Of all the nations whose narratives stretch back several thousand continuous years, Iran is one of the most proud. Despite lengthy, often unwelcome visits by Greeks, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, the Russians, the British and others, Persian (now known as Iranian) people have lived on the same land for about four millennia. They have maintained an essentially consistent language and developed groundbreaking art, science and other elements of culture, all the while adapting to people of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds that either invaded Persia or, when Persia was in the conquering mood, found themselves as Persian subjects. 

In the 1800's colonial nations such as England and Russia occupied Persia and in the 1900's empowered a Western-leaning Shah (King). In the 1950s when the Shah faced popular opposition by Mohammad Mosaddeq and his efforts to nationalize the Iranian oil industry the U.S. and British engineered a coup to depose him. In 1979 an Islamic, forcibly anti-Western movement fronted by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini overthrew the monarch. Since then Iran has been a fervent, though not monolithic, critic of the West, and also a major power in the region.