Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook examine the Iranian hostage crisis that devastated Jimmy Carter's presidency. The episode covers the dramatic seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, when 300 Iranian students took 66 Americans hostage in what they planned as a brief symbolic protest.

The crisis escalated when Ayatollah Khomeini, initially surprised by the takeover, quickly recognized its political value for consolidating revolutionary power. Meanwhile, Carter faced mounting pressure as the hostages remained captive for what would become 444 days, transforming American politics and media coverage.

Drawing extensively from Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden and Ambassador William Sullivan's memoir Mission to Iran, the hosts trace how a student sit-in became a geopolitical catastrophe that would define the final year of Carter's presidency and reshape US-Iran relations for decades.

The Students' Plan Goes Catastrophically Wrong

Iranian engineering student Ibrahim Ashgazada and his friends at Tehran's University of Technology planned a brief symbolic occupation of the US Embassy, bringing food for just three days maximum.

The 300 students called themselves 'Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line' and intended to broadcast their anti-American message for a few hours, inspired by 1960s-style sit-ins.

Female students hid bolt cutters under their black chadors to breach the embassy gates, while the compound's security consisted of only a dozen Marines and 80 unreliable Iranian guards.

Press attaché Barry Rosen, fluent in Farsi and an Iran specialist, watched helplessly as crowds climbed the gates - scenes reminiscent of the fall of Saigon just four years earlier.

Khomeini's Masterful Political Calculation

The Ayatollah initially asked 'who are these people?' and ordered them kicked out, but changed his mind within hours after his son reported the ecstatic street celebrations.

Khomeini told a friend: 'We keep the hostages, finish our internal work, then release them. This has united our people' - using the crisis to cement revolutionary control.

The embassy became a tourist attraction with crowds celebrating and vendors selling souvenir hats and tapes of Khomeini's sermons, while the interim government resigned in protest.

Khomeini coined the phrase 'the Great Satan' for America the day after the seizure - not a Quranic term but his own Manichaean framing of cosmic good versus evil.

Carter's Fatal Miscalculations

Ambassador Sullivan had explicitly warned Secretary of State Cyrus Vance that admitting the Shah would 'be bound to provoke an attack' on the embassy.

Carter initially opposed letting the Shah into America, telling advisors 'I don't want the Shah playing tennis in the United States' and using an f-word about abandoning him.

Pressure from Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller, plus the Shah's cancer diagnosis, forced Carter to admit him on October 22, 1979 - just 13 days before the embassy seizure.

Carter presciently asked his team 'what we would do if the diplomats in our embassy are taken hostage?' but received only silence and no contingency planning.

The Hostages' 444-Day Ordeal

Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden documents how the 52 remaining hostages (after women and African Americans were released) endured blindfolding, beatings, mock executions, and solitary confinement.

Six Americans escaped capture and were hidden by Canadian diplomats - their rescue using fake Hollywood film scout identities became the Ben Affleck movie 'Argo'.

The hostages were moved between the embassy compound and Tehran prisons, with young Iranian guards who were 'frightened, overexcited, disorganized, bad-tempered' and constantly threatening execution.

Visiting American peace activist William Sloane Coffin told the hostages to 'stop feeling sorry for yourselves' and that he envied their 'extended period of peace and quiet'.

America's Media Spectacle and Yellow Ribbon Fever

ABC launched 'America Held Hostage' running nightly with day counts (Day 57, Day 58), while the crisis became a massive TV spectacle with hostage families as regular guests.

Penny Lengen, wife of the senior captured diplomat, tied a yellow ribbon around their oak tree inspired by the 1973 Tony Orlando and Dawn song, sparking a national phenomenon.

Carter put a yellow ribbon on the White House Christmas tree and refused to turn on the lights until the hostages returned home, further mortgaging his presidency to their fate.

The crisis generated bizarre cultural artifacts including multiple 'Bomb Iran' songs based on The Beach Boys' 'Barbara Ann' and an 'Ayatollah Assahola' torture doll marketed as a 'fabulous gift item'.

The Shah's Pathetic Final Chapter

After surgery in New York, the Shah was kicked out by Carter's administration to Panama, where strongman Omar Torrijos charged him $21,000 per day and assigned a Marxist sociology professor as supervisor.

The Shah died on July 27, 1980, with last words 'Iran is Iran' while still believing his dynasty would return, as Iranian radio called him 'the bloodsucker of the century'.

Richard Nixon flew economy class to Cairo for the Shah's funeral and delivered a eulogy calling him 'a real man' - an implicit contrast with Carter's handling of the crisis.

Mission to Iran records how Sullivan had received Khomeini's personal assurance of protection after the February 1979 embassy attack, making the November seizure even more shocking.

Carter's Desperate Military Gambit

By March 1980, with approval ratings tanking and the economy in recession with 18% interest rates, Carter faced the 'greatest threat to peace since World War II' with Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

The crisis coincided with Islamic militants seizing Mecca's Grand Mosque and anti-American riots from Turkey to Indonesia, creating a sense that the Muslim world had risen against the Great Satan.

Hamilton Jordan's 12-year-old nephew asked why Carter 'doesn't have the guts to do anything' like 'bomb Iran, wipe them all out' - reflecting widespread American frustration.

On March 22, 1980, Carter authorized a 'jaw-droppingly audacious plan' for elite special forces to fly into Iran and rescue the hostages from the heart of Tehran.