Question: Who was Shah of Iran for almost four decades until being overthrown in the Iranian Revolution?

Context articles: Gholam Reza Afkhami
Women's rights movement in Iran
National Democratic Front (Iran)
Fawzia Fuad of Egypt
Soviet Union and the Iran–Iraq War
Pahlavi dynasty
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
June 5, 1963, demonstrations in Iran
British–Ruhollah Khomeini conspiracy theory
SAVAK

Gholam Reza Afkhami is senior scholar and director of Social Science Research and International Studies at the Foundation for Iranian Studies, a Washington-based research institution dedicated to the study of Iranian history, culture, economy and politics, created with the financial support from the twin sister of the Shah of Iran, Princess Ashraf Pahlavi.
 He is also the father of basketball player Ehsan Afkhami.
 He was formerly a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution on Revolution, War and Peace at Stanford (1980–1983), where he studied issues of development in the Third World, lectured on conflict and concord in the US relations with the countries of the Middle East, and prepared a text on the Iranian Revolution.
 Before the revolution of 1979, he was secretary general of Iran's National Committee for World Literacy Program (1975–1979), headed by Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, and deputy minister of interior, 1974–1975.
 Between 1967 and 1979 he was professor of politics and until 1974 associate dean of the College of Economics and Political Science at the National University of Iran.
The Iranian women's movement is based on the Iranian women's social movement for women's rights.
 This movement first emerged some time after the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in 1910, the year in which the first Women Journal was published by women.
 The movement lasted until 1933 in which the last women’s association was dissolved by the Reza Shah Pahlavi’s government.
 It heightened again after the Iranian Revolution (1979).
 Between 1962 and 1978, the Iranian women's movement gained tremendous victories: women won the right to vote in 1963 as part of Mohammad Reza Shah's White Revolution, and were allowed to stand for public office, and in 1975 the Family Protection Law provided new rights for women, including expanded divorce and custody rights and reduced polygamy.
 In 1969 women even began to drive cars and the first women to ever drive a car in Iran was Eileen Zayer from the United States.
 Following the 1979 Revolution, several laws were established such as the introduction of mandatory veiling and public dress code of females.
 Women's rights since the Islamic Revolution have varied.
 In November 2016, about 6% of Iranian parliament members were women, while the global average was about 23%.
The National Democratic Front (Persian: جبهه دموکراتیک ملی‎ , "Jebha-ye demokrātīk-e mellī " ‎ ) was a liberal-left political party founded during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 that overthrew shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and banned within a short time by the Islamic government.
 It was founded by Hedayatollah Matin-Daftari, a grandson of celebrated Iranian nationalist Mohammad Mosaddeq and a "lawyer who had been active in human rights causes" before the downfall of the shah and the son of the fourth prime minister and the jurist Ahmad Matin-Daftari.
 Though it was short-lived, the party has been described as one of "the three major movements of the political center" in Iran at that time, and its ouster was one of the first indications that the Islamist revolutionaries in control of the Iranian Revolution would not tolerate liberal political forces.
Fawzia Fuad of Egypt (Arabic: الأميرة فوزية فؤاد‎ ‎ ; Persian: شاهدخت فوزیه فؤاد‎ ‎ ; 5 November 1921 – 2 July 2013), also known as Muluk Fawzia of Iran, was an Egyptian princess who became Queen of Iran as the first wife of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The policy of the Soviet Union towards the Iran–Iraq War of 1980 to 1989 varied, beginning with a stance of "strict neutrality" and moving towards massive military support for Iraq in the final phase of the war.
 The war was inconvenient for the USSR, which had aimed to ally itself with both Iran and Iraq.
 In the first period of the war, the Soviets declared a policy of "strict neutrality" towards the two countries, at the same time urging a negotiated peace.
 Iraq had been an ally for decades and the Soviets now tried to win over Iran as well, but their offers of friendship were rebuffed by the pro-Western Shah of Iran.
