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(CNN) - Iran is a republic in Asia that shares a border with seven countries: Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey and Turkmenistan. It is officially known as the Islamic Republic of Iran since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.
- Minute by minute: the latest on the US attack against Qasem Soleimani
Data on Iran (taken from the CIA World Data Book - World Factbook)
Area: 1,648,195 square kilometers, a little smaller than Alaska
Population: 83,024,745 (estimated in July 2018)
Average age: 30.8 years.
Capital: Tehran
Azadi Tower in the capital of Iran, Tehran.
Ethnic groups: Persian, Azeri, Kurdish, Lur, Baloch, Arabic, Turkmen and Turkish tribes
Religion: Muslim (official) 99.4% (Shiite 90-95%, Sunni 5-10%), other (includes Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians) 0.3%, unspecified (estimated in 2011).
GDP (purchasing power parity): US $ 1.64 billion (estimated to 2017)
GDP per capita: US $ 20,100
Unemployment: 11.8%
Other data
Before the 1930s, Iran was known as Persia by foreigners.
Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic relations since 1980.
Chronology
1921 - Officer Reza Khan takes a coup and takes control of the army.
1925 - Khan crowns himself Reza Shah Pahlavi.
1939 - During World War II, Reza Shah aligns Iran with Nazi Germany.
1941 - Allied forces invade Iran and force Reza Shah to abdicate in favor of his 21-year-old son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
1951 - Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq organizes the approval of a bill in the parliament of Iran that nationalizes British oil fields in Iran.
1953 - The Shah is forced to abdicate by Mosaddeq supporters. However, in a matter of days, Britain and the United States support a coup d'etat that brings Shah back to power.
1963 - The Shah forces the cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a critic of his modernization plans into exile.
October 1971: Shah organizes a party that costs tens of millions of dollars to celebrate the 2,500 years of the Persian Empire.
January 16, 1979 - After months of demonstrations, protests and riots, Sha leaves Iran for what is described as vacations, but it is generally understood to be a permanent exile.
February 1, 1979 - Khomeini returns to Iran from exile in France. After his supporters overthrow the government of Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar, Khomeini becomes the Supreme Leader of Iran.
April 1, 1979 - The country is renamed Islamic Republic of Iran.
October 22, 1979 - Shah arrives in the United States for a treatment of lymphatic cancer.
November 4, 1979 - Iranian revolutionaries take control of the US embassy in Tehran and take 66 embassy workers hostage. They demand the extradition of the Shah from the United States in exchange for releasing the hostages. Thirteen of the hostages are released in two weeks, and one is released later for medical reasons. The other 52 spend a total of 444 days in captivity.
April 1980 - an attempt by the US air forces to rescue the hostages fails, causing the death of eight service members.
July 27, 1980 - The Shah dies in Cairo, Egypt.
September 22, 1980 - Iraq invades Iran and starts an eight-year war. Hundreds of thousands of people are killed on both sides. The war ends in 1988 in a ceasefire, without a clear winner. A formal peace agreement was signed in August 1990.
January 20, 1981 - The remaining 52 American hostages are released.
January 1984 - The United States designates Iran as a State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST).
June 3, 1989 - Khomeini dies.
June 1989 - Seyyed Ali Khamenei becomes Supreme Leader of Iran.
July 28, 1989 - Hashemi Rafsanjani is elected president of Iran.
May 1997 - Mohammad Khatami, a reformer, is elected to the office of president.
June 2001 - Khatami is re-elected as president of Iran.
November 2003 - The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran has been secretly manufacturing small amounts of uranium and plutonium for two decades.
June 2005 - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, mayor of Tehran, is elected president of Iran.
June 12, 2009 - In a very controversial election, Ahmadinejad wins re-election with 62.63% of the vote, according to Iranian government sources. His closest rival, Mir Hossein Moussavi, receives 33.75% of the vote.
June 2009 - demonstrations are held in Tehran to protest the outcome of the elections. It is reported that dozens of people were killed.
June 30, 2009 - Despite widespread disturbances, the re-election of Ahmadinejad is formally certified by the Council of Guardians.
August 5, 2009 - Ahmadinejad is sworn in for a second term.
February 13, 2011 - In reaction to anti-government protests that spread throughout the Arab world, demonstrations erupt in major Iranian cities and security officials face a brutal force.
February 22, 2011 - Two Iranian warships pass through the Suez Canal, the first ships of this type that sail through the canal since the 1979 revolution.
November 29, 2011 - Hundreds of Iranian protesters storm the British embassy and a separate diplomatic complex in Tehran. The next day, Britain evacuates all embassy personnel in Iran and orders that Iran immediately close its embassy in London.
December 1, 2011 - European Union Foreign Affairs Ministers agree to impose sanctions on Iranian companies and individuals, in response to protesters who raided the British Embassy in Tehran. Italy withdraws its ambassador.
December 1, 2011 - The United States Senate approves economic sanctions against Iran.
January 23, 2012 - The European Union announces that it will ban the importation of crude oil and Iranian petroleum products.
February 19, 2012 - The Iranian Ministry of Petroleum announces the suspension of crude oil exports to British and French companies, days after it threatened to cut oil exports to some European Union countries in retaliation for sanctions.
