The Americans were taken hostage under the direction of Ayatollah Khomeini's regime in an attempt to force the extradition of the fugitive Muhammad Reza Shah. When the Shah died in Egypt in December 1979, the hostages were then used as pawns to force Washington to drop financial claims against Iran and to discourage further U.S. intervention. To Americans, however, the hostages were seen as a symbol of their nation's eroding power, and also of President Jimmy Carter's weakness.

In an attempt to shore up his image, President Carter ordered a rescue attempt and commandos were sent to free the captives in April. Tragically, the mission failed: a rescue helicopter crashed and killed eight soldiers while other helicopters suffered technical faults. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who had warned against the mission, resigned. Following the botched rescue attempt, the hostages were relocated to scattered hideouts, making further attempts virtually impossible.

The continuing crisis hindered Carter's reelection campaign. However, secret, indirect negotiations with Khomeini continued, and when Iraq attacked Iran in September, both sides were ready to come to an agreement. The Gulf War, which would drag on for eight years, made embattled Iran desperate for funds since most of the country's assets were frozen in American banks. The breakthrough came in January 1981, unfortunately for Carter, who had failed to be re-elected the previous November. Minutes after Ronald Reagan's inauguration, the hostages were free.

Eradicated: smallpox, the deadly disease which had plagued mankind for centuries, was officially declared eradicated on 19 December. The World Health Organisation launched its mass vaccination program in 1966 and the last naturally contracted case was recorded in 1975.

On 20 September 1980, Saddam Hussein, the newly installed Iraqi dictator, ordered Iraqi tanks to cross the Iraq-Iran border and set fire to the oil refinery at Abadan, the largest in the world. With that, the long-festering hostility between Iran and Iraq finally erupted into open warfare.

The Islamic Fundamentalist government, led since 1979 by Ayatollah Khomeini, had repeatedly angered Saddam by calling for his overthrow. However, the true motive of Saddam's attack was to gain control of the oil-rich Iranian border province of Khuzestan and the strategic Shatt al-Arab waterway which would give Iraq badly needed access to the Persian Gulf. In addition, Saddam feared that Iran's fundementalist regime would spur Iraqis to revolt.

Previously, alarmed by the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the U.S. government had tended to view Saddam as a lesser evil than Khomeini.

The Ayatollah's army outnumbered Saddam's by four to one, but the Iraqis had superior air power and weapons (including banned chemical weapons). Soon, there was a bloody stalemate in place which would drag on for nearly a decade.