1979-02-11 Regime
Islamic Republic established
Revolution overthrows the Pahlavi monarchy; the Islamic Republic is proclaimed with Ayatollah Khomeini as Supreme Leader.
Iran Timeline 1979–2026
47 pivotal moments — revolutions, executions, uprisings, women's resistance. Filter by year or theme.
47 of 47 events
1979-03-08 Women & hijab
First women's protest against compulsory hijab
Tens of thousands of women march in Tehran on International Women's Day against Khomeini's decree ordering women to wear the veil at work.
1979-05-09 Minorities
Habib Elghanian executed
Prominent Iranian-Jewish industrialist executed by firing squad after a two-hour tribunal, signalling the fate of Iran's Jewish community.
1979-11-04 Regime
U.S. embassy hostage crisis begins
Students seize the U.S. embassy in Tehran; 52 Americans are held for 444 days, defining the new republic's foreign posture.
1980-05-08 Executions
Farrokhroo Parsa executed
Iran's first woman cabinet minister is shot by firing squad, wrapped in a sack, for the crime of expanding girls' education.
1980-09-22 Regime
Iran–Iraq War begins
Iraq invades. Eight years of war leave up to a million dead and give the regime cover for mass domestic repression.
1981-06-20 Executions
Beginning of mass executions of MEK and leftist activists
Following clashes with the People's Mojahedin, thousands of political prisoners are arrested, tortured, and executed over the next two years.
1983-06-18 Minorities
Ten Bahá'í women hanged in Shiraz
Ten Bahá'í women, including 17-year-old Mona Mahmudnizhad, are hanged for teaching Bahá'í Sunday schools.
1988-07-19 Executions
1988 mass executions begin
Khomeini's fatwa launches the secret killing of an estimated 5,000+ political prisoners in a matter of months, buried in mass graves at Khavaran and other sites.
1998-11-01 Repression
Chain murders of dissidents
Ministry of Intelligence agents assassinate a series of dissident writers and intellectuals — Dariush Forouhar, Mohammad Mokhtari, Mohammad Jafar Pouyandeh — in a wave later admitted by the ministry itself.
1999-07-08 Protests
Tehran University dormitory attack
Plainclothes forces attack students in their dorms after a peaceful protest over a banned newspaper; sparks the first mass student uprising.
2003-07-11 Press & prisoners
Zahra Kazemi killed in custody
Iranian-Canadian photojournalist dies of a fractured skull after being detained outside Evin. Iranian doctor Shahram Azam later testifies she was raped and tortured.
2009-06-12 Protests
Green Movement erupts
Millions take to the streets against the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, chanting 'Where is my vote?'
2009-06-20 Protests
Neda Agha-Soltan killed
26-year-old music student shot in the chest at a Tehran protest; her death, filmed on a mobile phone, becomes the symbol of the Green Movement.
2011-02-14 Protests
Day of Rage protests
Solidarity protests with the Arab Spring; Mousavi and Karroubi placed under house arrest — where they remain more than a decade later.
2012-11-03 Press & prisoners
Blogger Sattar Beheshti dies under torture
Sattar Beheshti dies days after being arrested by Iran's Cyber Police for critical Facebook posts.
2017-12-28 Protests
Mashhad protests spread nationwide
Economic protests that started in Mashhad spread to more than 100 cities; at least 25 people killed and thousands arrested.
2018-01-27 Women & hijab
Vida Movahed on Enghelab Street
Vida Movahed climbs a utility box in central Tehran, removes her white headscarf and waves it on a stick; scores of 'Girls of Enghelab Street' follow suit.
2018-02-08 Prison
Kavous Seyed-Emami dies in Evin
Iranian-Canadian sociologist and environmentalist is reported to have hanged himself in Evin's Ward 209 two weeks after his arrest.
2019-11-15 Protests
Bloody November begins
Fuel-price hike sparks the largest anti-regime protests in a generation; a week-long internet blackout follows and Amnesty documents at least 304 killings.
2020-01-08 Repression
IRGC shoots down Flight PS752
Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 is downed by two IRGC missiles minutes after takeoff, killing all 176 aboard, most Iranian and Iranian-Canadian civilians.
2020-09-12 Executions
Navid Afkari secretly hanged
Champion wrestler executed at dawn while an appeal was pending, on a confession his family said was extracted under torture.
2020-12-12 Executions
Journalist Ruhollah Zam executed
Founder of the Amadnews channel, lured from Paris to Iraq and abducted, is hanged after a televised confession.
2022-09-13 Women & hijab
Mahsa Amini detained by morality police
Jina Mahsa Amini, 22, is arrested in Tehran for 'improper hijab' and taken to Vozara detention centre.
