Mohammad Reza (1941-1979), was born in Tehran on October 26, 1919, the eldest son of Reza Shah. He completed his primary school in Switzerland. In 1939 he married a sister of Faroq I, king of Egypt. The couple divorced in 1949. Mohammad Reza married two more times, in 1950 with Soraya Esfandiari and 1959 with Farah Diba.
He replaced his father, Reza Shah, on the throne on September 16, 1941, shortly before his 22nd birthday. He continued the reform policies of his father, but a contest for control of the government soon erupted between the shah and an older professional politician, the nationalistic Mohammad Mosaddeq.
Despite his vow to act as a constitutional monarch who would defer to the power of the parliamentary government, Mohammad Reza increasingly involved himself in governmental affairs and opposed or thwarted strong prime ministers. In the context of regional turmoil and the Cold War, the Shah established himself as an indispensable ally of the West. In 1967 he crowned himself as King of the Kings (Emperor of Iran) and his wife, Farah Diba, as Shahbanoo (Eperess), which caused discontentment amongst different levels of society. These measures and the increasing arbitrariness of the Shah's rule provoked both religious leaders who feared losing their traditional authority and students and intellectuals seeking democratic reforms. These opponents criticized the Shah for violation of the constitution, which placed limits on royal power and provided for a representative government, and for subservience to the United States. The shah's regime suppressed and marginalized its opponents with the help of Iran's security and intelligence organization, the SAVAK. By the mid-1970s the Shah reigned amidst widespread discontent caused by the continuing repressiveness of his regime, socioeconomic changes that benefited some classes at the expense of others, and the increasing gap between the ruling elite and the disaffected populace. Islamic leaders, particularly the exiled cleric Ayatollah Khomeini, were able to focus this discontent with a populist ideology tied to Islamic principles and calls for the overthrow of the shah. The Shah's government collapsed following widespread uprisings in 1978 -1979 and consequently an Islamic Republic succeeded his regime.
Shah left Iran in January 1979 to begin a life in exile. He lived in Egypt, Morocco, the Bahamas, and Mexico before going to the United States. The Shah died in Cairo, Egypt, on July 27, 1980.
0 
