paragraph_text: The Marionettes (1963) (variously translated as "The Puppets" as well) is a puppetry play by Bahram Beyzai, and one of the most important plays of the Persian language. It has been staged numerous times in various languages around the world. Together with two subsequent plays, namely "Evening in a Strange Land" (1963) and "The Story of the Hidden Moon" (1963), "The Marionettes" constitutes the playwright's puppet trilogy.

paragraph_text: In 1979, the Soviet Union deployed its 40th Army into Afghanistan, attempting to suppress an Islamic rebellion against an allied Marxist regime in the Afghan Civil War. The conflict, pitting indigenous impoverished Muslims (mujahideen) against an anti-religious superpower, galvanized thousands of Muslims around the world to send aid and sometimes to go themselves to fight for their faith. Leading this pan-Islamic effort was Palestinian sheikh Abdullah Yusuf Azzam. While the military effectiveness of these "Afghan Arabs" was marginal, an estimated 16,000 to 35,000 Muslim volunteers came from around the world came to fight in Afghanistan.

paragraph_text: The Afghan Alphabet (, "Alefbay-e afghan") is a 2002 documentary by Mohsen Makhmalbaf showing the life of children in the Afghan villages bordering Iran, and how their life and culture were affected by the Taliban regime.

paragraph_text: The Soviet -- Afghan War lasted over nine years, from December 1979 to February 1989. Insurgent groups known as the mujahideen fought against the Soviet Army and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan government, mostly in the country's rural countryside. The mujahideen groups were backed by the United States and Pakistan, making it a Cold War proxy war. Between 562,000 and 2,000,000 civilians were killed and millions of Afghans fled the country as refugees, mostly to Pakistan and Iran.

paragraph_text: In western Afghanistan the Hari Rud flows to the south of Herat. The valley around Herat was historically famous for its fertility and dense cultivation. After Herat, the river turns northwest, then north, forming the northern part of the border between Afghanistan and Iran. Farther north it forms the south-eastern part of the border between Iran and Turkmenistan. The Iran–Turkmenistan Friendship Dam is on the river.The Afghan-India Friendship Dam (Salma Dam) is a hydroelectric and irrigation dam project located on the Hari Rud in Chishti sharif District of Herat Province in western Afghanistan.

paragraph_text: Subsequently, in October 2001, U.S. forces (with UK and coalition allies) invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime. On 7 October 2001, the official invasion began with British and U.S. forces conducting airstrike campaigns over enemy targets. Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, fell by mid-November. The remaining al-Qaeda and Taliban remnants fell back to the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan, mainly Tora Bora. In December, Coalition forces (the U.S. and its allies) fought within that region. It is believed that Osama bin Laden escaped into Pakistan during the battle.

paragraph_text: In 1729, Nader Shah, a chieftain and military genius from Khorasan, successfully drove out and conquered the Pashtun invaders. He subsequently took back the annexed Caucasian territories which were divided among the Ottoman and Russian authorities by the ongoing chaos in Iran. During the reign of Nader Shah, Iran reached its greatest extent since the Sassanid Empire, reestablishing the Iranian hegemony all over the Caucasus, as well as other major parts of the west and central Asia, and briefly possessing what was arguably the most powerful empire at the time.

paragraph_text: The dominance of the nomads ended in the 16th century as firearms allowed settled people to gain control of the region. The Russian Empire, the Qing dynasty of China, and other powers expanded into the area and seized the bulk of Central Asia by the end of the 19th century. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet Union incorporated most of Central Asia; only Mongolia and Afghanistan remained nominally independent, although Mongolia existed as a Soviet satellite state and Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in the late 20th century. The Soviet areas of Central Asia saw much industrialisation and construction of infrastructure, but also the suppression of local cultures and a lasting legacy of ethnic tensions and environmental problems.

paragraph_text: She was arrested on June 17, 2009 by the Iranian government, on her arrival in Tehran from Paris and held in Evin Prison. It is said that her arrest is linked to the crackdown of opposition by the Iranian regime following the presidential election and also making the regime angry by making some non-Islamic films outside Iran. The Iranian government released her from prison on 30 June 2009.

paragraph_text: Shiraz, with a population of around 1.4 million (2011 census), is the sixth major city of Iran. It is the capital of Fars Province, and was also a former capital of Iran. The area was greatly influenced by the Babylonian civilization, and after the emergence of the ancient Persians, soon came to be known as Persis. Persians were present in the region since the 9th century BC, and became rulers of a large empire under the reign of the Achaemenid Dynasty in the 6th century BC. The ruins of Persepolis and Pasargadae, two of the four capitals of the Achaemenid Empire, are located around the modern-day city of Shiraz.

paragraph_text: The Third Battle of Panipat took place on 14 January 1761 at Panipat, about 60 miles (97 km) north of Delhi, between a northern expeditionary force of the Maratha Empire and invading forces of the King of Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Abdali, supported by two Indian allies -- the Rohilla Afghans of the Doab, and Shuja - ud - Daula, the Nawab of Awadh. Militarily, the battle pitted the artillery and cavalry of the Marathas against the heavy cavalry and mounted artillery (zamburak and jezail) of the Afghans and Rohillas led by Abdali and Najib - ud - Daulah, both ethnic Afghans. The battle is considered one of the largest and most eventful fought in the 18th century, and has perhaps the largest number of fatalities in a single day reported in a classic formation battle between two armies.

