paragraph_text: The largest ethnic groups are Newar (29.6%), Matwali (25.1% Sunuwar, Gurung, Magars, Tamang etc.), Khas Brahmins (20.51%) and Chettris (18.5%) . Tamangs originating from surrounding hill districts can be seen in Kathmandu. More recently, other hill ethnic groups and Caste groups from Terai have come to represent a substantial proportion of the city's population. The major languages are Nepali and Nepal Bhasa, while English is understood by many, particularly in the service industry. The major religions are Hinduism and Buddhism.

paragraph_text: The World Is a Ghetto is the fifth album by the band War, released in late 1972 on United Artists Records. The album attained the number one spot on "Billboard", and was "Billboard" magazine's Album of the Year as the best-selling album of 1973. In addition to being "Billboard"'s #1 album of 1973, the album is ranked number 444 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The title track became a gold record.

paragraph_text: According to the National Statistical Committee, as of January 2016, the population is 9.49 million. Ethnic Belarusians constitute 83.7% of Belarus's total population. The next largest ethnic groups are: Russians (8.3%), Poles (3.1%), and Ukrainians (1.7%).

paragraph_text: In modern times, the Javanese are the largest ethnic group in Southeast Asia, with more than 100 million people, mostly concentrated in Java, Indonesia. In Burma, the Burmese account for more than two-thirds of the ethnic stock in this country, while ethnic Thais and Vietnamese account for about four-fifths of the respective populations of those countries. Indonesia is clearly dominated by the Javanese and Sundanese ethnic groups, while Malaysia is split between half Malays and one-quarter Chinese. Within the Philippines, the Tagalog, Cebuano, Ilocano, and Hiligaynon groups are significant.

paragraph_text: As Charles Town grew, so did the community's cultural and social opportunities, especially for the elite merchants and planters. The first theatre building in America was built in 1736 on the site of today's Dock Street Theatre. Benevolent societies were formed by different ethnic groups, from French Huguenots to free people of color to Germans to Jews. The Charles Towne Library Society was established in 1748 by well-born young men who wanted to share the financial cost to keep up with the scientific and philosophical issues of the day. This group also helped establish the College of Charles Towne in 1770, the oldest college in South Carolina. Until its transition to state ownership in 1970, this was the oldest municipally supported college in the United States.

paragraph_text: Malaya Sadovaya Street is a 1979 oil painting by the Russian artist Alexander Semionov, depicting Malaya Sadovaya Street in Leningrad on rainy day of the end of the 1970s. This cityscape was painted in traditions of the Leningrad School of Painting and Soviet figurative painting of late socialist realism with their typical synthesis of realistic and impressionistic traditions to create an image of modernity.

paragraph_text: Kim Philby, a Soviet double agent, was a correspondent for the newspaper in Spain during the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s. Philby was admired for his courage in obtaining high-quality reporting from the front lines of the bloody conflict. He later joined MI6 during World War II, was promoted into senior positions after the war ended, then eventually defected to the Soviet Union in 1963.

paragraph_text: In April 1950, Stalin gave Kim permission to invade the South under the condition that Mao would agree to send reinforcements if they became needed. Stalin made it clear that Soviet forces would not openly engage in combat, to avoid a direct war with the Americans. Kim met with Mao in May 1950. Mao was concerned that the Americans would intervene but agreed to support the North Korean invasion. China desperately needed the economic and military aid promised by the Soviets. At that time, the Chinese were in the process of demobilizing half of the PLA's 5.6 million soldiers. However, Mao sent more ethnic Korean PLA veterans to Korea and promised to move an army closer to the Korean border. Once Mao's commitment was secured, preparations for war accelerated.

paragraph_text: The Iranian Embassy siege took place from 30 April to 5 May 1980, after a group of six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy in South Kensington, London. The gunmen, members of an Iranian Arab group campaigning for Arab national sovereignty in the southern Iranian region of Khuzestan Province, took 26 people hostage -- mostly embassy staff, but also several visitors as well as a police officer who had been guarding the embassy. They demanded the release of Arab prisoners from prisons in Khuzestan and their own safe passage out of the United Kingdom. Margaret Thatcher's government quickly resolved that safe passage would not be granted, and a siege ensued. Over the following days, police negotiators secured the release of five hostages in exchange for minor concessions, such as the broadcasting of the hostage - takers' demands on British television.

paragraph_text: Although Mali has enjoyed a reasonably good inter-ethnic relationships based on the long history of coexistence, some hereditary servitude and bondage relationship exist, as well as ethnic tension between settled Songhai and nomadic Tuaregs of the north. Due to a backlash against the northern population after independence, Mali is now in a situation where both groups complain about discrimination on the part of the other group. This conflict also plays a role in the continuing Northern Mali conflict where there is a tension between both Tuaregs and the Malian government, and the Tuaregs and radical Islamists who are trying to establish sharia law.

