1978Sep, 8
Black Friday, a massacre by soldiers against protesters in Tehran, results in 700-3000 deaths, it marks the beginning of the end of the monarchy in Iran.
Black Friday (Persian: جمعه سیاه, romanized: Jom'e-ye Siyāh) is the name given to an incident occurring on 8 September 1978 (17 Shahrivar 1357 in the Iranian calendar) in Iran, in which 64, or at least 100 people were shot dead and 205 injured by the Pahlavi military in Jaleh Square (Persian: میدان ژاله, romanized: Meydān-e Jāleh) in Tehran. According to the military historian Spencer C. Tucker, 94 were killed on Black Friday, consisting of 64 protesters and 30 government security forces. The deaths were described as the pivotal event in the Iranian Revolution that ended any "hope for compromise" between the protest movement and regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
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Events on 1978
- 11Feb
Aristotle
Censorship: China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. - 27Apr
Watergate scandal
Former United States President Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes. - 25Jul
In vitro fertilisation
Birth of Louise Joy Brown, the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation, or IVF. - 22Oct
Pope John Paul II
Papal inauguration of Pope John Paul II. - 18Nov
Jim Jones
In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple to a mass murder-suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo Ryan is murdered by members of the Peoples Temple hours earlier.