paragraph_text: The Parthian Empire (; 247 BC – 224 AD), also known as the Arsacid Empire (), was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Iran. Its latter name comes from Arsaces I of Parthia who, as leader of the Parni tribe, founded it in the mid-3rd century BC when he conquered the region of Parthia in Iran's northeast, modern-day Turkmenistan and north-western Afghanistan. Then a satrapy (province) under Andragoras, in rebellion against the Seleucid Empire; Mithridates I of Parthia (r. c. 171–138 BC) greatly expanded the empire by seizing Media and Mesopotamia from the Seleucids. At its height, the Parthian Empire stretched from the northern reaches of the Euphrates, in what is now central-eastern Turkey, to western Afghanistan and north-western Pakistan. The empire, located on the Silk Road trade route between the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean Basin and the Han dynasty of China, became a center of trade and commerce.

paragraph_text: The Axis states which assisted Japan included the authoritarian government of Thailand in World War II, which quickly formed a temporary alliance with the Japanese in 1941, as the Japanese forces were already invading the peninsula of southern Thailand. The Phayap Army sent troops to invade and occupy northeastern Burma, which was former Thai territory that had been annexed by Britain much earlier. Also involved were the Japanese puppet states of Manchukuo and Mengjiang (consisting of most of Manchuria and parts of Inner Mongolia respectively), and the collaborationist Wang Jingwei regime (which controlled the coastal regions of China).

paragraph_text: In Iran (Persia), the history of cotton dates back to the Achaemenid era (5th century BC); however, there are few sources about the planting of cotton in pre-Islamic Iran. The planting of cotton was common in Merv, Ray and Pars of Iran. In Persian poets' poems, especially Ferdowsi's Shahname, there are references to cotton ("panbe" in Persian). Marco Polo (13th century) refers to the major products of Persia, including cotton. John Chardin, a French traveler of the 17th century who visited the Safavid Persia, spoke approvingly of the vast cotton farms of Persia.

paragraph_text: In 334 BC, Alexander the Great invaded the Achaemenid Empire, defeating the last Achaemenid emperor, Darius III, at the Battle of Issus. Following the premature death of Alexander, Iran came under the control of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire. In the middle of the 2nd century BC, the Parthian Empire rose to become the main power in Iran, and the century-long geopolitical arch-rivalry between Romans and Parthians began, culminating in the Roman–Parthian Wars. The Parthian Empire continued as a feudal monarchy for nearly five centuries, until 224 CE, when it was succeeded by the Sassanid Empire. Together with their neighboring arch-rival, the Roman-Byzantines, they made up the world's two most dominant powers at the time, for over four centuries.

paragraph_text: On September 22, 1980, the Iraqi army invaded the Iranian Khuzestan, and the Iran–Iraq War began. Although the forces of Saddam Hussein made several early advances, by mid 1982, the Iranian forces successfully managed to drive the Iraqi army back into Iraq. In July 1982, with Iraq thrown on the defensive, Iran took the decision to invade Iraq and conducted countless offensives in a bid to conquer Iraqi territory and capture cities, such as Basra. The war continued until 1988, when the Iraqi army defeated the Iranian forces inside Iraq and pushed the remaining Iranian troops back across the border. Subsequently, Khomeini accepted a truce mediated by the UN. The total Iranian casualties in the war were estimated to be 123,220–160,000 KIA, 60,711 MIA, and 11,000–16,000 civilians killed.

paragraph_text: In 1941, Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and established the Persian Corridor, a massive supply route that would last until the end of the ongoing war. The presence of so many foreign troops in the nation also culminated in the Soviet-backed establishment of two puppet regimes in the nation; the Azerbaijan People's Government, and the Republic of Mahabad. As the Soviet Union refused to relinquish the occupied Iranian territory, the Iran crisis of 1946 was followed, which particularly resulted in the dissolution of both puppet states, and the withdrawal of the Soviets.

paragraph_text: The Third Battle of Panipat took place on 14 January 1761 at Panipat, about north of Delhi, between a northern expeditionary force of the Maratha Empire and invading forces of the King of Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Abdali, supported by two Indian allies—the Rohillas Najib-ud-daulah, Afghans of the Doab region and Shuja-ud-Daula-the Nawab of Awadh. Militarily, the battle pitted the artillery and cavalry of the Marathas against the heavy cavalry and mounted artillery (zamburak and jezail) of the Afghans and Rohillas led by Abdali and Najib-ud-Daulah, both ethnic Afghans. The battle is considered one of the largest and most eventful fought in the 18th century, and has perhaps the largest number of fatalities in a single day reported in a classic formation battle between two armies.

paragraph_text: The Kabul Shahi dynasties ruled the Kabul Valley and Gandhara (modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan) from the decline of the Kushan Empire in the 3rd century to the early 9th century. The Shahis are generally split up into two eras: the Buddhist Shahis and the Hindu Shahis, with the change-over thought to have occurred sometime around 870. The kingdom was known as the Kabul Shahan or Ratbelshahan from 565-670, when the capitals were located in Kapisa and Kabul, and later Udabhandapura, also known as Hund for its new capital.

paragraph_text: Qarabagh District is located 50 kilometers north of Kabul City in Afghanistan, and 20 kilometers southeast of Bagram Airbase. The district is part of Kabul Province and is on the route between Kabul and Parwan Province. It has a population of 15,000, with an expected 19,000 more people to return from Pakistan and Iran in the future (2002 official UNHCR est.). As of 2002 around 60% of the population are Tajiks and 40% Pashtuns.

Question: In which century was Afghanistan invaded by the country who supported two puppet regimes in and around Iran during WWII?
Answer: 20th century