2022-09-16 Women & hijab
Mahsa Amini dies in hospital
Amini dies after three days in a coma; protests erupt in Saqqez and Tehran the same night. 'Woman, Life, Freedom' is born.
2022-09-30 Protests
Zahedan Bloody Friday
Security forces open fire on Baluch worshippers after Friday prayers, killing more than 100 in a single day — the deadliest single incident of the uprising.
2022-10-13 Protests
Asra Panahi killed at Ardabil school
15-year-old Asra Panahi dies after security forces raid her school when students refuse to sing a pro-regime anthem.
2022-11-16 Protests
Izeh massacre
Nine-year-old Kian Pirfalak and at least six others are shot dead in Izeh, deepening national outrage.
2022-12-08 Executions
First protest execution: Mohsen Shekari
Mohsen Shekari, 23, is hanged after a closed-door trial without a chosen lawyer — the first execution tied directly to the uprising.
2022-12-12 Executions
Majidreza Rahnavard publicly hanged
Rahnavard, 23, is publicly hanged from a crane in Mashhad only 23 days after his arrest.
2023-01-07 Executions
Karami and Hosseini executed
Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyed Mohammad Hosseini are hanged after a rushed trial; both said they had confessed under torture.
2023-03-24 Regime
UN Fact-Finding Mission established
The UN Human Rights Council creates an independent Fact-Finding Mission on Iran to investigate rights violations linked to the uprising.
2023-10-06 Women & hijab
Narges Mohammadi awarded Nobel Peace Prize
Imprisoned human-rights defender Narges Mohammadi wins the Nobel Peace Prize for her fight against oppression of women in Iran.
2023-10-28 Women & hijab
Armita Geravand collapses on Tehran Metro
16-year-old Armita Geravand loses consciousness after an alleged encounter with morality-police enforcers over her hijab; she dies 28 days later.
2024-01-23 Executions
Ghobadlou and Nafisi executed
Mohammad Ghobadlou, a protester with mental illness, and Kianoush Nafisi are hanged despite international appeals.
2024-04-13 Regime
Iran launches direct strikes on Israel
Iran launches its first direct missile and drone attack on Israel; regional escalation deepens.
2024-04-24 Press & prisoners
Rapper Toomaj Salehi sentenced to death
Revolutionary court sentences protest rapper Toomaj Salehi to death for 'corruption on earth'; sentence overturned in June 2024 but he remains jailed.
2024-04-26 Women & hijab
'Noor Plan' hijab crackdown launches
Police launch a nationwide 'Noor' (Light) Plan to arrest women without hijab; independent monitors document tens of thousands of stops in weeks.
2024-05-19 Regime
President Raisi killed in helicopter crash
Ebrahim Raisi — architect of the 1988 executions and hardline Woman-Life-Freedom crackdown — dies in a helicopter crash in East Azerbaijan.
2024-07-06 Regime
Masoud Pezeshkian elected president
Reformist-aligned Pezeshkian wins snap elections; repression of dissent and women continues unchanged.
2024-08-06 Executions
Protester Gholamreza Rasaei hanged
Yarsani-Kurdish protester hanged in secret in Kermanshah on the basis of a coerced confession.
2024-10-28 Executions
Jamshid Sharmahd executed
German-Iranian dissident kidnapped in Dubai four years earlier is secretly executed; Germany closes all Iranian consulates.
2024-11-13 Protests
Journalist Kianoosh Sanjari takes his own life
Sanjari kills himself in central Tehran after posting a final message demanding the release of four named political prisoners.
2025-03-08 Women & hijab
Chastity and Hijab law approved
Guardian Council approves the Hijab and Chastity law, imposing prison terms and heavy fines on women appearing unveiled in public and on businesses that serve them.
2025-06-13 Regime
Israel–Iran war
Israel launches a 12-day air campaign against Iranian military and nuclear sites; U.S. strikes follow. Ceasefire on 24 June.
2025-12-01 Executions
Execution wave surpasses 1,000
Iran Human Rights records more than 1,000 executions in 2025, the highest in more than three decades.
2026-05-01 Protests
Labour Day protests spread
May Day workers' protests across at least 15 cities are met with mass arrests and rubber-bullet fire.
Featured film
77 Hours — the film about Iran's Two Nights
A psychological thriller by Vahid Mahdavi, set across the nights of 8 and 9 January 2026. Watch the trailers, read the story, and see the documented record behind it.
47 years in outline · updated September 2026
Short answer: the Islamic Republic's record of mass state violence is not a series of accidents but a repeating cycle — economic or political trigger, mass protest, lethal suppression, internet blackout, mass detention, executions — that has run at least seven times since 1979 and escalated sharply in scale each decade.
