Friday, Sep. 19, 2008

Iranian Embassy in the United Kingdom

April 30, 1980

While Iranians held American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, six Iranian gunman — protesting oppression in their country by the Ayatollah Khomeini, who had recently come to power — stormed Iran's embassy in London and took 26 people hostage, demanding that Tehran release 91 political prisoners. The gunmen freed several hostages in the days that followed, but on the sixth day, after the gunman killed their first hostage and pushed his body out the door of the Embassy, British special forces stormed the building and killed the militants.