Timeline

Elam, centred on Susa and Anshan, develops its own scripts. A proposed decipherment of Linear Elamite was published in 2022 and is still debated.

First Iranian polity on the plateau, with its capital at Ecbatana (Hamadan).

Cyrus enters Babylon. The Cyrus Cylinder speaks of gods and people returned to their homes. It does not name Judah or Jerusalem.

Trilingual inscription in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian; Persepolis is built.

End of the Achaemenid Empire; the Seleucid period begins.

A decentralised empire that rivals Rome and brokers the Silk Road for nearly five centuries.

Zoroastrian state, Middle Persian court culture, Gondishapur learning; Manichaeism and Mazdakism arise.

Arab conquest completed; conversion to Islam takes some three centuries; Zoroastrians persist in Yazd and Kerman, and some migrate to Gujarat as the Parsis.

New Persian written in Arabic script flourishes under the Samanids; Rudaki writes.

The national epic, about 50,000 couplets, preserves Iranian history and myth in Persian.

Ibn Sina's Canon becomes a standard medical text in the Islamic world and Europe for centuries.

Nasir al-Din Tusi founds the observatory under the Ilkhanids.

Mawlana Jalal al-Din, born in Balkh, leaves the Masnavi; the Persianate world reaches from Anatolia to India.

The Divan of Hafez becomes the most widely read Persian poetry, used for divination at Yalda and Nowruz.

Shah Ismail I makes Twelver Shi'ism the state religion, reshaping Iranian identity.

Shah Abbas I forcibly transfers the Armenians of Julfa; New Julfa becomes the hub of a global Armenian trading diaspora.

After the Treaty of Gulistan (1813), Qajar Iran cedes the South Caucasus to Russia, dividing Azerbaijani lands along the Aras.

Birth of the Babi movement, from which the Baha'i Faith emerges; Baha'u'llah is exiled, and the Baha'i World Centre is later established in Haifa.

Early Persian-language press abroad; later Qanun (London, 1890) and Habl al-Matin (Calcutta, 1893).

First Majles and constitution; women's associations form; exile politics begins.

Centralisation, conscription, Persian-only schooling, the 1936 unveiling decree.

The government asks foreign states to use "Iran" instead of "Persia".

Some 116,000 Polish refugees, many of them children, arrive from the USSR; a memory shared with Poland.

Soviet-backed autonomous governments in Tabriz and Mahabad end in 1946.

Many Iranian Jews leave for Israel from 1948. The Jewish community of Iran stays, and later waves in 1979 send many to Los Angeles, New York and Israel.

Two years after oil nationalisation, a coup removes Prime Minister Mosaddegh. Declassified United States records confirm United States and United Kingdom involvement.

Sermons and mob attacks against Baha'is in spring 1955 mark the first of several waves of persecution of the community.

Land reform and votes for women; the Confederation of Iranian Students organises abroad.

The monarchy falls; the Islamic Republic is founded; the first mass emigration begins.

After the 1979 Soviet intervention millions of Afghans cross into Iran and Pakistan. Many Dari speakers settle in Iran and their children are born there, often without citizenship.

Iraq invades Iran on 22 September 1980. Eight years of war (1980 to 1988) follow, with chemical weapons use documented by United Nations missions, mass conscription and a wave of refugees.

Ten Baha'i women were hanged in Shiraz in 1983. United Nations bodies have recorded the persecution of the Baha'i community since 1979.

Thousands of political prisoners are executed over several months, as documented by human rights organisations and United Nations experts. The number is not agreed. For many in exile it remains a defining memory.

After the failed uprising of March 1991 large numbers of Iraqi Kurds cross the border into Iran and Turkey.

Mass protests after the disputed presidential election; a new wave of activists and journalists leaves.

Protests follow a fuel-price rise. Human rights organisations document the killing of hundreds of protesters by security forces; the toll is contested. A near-total internet shutdown follows.

Flight PS752 is shot down near Tehran on 8 January 2020. All 176 people on board are killed, many of them with ties to Canada. Iran's armed forces acknowledge responsibility three days later.

The death of Jina (Mahsa) Amini on 16 September 2022, after her arrest by the morality police, is followed by nationwide protests and by demonstrations across the diaspora.

Reported: twelve days of armed conflict between Israel and Iran, 13 to 24 June 2025, including United States strikes on Iranian sites. To verify against primary sources.

Reported: protests from December 2025 to January 2026 in which many protesters were killed, according to human rights organisations; a nationwide internet shutdown; and military strikes on Iran by the United States and Israel from 28 February 2026. To verify; the news area follows the situation.