranian vessel sailing near the British territory of Gibraltar.Drones attack oil facilities of state-controlled Saudi Aramco in eastern Saudi Arabia, striking the country’s second-largest oil field and a critical crude-oil stabilization center. Poster produced for the 444 Days records release project. After 14 years of exile, Ayatoll ah Khomeini goes back to Iran as the leader. Click on “Launch the Interactive Timeline” at the Presidential Timeline home page. " National Archives Identifier
The scanned records indicate the kind of information available in these records, but it is hoped also that they will provide some basis for research into this significant historical episode. In July, the U.S. Navy shoots down an Iranian passenger jet after mistaking it for a fighter jet, killing all 290 people on board.The United States leads a coalition of thirty-five countries to expel Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait, ousting the Iraqis in a matter of months.
Protesters and militia fighters run from tear gas thrown by U.S. embassy security forces during a protest condemning U.S. air strikes.
November 4, 1979. Iran declares its neutrality in the conflict, but U.S. officials suspect it seeks to replace Iraq as the dominant power in the region.The United States ramps up sanctions against Iran under the George H.W. 1979-1981: Iran hostage crisis After a brutal revolution, the US and Khomeini's pick for prime minister, the relatively moderate Medhi Bazargan, work to normalize relations. Sign up for a morning roundup of news and analysis from around the world. The coup brings back to power the Western-friendly monarchy, headed by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses reporters in Tehran.
Iranians attend a funeral procession for Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, both killed in a U.S. air strike in Baghdad. The crisis ended with the release of the hostages after a captivity of 444 days, from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981.
A 2019 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sends President George W. Bush an President Barack Obama calls newly elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in September to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, the most direct contact since 1979. A group named Islamic Jihad, widely believed to be a front for Hezbollah, claims responsibility for the attack. The Sitreps were created by an informal organization within the Department of State called the Iran Working Group (IWG).
4 November 1979 – A group of 300-500 Iranian students, citing the Shah’s entry into the U.S. as a justification, seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held its employees as hostages. Ahmadinejad addresses the General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York. Next, click on the “Gallery” link. In return, Nixon promises that Iran can buy any nonnuclear weapons system it wants. Other archival holdings of this institution will complement more fully the records described in this web release. In the aftermath of the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the United States and Iran collaborate on the U.S. forces invade Iraq, aiming to end the threat posed by what Washington says are Saddam Hussein’s revived WMD programs.
Hostage Richard Queen takes his first steps of freedom shortly after being released by the Iranian government on July 11, 1980.
52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days.
Iranian officials and representatives of eight foreign companies finalize the Consortium Agreement of 1954
The Shah was allowed into the US for cancer treatment. The 1996 Iran and Libya Sanctions Act imposes an embargo against non-American companies investing more than $20 million per year in Iran’s oil and gas sectors.