Chapter culture of Spain

18. Spanish Wine

(source: gannett)
Apart from Sangria, another drink you should not miss while in Spain is its red wine. The country’s fascinating long wine-making history dates back to 1100 BC, during the reign of Phoenicians, making it among the famous things Spain is known for.
Spain ranks third among the world’s largest wine-manufacturing countries. A few of its most exemplary selections come from regions of Rioja, Penedés, Ribera Del Duero, Rueda, Cava, Baixas, etc.
From the above list, you will have a clear idea of what Spain is famous for. If you plan to visit here for your next vacation, plan well in advance so that you do not miss out on its popular tourist attractions
CHAPTER 2.
IRAN ISLAMIC REPUBLIC







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The Islamic republic

The Iranian Revolution, 1978–79

Ruhollah Khomeini
Ruhollah Khomeini (centre) greeting after returning to Tehrān, February 1979.(more)
Outwardly, with a swiftly expanding economy and a rapidly modernizing infrastructure, everything was going well in Iran. But in little more than a generation, Iran had changed from a traditional, conservative, and rural society to one that was industrial, modern, and urban. The sense that in both agriculture and industry too much had been attempted too soon and that the government, either through corruption or incompetence, had failed to deliver all that was promised was manifested in demonstrations against the regime in 1978.
In January 1978, incensed by what they considered to be slanderous remarks made against Khomeini in a Tehrān newspaper, thousands of young madrasah students took to the streets. They were followed by thousands more Iranian youth—mostly unemployed recent immigrants from the countryside—who began protesting the regime’s excesses. The shah, weakened by cancer and stunned by the sudden outpouring of hostility against him, vacillated, assuming the protests to be part of an international conspiracy against him. Many people were killed by government forces in the ensuing chaos, serving only to fuel the violence in a Shiʿi country where martyrdom played a fundamental role in religious expression. Despite all government efforts, a cycle of violence began in which each death fueled further protest, and all protest—from the secular left and religious right—became subsumed under the cloak of Shiʿi Islam.
During his exile, Khomeini coordinated this upsurge of opposition—first from Iraq and after 1978 from France—demanding the shah’s abdication. In January 1979, in what was officially described as a “vacation,” he and his family fled Iran; he died the following year in Cairo.
The Regency Council established to run the country during the shah’s absence proved unable to function, and Prime Minister Shahpur Bakhtiar, hastily appointed by the shah before his departure, was incapable of effecting compromise with either his former National Front colleagues or Khomeini. Crowds in excess of a million demonstrated in Tehrān, proving the wide appeal of Khomeini, who arrived in Iran amid wild rejoicing on February 1. Ten days later, on February 11, the country’s armed forces declared their neutrality, effectively ending the shah’s regime. Bakhtiar went into hiding, eventually to find exile in France, where he was assassinated in 1991.