March 30, 2012 - US President Barack Obama announces that his government will implement previously announced sanctions that could significantly reduce Iranian oil sales.
July 1, 2012 - The European Union embargo on Iranian oil enters into force.
October 3, 2012 - Protesters in Tehran begin to protest against Ahmadinejad, blaming him for the rapid decline in the value of Iran's currency.
June 14, 2013 - Hassan Rouhani wins the presidential elections after obtaining 50.7% of the 36.7 million votes cast. Ahmadinejad was not eligible to compete, due to deadlines. Rouhani swears on August 4.
September 27, 2013 - Rouhani and Obama speak on the phone, the first direct conversation between leaders from Iran and the United States since 1979.
November 24, 2013 - Six world powers and Iran reach a six-month agreement on Iran's nuclear program. The agreement calls on Iran to limit its nuclear activities in exchange for milder sanctions.
November 24, 2014 - the deadline for a final nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5 + 1 countries of the UN Security Council (United States, Russia, China, France, Great Britain and Germany) is set for 1 July 2015
April 2, 2015 - Negotiators from Iran, the United States, China, Germany, France, Britain and Russia reach the framework for an agreement on Iran's nuclear capabilities, which includes reducing its arsenal of poorly enriched uranium by 98% .
April 9, 2015 - Rouhani announces that Iran will only sign a final nuclear agreement if economic sanctions are lifted on the first day of implementation.
July 14, 2015 - The United States and its five partners reach a nuclear agreement with Iran, called the Joint Comprehensive Action Plan, during a final meeting in Vienna.
January 4, 2016 - Two days after the execution of a prominent Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia and an attack against that country's embassy in Tehran, Saudi Arabia breaks diplomatic relations with Iran. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan also cut or degrade diplomatic ties with Iran.
January 12, 2016 - U.S. Navy officers are captured by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard after their ship entered Iranian waters. They are released a day later. One of the sailors is shown apologizing in an interview on Iranian television.
January 17, 2016 - Iran releases four Americans in an exchange of prisoners, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, Navy veteran Amir Hekmati and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini. American student Matthew Trevithick is also released.
August 3, 2016 - US officials confirm that the Obama administration secretly organized the plane delivery of $ 400 million in cash on the same day that Iran released four US prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear agreement. The 400 million dollars were money from Iran, placed in a trust fund based in the United States to support the purchase of US military equipment in the 1970s. When Sha was overthrown by a popular uprising of 1979, which led to The creation of the Islamic Republic, the United States froze the trust fund. The US authorities said that the cash had to be entered because the existing US sanctions prohibited the use of US dollars in a transaction with Iran and because that country could not access the global financial system due to the international sanctions that were in force at that time.
January 8, 2017 - Rafsanjani dies after suffering a heart attack, say Iranian state media.
January 27, 2017 - President Donald Trump prohibits citizens of Iran and six other Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for at least the next 90 days, by executive order.
February 3, 2017 - The United States promulgates new sanctions against Iran. The movements were a punishment for the launch of a ballistic missile test in the country.
August 5, 2017 - Rouhani swears a second term.
May 8, 2018 - Trump announces that he will withdraw from the nuclear agreement with Iran and adds that he will initiate new sanctions. "Any nation that helps Iran in its search for nuclear weapons could also be heavily sanctioned by the United States," Trump said.
September 22, 2018 - At least 29 people die during an attack on a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. The separatist group Patriotic Arab Democratic Movement in Ahwaz claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the state news agency of the Islamic Republic. The separatist group says that the state media report is false and that it had no role in the attack.
September 23, 2018 - Iran's Revolutionary Guard accuses Saudi Arabia of supporting the attackers, while Rouhani says foreign mercenaries supported by the United States were to blame. ISIS circulates a video that states that several of the attackers were affiliated with the terrorist group. Although there is uncertainty about who carried out the attack, the Revolutionary Guard is committed to locating those responsible, according to Iranian state media.
November 5, 2018 - The United States officially re-imposes all sanctions lifted under the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement. Rouhani promised to continue oil exports and said Iran would "proudly break unjust sanctions."
April 6, 2019 - IRNA, administered by the state, reports that 70 people died due to flooding after record rains began to saturate parts of the country in March, citing the head of the Iranian coroner's office, Ahmad Shojaei.
April 8, 2019 - Trump announces that the United States will formally designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, a measure that some in the administration opposed over concerns about possible risks to US troops in The middle east.
June 2019 - according to US officials, the United States launches two cyber attacks against Iran. One was in retaliation against a group of Iranian spies. The other attack was against an Iranian proxy group with forces in Iraq, Syria and within Iran, days after Iran shot down a US drone.
June 20, 2019 - Iran shoots down an unmanned military aircraft from the United States. The Revolutionary Guard of Iran argues that the action was due to the entry of the aircraft into the territory of its country, while the United States asserts that the drone was shot down in international airspace.
June 24, 2019 - Trump announces new sanctions against Iran, partly as reprisals after the demolition of the U.S. drone, with punitive measures aimed at attacking the Supreme Leader of Iran, military officials and his chief diplomat, the Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif.
July 1, 2019 - Zarif announces that Iran's low-grade enriched uranium reserves have exceeded the 300 kilogram limit, established in a historic 2015 nuclear agreement.
