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| 1936, Dec. 27 |
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| A new law required all judges in the state courts to receive modern legal training. Members of the religious establishment were no longer to be admitted as judges without the appropriate training. | 1 |
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| 1937 |
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| Founding of the Industrial and Agricultural Bank of Iran. | 2 |
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| 1939, Jan |
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| Completion of the Trans-Iranian Railway (begun in 1927), connecting Tehran with the Persian Gulf. Construction of the railway was financed through an unpopular tax on sugar and tea so that the government could finish the project without contracting foreign loans. | 3 |
| In spite of this achievement. Iran possessed few roads and railways (indeed, the country had no railroads at all until 1928). Transportation remained a slow affair, relying chiefly on animal and human exertions. Even the Trans-Iranian Railway was inadequate. Most commercial traffic in Iran flowed east-west, whereas the rail line ran north-south. By 1941 the government had built about 14,000 miles of highway, but these roads primarily served military purposes and did little to improve the overall speed of transportation within the country. | 4 |
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| 1940 |
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| The first Iranian radio station, Tehran Radio, began broadcasting. | 5 |
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| 1941, Aug. 25 |
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| INVASION OF IRAN by Soviet and British forces (See Aug. 25). The Allies occupied Tehran on Sept. 16. Riza Shah abdicated and was succeeded by his son, MUHAMMAD RIZA SHAH. The presence of Soviet and British troops, and after 1942 of American advisers, sharply reduced the power of the shah and the government for the duration of the Allied occupation (1941–46). | 6 |
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| Sept |
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| Founding of the TUDEH PARTY, which became a left-wing organization espousing Marxist ideology. In 1944 it helped to organize the Council of Federated Trade Unions (CFTU), which planned and executed labor strikes throughout Iran. Membership in the Tudeh peaked at around 50,000 in 1946; it could also claim another 350,000 adherents through the CFTU at around the same time. | 7 |
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