 After Iranian revolution the Islamic Republic established whose slogan was "neither East nor West".
 In 1982, the war turned in Iran's favour and the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini pledged not to stop the conflict until he had overthrown the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
 Such a prospect was unacceptable to the Soviet Union which now resumed arms sales to Iraq while still maintaining an official policy of neutrality.
 The Soviets also feared losing Saddam's friendship to the West.
 After further Iranian gains in 1986, the Soviet Union massively increased its military aid to Iraq.
 The Soviets were now afraid of the Iranians encouraging Islamic revolution in Central Asia.
 Soviet aid allowed the Iraqis to mount a counteroffensive which brought the war to an end in August, 1988.
The Pahlavi dynasty (Persian: دودمان پهلوی‎ ‎ ) was the ruling house of Imperial State of Iran from 1925 until 1979, when the monarchy was overthrown and abolished as a result of the Iranian Revolution.
 The dynasty was founded by Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1925, a former Brigadier-General of the Persian Cossack Brigade, whose reign lasted until 1941 when he was forced to abdicate by the Allies after the Anglo-Soviet invasion.
 He was succeeded by his son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Persian: محمدرضا پهلوی‎ , "Mohammad Rezā Pahlavi " ‎ , ] ; 26 October 1919 – 27 July 1980), known as Mohammad Reza Shah (Persian: محمدرضا شاه‎ , "Mohammad Rezā Šāh " ‎ ), was the Shah of Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979.
 Mohammad Reza Shah took the title Shāhanshāh ("Emperor" or "King of Kings") on 26 October 1967.
 He was the second and last monarch of the House of Pahlavi of the Iranian monarchy.
 Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi held several other titles, including that of Āryāmehr (Light of the Aryans) and Bozorg Arteshtārān (Head of the Warriors).
 His dream of the Great Civilization in Iran led to a rapid industrial and military expansion as well as economic and social reforms.
The demonstrations of June 5 and 6, also called the events of June 1963 or (using the Iranian calendar) the 15 Khordad uprising (Persian: قیام پانزده خرداد‎ ‎ ), were protests in Iran against the arrest of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after his denouncement of Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Israel.
 The Shah's regime was taken by surprise by the massive public demonstrations of support, and although these were crushed within days by the police and military, the events established the importance and power of (Shia) religious opposition to the Shah, and Khomeini as a major political and religious leader.
 Fifteen years later, Khomeini was to lead the Iranian Revolution which overthrew the Shah and his Pahlavi dynasty and established the Islamic Republic of Iran.
A number of observers, including the Shah, have written of rumours and allegations that the government of the United Kingdom has secretly supported "mullahs" (Shia clerics) in recent Iranian history, and in particular the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in his successful overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
 It is alleged that the 1979 Iranian revolution is a Western response to the Pahlavi's White revolution which was intended to bring benefits to Iran and its people, but was unfavorable to the landlords, clergy and the United States and UK that feared that Iran will become independent, thus hampering their further involvement.
SAVAK (Persian: ساواک, short for سازمان اطلاعات و امنیت کشور "Sāzemān-e Ettelā'āt va Amniyat-e Keshvar", Organization of National Intelligence and Security) was the secret police, domestic security and intelligence service established by Iran's Mohammad Reza Shah with the help of the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (the CIA) and Israeli Mossad.
 SAVAK operated from 1957 to 1979, when the prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar ordered its dissolution during the outbreak of Iranian Revolution.
 SAVAK has been described as Iran's "most hated and feared institution" prior to the revolution of 1979 because of its practice of torturing and executing opponents of the Pahlavi regime.
 At its peak, the organization had as many as 60,000 agents serving in its ranks according to one source, although Gholam Reza Afkhami estimates SAVAK staffing at between 4,000 and 6,000.
 Almost all SAVAK agents were hunted down and killed after the Iranian Revolution in 1979.