Iran, 1953 — military coup
Event Summary
In August 1953 Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and his government were overthrown in a covert operation in which the United States took the leading role, code-named Operation Ajax. The operation removed Mosaddegh from power and restored the pro-Western monarch Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi as Iran's leader.
Films & Footage
Archival media is credited to its holding collection and license. Media sourcing policy →
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
How It Unfolded
Hand-coded by Coup Atlas from the sources on this page, using a fixed list of tactics. Only events we have read through carry this coding, so most records do not have it yet.
- Led by
- Foreign-backed
- How long it took
- Under a day — resolved within 24 hours
- Mass mobilization of civilians (for or against)
- Direct foreign involvement or backing
- Seizure of broadcasters / coup declaration on state media
- Mass arrests of officials, officers, or opponents
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
63008191953
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Mohammad Mosaddegh, Prime Minister of Iran (overthrown).
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Powell and Thyne
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →