CIA coup topples Mossadegh in Iran

August 19, 1953

The CIA and MI6 orchestrated street mobs and army units to overthrow Iran's elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who had dared to nationalize British oil holdings. The Shah, who had briefly fled, returned in triumph and ruled as an autocrat for twenty-six years. The blowback would come in 1979. Iranians would not forget what had been done to them.