Navigation
Season Five Research Files
Episode Four
10:00am - 11:00am
In November 1979, while Iran was going through religious and political upheaval, a group of revolutionaries attacked and seized the American Embassy in Tehran. The terrorists justified taking the hostages as retaliation for the admission of the Shah into the United States. They demanded the Shah be returned to Iran for a trial. The people inside the Embassy were held hostage on American soil for 444 days.
Although there were no other hostage situations by foreigners inside the United States, many other terrorist attacks on American soil have cost the lives of citizens. A large vehicle packed with high explosives was driven into the U.S. Embassy compound in Beirut in 1983, killing 63 people. That same year, hundreds of American servicemen were killed at the U.S. Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut. A 1985 car bomb killed soldiers at a U.S. military complex in Riyadh, Saudi America. And the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon took thousands of lives.
< back