The seven-stage cycle
Read horizontally rather than chronologically, the timeline shows one mechanism repeating. Recognising the stages makes it possible to anticipate what comes next in an unfolding event.
- Trigger. A price rise, a death in custody, an election result, an infrastructure failure.
- Spread. Protest moves from one city to dozens within 72 hours, typically led by younger and poorer demographics than the previous wave.
- Blackout. Mobile data and then fixed-line internet are throttled or cut, regionally first, then nationally.
- Lethal suppression. Live ammunition, shotgun pellets at close range aimed at eyes and faces, and rooftop positions.
- Mass detention. Thousands arrested within days; prisons exceed capacity; sports halls and warehouses used as holding sites.
- Show trials. Revolutionary Courts issue rapid convictions on moharebeh and efsad-e fel-arz charges, with confessions broadcast on state television.
- Executions and silence. A first wave of executions is used as deterrence; families are pressured into silent burials.
| Period | Trigger | Documented deaths | Detentions | Blackout |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1979-1981 | Consolidation after the revolution | Thousands (estimates) | Tens of thousands | n/a |
| Summer 1988 | Post-war purge of political prisoners | 4,500-30,000 (estimates) | Existing prison population | n/a |
| July 1999 | Closure of a reformist newspaper; dormitory raids | Several killed; disputed | Over 1,000 | Limited |
| June 2009 | Disputed presidential election | Dozens documented | Around 4,000 | Filtering, SMS cuts |
| Dec 2017 - Jan 2018 | Economic grievance | At least 25 | Around 4,900 | Messaging apps blocked |
| November 2019 | Fuel-price rise | At least 304 named; higher figures reported | Around 7,000 | Near-total national shutdown |
| Sept 2022 - 2023 | Death of Mahsa Amini in custody | At least 551 including 71 children | Over 22,000 | Regional and national throttling |
| Dec 2025 - 2026 | Economic collapse; accumulated grievance | 42,000+ reported (Crimson Winter) | Over 100,000 | Repeated national shutdowns |
What changes between cycles
Three variables move consistently across the decades. First, the geography widens: 2009 was largely Tehran and the middle class; 2019 was working-class satellite cities; 2022 and 2026 covered every province, including Sistan-Baluchestan and Kurdistan, where lethality per protester has been highest. Second, the demands harden, from recounting votes in 2009 to fuel prices in 2019 to the end of the system itself in 2022 and 2026. Third, the state's tools shift from crowd control to infrastructure control — blackouts, financial penalties, facial recognition — alongside, not instead of, live fire.
How to use this timeline
Each entry links to the page that documents it in detail: Woman, Life, Freedom for 2022, the Two Nights and the death toll for 2026, Executions for the judicial machinery across the whole period. The underlying dataset is public at /data/timeline.json, so it can be re-plotted, translated or checked independently. Where a figure here is a range, the methodology page explains why it has not been collapsed into a single number, and the sources page lists what each range rests on.
Frequently asked questions
What is the deadliest episode in the Islamic Republic's history?
By documented reports, the 2026 Crimson Winter, with more than 42,000 people reported killed nationwide and over 100,000 detained, including the Two Nights of 8-9 January 2026. The 1988 prison massacres remain the deadliest single judicial operation, with estimates from 4,500 to 30,000 executed.
What happened in November 2019?
A sudden fuel-price rise triggered protests in over 100 cities. Security forces killed more than 304 documented people in under a week, with higher figures reported by news agencies citing interior-ministry sources, under a near-total national internet shutdown.
Why does the same pattern keep repeating?
Because each cycle has been survivable for the state: suppression works in the short term, the blackout limits documentation, and no accountability follows. The escalation in scale reflects declining legitimacy rather than growing strength.
What triggered the 2026 Crimson Winter?
Compounding economic collapse, water and power failures and accumulated anger after 2022 produced nationwide protests from late 2025, met on 8-9 January 2026 with coordinated lethal force across more than 200 cities.
Where can I see the underlying data?
The timeline data is published as JSON at /data/timeline.json, and the atomic fact cards with sources at /data/key-facts.json, both under CC BY 4.0.
How reliable are the figures for older events?
Figures for 1979-1988 rest on survivor testimony, insider recordings and later investigative work rather than contemporaneous documentation, so they are published as ranges. Post-2009 figures rest on named-case databases and are far more precise.
Documentaries
Long-form documentaries on Iran
Feature films, investigations and a three-part series on the uprising, the crackdown and the people behind the record.