Present Iran was historically referred to as Persia until 1935 when Reza
Shah Pahlavi formally asked the international community to call the
country by its native name, Iran. But In 1959 due to controversial
debates over the name, it was announced that both could be used.
The First inhabitants of Iran were a race of people living in western
Asia. When the Aryans arrived, they gradually started mingling with the
old native Asians. Aryans were a branch of the people today known as the
Indo-Europeans, and are believed to be the ancestors of the people of
present India, Iran, and most of Western Europe.
Recent discoveries indicate that, centuries before the rise of earliest
civilizations in Mesopotamia, Iran was inhabited by human. But the
written history of Iran dates back to 3200 BC. It begins with the early
Achaemenids, The dynasty whose under the first Iranian world empire
blossomed.
Cyrus the Great was the founder of the empire and he is the first to
establish the charter of human rights. In this period Iran stretched
from the Aegean coast of Asia Minor to Afghanistan, as well as south to
Egypt.The Achaeamenid Empire was overthrown by Alexander the Great in
330 BC and was followed by The Seleucid Greek Dynasty.
After the Seleucids, we witness about dozen successive dynasties
reigning over the country, Dynasties such as Parthian, Sassanid,
Samanid, Ghaznavid, Safavid, Zand, Afsharid, Qajar and Pahlavi. In 641
Arabs conquered Iran and launched a new vicissitudinous era. Persians,
who were the followers of Zoroaster, gradually turned to Islam and it
was in Safavid period when Shiite Islam became the official religion of
Iran.
Since Qajar dynasty on, due to the inefficiency of the rulers, Iran
intensely begins to decline and gets smaller and smaller. The growing
corruption of the Qajar monarchy led to a constitutional revolution in
1905-1906. The Constitutional Revolution marked the end of the medieval
period in Iran, but the constitution remained a dead letter.
During World Wars I and II the occupation of Iran by Russian, British,
and Ottoman troops was a blow from which the government never
effectively recovered.
In 1979, the nation, under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, erupted
into revolution and the current Islamic republic of Iran was founded.
Throughout Iran's long history, in spite of different devastating
invasions and occupations by Arabs, Turks, Mongols, British, Russians,
and others, the country has always maintained its national identity and
has developed as a distinct political and cultural entity.