5. A figure of significant opposition, the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, faced multiple attempts on his life before ultimately fleeing the country in 1979 into permanent exile
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, also known as Mohammad Reza Shah, reigned as the last Shah of Iran from 1941 until his deposition during the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Succeeding his father after the Anglo-Soviet invasion compelled the former’s abdication, Mohammad Reza sought to rapidly modernize his nation into a global power, instituting an array of political, economic, and social reforms that lost him the support of the religious clergy and traditionalists. A figure of controversy from his earliest days as Shah, Mohammad Reza was the target of at least two assassination attempts during his reign.
On February 4, 1949, the Shah suffered his first assassination effort, attacked whilst attending an annual ceremony to commemorate the founding of Tehran University in 1851. Believed to have been a member of the Tudeh Party – the Iranian communist organization that was subsequently banned after the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh – Fakhr-Arai opened fire upon the monarch. Discharging five rounds from a range of three meters, only one hit the Shah, grazing his cheek, whilst Fakhr-Arai was shot dead by security officers. Recent years have questioned his communist affiliations, instead placing blame on the religious organization Fada’iyan-e Islam.