On November 4, 1979, hundreds of Iranian students invaded the US Embassy in Tehran and captured 66 Americans, 52 of whom remained hostages for 444 days. The event followed President Jimmy Carter’s decision to permit Iran’s ousted Shah to travel to New York for cancer treatment. The hostages gained freedom on January 20, 1981, minutes following Ronald Reagan’s swearing-in as US president, through an accord between Tehran and Washington, and diplomatic relations between the two nations were cut after the incident.