paragraph_text: The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR; Russian: Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, tr. Rossiyskaya Sovetskaya Federativnaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika  listen (help·info)) commonly referred to as Soviet Russia or simply as Russia, was a sovereign state in 1917–22, the largest, most populous, and most economically developed republic of the Soviet Union in 1922–91 and a sovereign part of the Soviet Union with its own legislation in 1990–91. The Republic comprised sixteen autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais, and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group. To the west it bordered Finland, Norway and Poland; and to the south, China, Mongolia and North Korea whilst bordering the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Black sea and Caspian Sea to the south. Within the USSR, it bordered the Baltic republics (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), the Byelorussian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR to the west. To the south it bordered the Georgian, Azerbaijan and Kazakh SSRs.

paragraph_text: Misfortune hit the group late in 1970 when George Smith fell and later took ill. With him unable to perform, the group began to search for a new lead. First they attempted to woo The Cymbals' lead, Lee Williams, but he was unwilling to leave his current group. The group then renewed their request to Gerald Alston (born November 8, 1951, North Carolina), who accepted and took over the lead spot. Original lead singer George Smith died of a brain tumor on December 16, 1970, 12 days before his 31st birthday.

paragraph_text: On November 4, 1979, a group of students seized the United States Embassy and took the embassy with 52 personnel and citizens hostage, after the United States refused to return Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Iran to face trial in the court of the new regime. Attempts by the Jimmy Carter administration to negotiate for the release of the hostages, and a failed rescue attempt, helped force Carter out of office and brought Ronald Reagan to power. On Jimmy Carter's final day in office, the last hostages were finally set free as a result of the Algiers Accords.

paragraph_text: The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic standoff between Iran and the United States of America. Fifty - two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981, after a group of Iranian college students belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who supported the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. It stands as the longest hostage crisis in recorded history.

paragraph_text: Somalis constitute the largest ethnic group in Somalia, at approximately 85% of the nation's inhabitants. They are traditionally nomads, but since the late 20th century, many have moved to urban areas. While most Somalis can be found in Somalia proper, large numbers also live in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Yemen, the Middle East, South Asia and Europe due to their seafaring tradition.

paragraph_text: Many annual events celebrate the diverse cultures of Houston. The largest and longest running is the annual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, held over 20 days from early to late March, is the largest annual livestock show and rodeo in the world. Another large celebration is the annual night-time Houston Pride Parade, held at the end of June. Other annual events include the Houston Greek Festival, Art Car Parade, the Houston Auto Show, the Houston International Festival, and the Bayou City Art Festival, which is considered to be one of the top five art festivals in the United States.

paragraph_text: The Atlanta Journal - Constitution Peachtree Road Race (AJC) is a 10 - kilometer run held annually in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 4, Independence Day. The AJC Peachtree Road Race is the world's largest 10 - kilometer race (an estimated 60,000 participants in 2011), a title it has held since the late 1970s. The race has become a citywide tradition in which over 70,000 amateur and professional runners try to register for one of the limited 60,000 spots. The event also includes a wheelchair race (known as the Shepherd Center wheelchair division), which precedes the footrace. In recent years, the race also has a special divisions for soldiers stationed in the Middle East. The race attracts some of the world's elite 10K runners and has served as both the United States' men's and women's 10K championship.

paragraph_text: On October 28, 1989, the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet decreed that effective January 1, 1990, Ukrainian would be the official language of Ukraine, while Russian would be used for communication between ethnic groups. On the same day The Congregation of the Church of the Transfiguration in Lviv left the Russian Orthodox Church and proclaimed itself the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The following day, thousands attended a memorial service at Demianiv Laz, and a temporary marker was placed to indicate that a monument to the "victims of the repressions of 1939–1941" soon would be erected.

paragraph_text: As with the spoken languages, the ethnic group composition also remains a point of debate, mainly regarding the largest and second largest ethnic groups, the Persians and Azerbaijanis, due to the lack of Iranian state censuses based on ethnicity. The CIA's World Factbook has estimated that around 79% of the population of Iran are a diverse Indo-European ethno-linguistic group that comprise the speakers of Iranian languages, with Persians constituting 53% of the population, Gilaks and Mazanderanis 7%, Kurds 10%, Lurs 6%, and Balochs 2%. Peoples of the other ethnicities in Iran make up the remaining 22%, with Azerbaijanis constituting 16%, Arabs 2%, Turkmens and Turkic tribes 2%, and others 2% (such as Armenians, Talysh, Georgians, Circassians, Assyrians).

paragraph_text: The Bogardus social distance scale is a psychological testing scale created by Emory S. Bogardus to empirically measure people's willingness to participate in social contacts of varying degrees of closeness with members of diverse social groups, such as racial and ethnic groups.

Question: 66 of the people whom the Soviets not want to engage in conflict were held hostage for 444 days in the late 1970s by a country. What is the presumed largest ethnic group of this country?
Answer: Persians