On this day in 1953, the U.S. and British governments initiated a coup d’état against the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh had been preparing to nationalize Iran’s British-owned oil fields.

Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), later re-named British Petroleum, and to limit the company’s control over Iranian oil reserves. When the AIOC refused to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parliament voted to nationalize Iran’s oil industry and to expel foreign corporate representatives from the country.

In response, the British began a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically and engaged in subterfuge to undermine Mosaddegh’s government.

Judging Mosaddegh to be unreliable and fearing a communist takeover, Winston Churchill and the Eisenhower administration overthrew Iran’s government. The coup action was also supported by the Iranian clergy, who opposed Mosaddegh’s secularism.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hired mobsters to stage pro-Shah riots and paid people to travel to Tehran and take over the streets of the city. Between 200 and 300 people were killed in the ensuing mayhem.

Mosaddegh was arrested, tried, and convicted of treason by the Shah’s military court. Many of his supporters were imprisoned, several received the death penalty. Mosaddegh himself lived the rest of his life under house arrest, dying in 1967.

After the coup, the Shah ruled as a monarch for the next 26 years until he was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

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  • WhyEssEff [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    tried to legitimately buy a piece of software I’ve been pirating for half-a-decade and due to Apple esotericism I have had it bounce 3 times when it should be charging my credit card and at this point God is telling me to continue pirating it

    • hello_hello [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      legitimately buy a piece of software… Apple esotericism

      You’re not buying software, you’re buying a license which grants you the permission to run it on your certified apple device with a valid apple ID which complies with all relevant consumer laws. We own the software, you get permission to use it within the applicable licensing terms we set! Get it right next time or we will be legally obligated to enforce the arbitration clause you signed into and settle out of court if we didn’t just outright revoke your license right then and there. porky-happy

      pirate-jammin (pirate unrelated)