The Shah Leaves and the Revolution Succeeds

• January 16, 1979 the Shah and the empress left Iran at the demand of prime minister Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar
  
  
• Bakhtiar dissolved SAVAK, freed political prisoners, ordered the army to allow mass demonstrations, promised free elections and invited Khomeinists and other revolutionaries into a government of "national unity"
  
  
• Bakhtiar he allowed Ayatollah Khomeini to return to Iran
  

Khomeini Returns and the Monarchy Falls:

• Feb. 1 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran
  
  
• He was greeted by several million Iranians
  
  
• On the day of his arrival Khomeini made clear his rejection of Bakhtiar's government in a speech promising ‘I shall kick their teeth in.’
  

• He appointed his own competing interim prime minister Mehdi Bazargan on February 4
  
  
• Revolutionaries and rebel soldiers gained the upper hand and began to take over police stations and military installations, distributing arms to the public
  
  
• The final collapse of the non-Islamist government came February 11
  
  
• TV and Radio stations, palaces of Pahlavi dynasty, and government buildings were then occupied by revolutionaries

• This period, from February 1 to 11, known as the "Decade of Fajr," is celebrated every year in Iran
  


• February 11 is "Islamic Revolution's Victory Day", a national holiday with demonstrations in every city