The modern Persian name of Iran (ایران) derives immediately from the 3rd-century
When Reza Shah became the new king, the name was changed to Iran in an effort to signify a new beginning. Iran made its allegiance clear to the world by changing Persia's name to Iran or Arya, which means Land of the Aryans. Persia or Iran had been greatly impacted by the Soviet Union and Great Britain before 1935.
Iran, pronounced "ih-RON" instead of "AY-ran" roughly translates in English to mean "Land of the Aryans" while the name Iraq, similarly pronounced "ih-ROCK" instead of "AY-rack" comes from an Uruk (Erech) word for "city." Both countries have also been known by different names, Persia for Iran and Mesopotamia for Iraq.
On the day of the Persian New Year, March 21 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi, requested foreign delegates to use the term Iran, instead of Persia, in a conscious reference to the ancient ancestry of the Iranians.
Ancient Iran, historically known as Persia, was the dominant nation of western Asia for over twelve centuries, with three successive native dynasties—the Achaemenid, the Parthian, and the Sasanian—controlling an empire of unprecedented size and complexity.
In the mid 1930s, the ruler of the country, Reza Shah Pahlavi, moved towards formalising the name Iran instead of Persia for all purposes.
In 1935, Persia officially changed its name to Iran. In 1945, during World War II, Allied bombers began four days of raids over Germany. In 1952, the Moondog Coronation Ball, considered the first rock and roll concert, took place at Cleveland Arena.
In 1935 the Iranian government requested those countries which it had diplomatic relations with, to call Persia "Iran," which is the name of the country in Persian. The suggestion for the change is said to have come from the Iranian ambassador to Germany, who came under the influence of the Nazis.
Although the newcomers called themselves Irani (Aryans) and their new homeland Irania (now Iran), the land came to be called Persia, because Greek geographers mistakenly named it after the province Pars, or Persis, where their early kings had their capital.
At its height, it encompassed the areas of modern-day Iran, Egypt, Turkey, and parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Persian Empire emerged under the leadership of Cyrus II, who conquered the neighboring Median Empire ruled by his grandfather. From then on Cyrus was called the “shah,” or king, of Persia.
Tensions between Iraq and Iran were fuelled by Iran's Islamic revolution and its appearance of being a Pan-Islamic force, in contrast to Iraq's Arab nationalism.
With the exception of various minority ethnic groups in Iran (one of which is Arab), Iranians are Persian.
Iraq was historically known as Mesopotamia, which literally means "between the rivers" in Greek. This land was home to the world's first civilization, the Sumerian culture, followed by the Akkadian, Babylonian, and Assyrian cultures, whose influence extended into neighboring regions as early as 5000 BC.
Gmail was later unblocked, but Google remains blocked. The Iranian alternative to Google is Parsijoo. The network already hosted some government and academic sites. The isolation of the separate network was also touted as an improvement to network security, in the wake of the Stuxnet.
Alcohol. The import, sale, manufacture and consumption of alcohol in Iran is strictly forbidden on religious grounds, with exceptions only for certain recognised Iranian religious minorities (not foreigners). Penalties can be severe.
Religion: Sharia-based Iranian law states that the legal age for marriage is 13 for girls and 15 for boys, but marriages can still be carried out at a younger age with the consent of fathers and permission from court judges. This has enabled a culture whereby child marriage is considered somewhat socially acceptable.
With the spread of Islam in the mid-seventh century, the Persian-speaking world became predominantly Muslim although vestiges of the earlier pre-Islamic religious and philosophical traditions remained.
Persian, predominant ethnic group of Iran (formerly known as Persia). Although of diverse ancestry, the Persian people are united by their language, Persian (Farsi), which belongs to the Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European language family.
The modern Persian name of Iran (ایران) means "the land of Aryans". It derives immediately from the 3rd-century Sasanian Middle Persian ērān (Pahlavi spelling: 𐭠𐭩𐭫𐭠𐭭, ʼyrʼn), where it initially meant "of the Iranians", but soon also acquired a geographical connotation in the sense of "(lands inhabited by) Iranians".
The glowing description of the Persians – who, he notes, think it “the most disgraceful thing in the world” to tell a lie (I. 138) - is contrasted with the Greeks without Herodotus having to even mention his countrymen.
Islam was brought to Iran via Arab-Islamic conquest in 650 AD and has played a shifting, anomalous role in this nation-state ever since.
Cyrus the Great
He founded the first Persian Empire, also known as the Achaemenid Empire, in 550 B.C.
Although Persian (Farsi) is the predominant and official language of Iran, a number of languages and dialects from three language families—Indo-European, Altaic, and Afro-Asiatic—are spoken. Roughly three-fourths of Iranians speak one of the Indo-European languages.
Since the Ottoman–Persian Wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, Iran (known as "Persia" prior to 1935) and the Ottomans fought over Iraq (then known as Mesopotamia) and full control of the Shatt al-Arab until the signing of the Treaty of Zuhab in 1639 which established the final borders between the two countries.