by the 19th and 20th centuries European powers have built massive Empires stretching to all corners of the spherical Globe while some places had already broken off from the empires by this point most of the world land had been at least claimed by a European power in some capacity with a few massive exceptions when you look at the countries that were never colonized by European powers you quickly see places like Japan and Thailand and Ethiopia as well as some more dubious inclusions like Liberia which was colonized by the United States of not Europe but look in
this general area and you see another pretty big exception that no one seems to talk about Iran so why was Iran never colonized well it kind of was but not really let me explain thanks to myheritage for sponsoring this video okay so it's the end of the 19th century carriages are starting to lose their horses most of the rest of the world still calls Iran Persia and Britain and Russia are really close to bordering each other no like over here now Iran might not have specifically been part of any European Empire but that doesn't mean
it went through the 19th and 20th centuries free from heavy European influence after centuries fighting their Mediterranean neighbor to the west like they've seemingly been doing for the past 2500 years Iran found itself in conflict with Russia who had been conquering land since Central Asia in the Caucasus and Britain to the east who had just taken over India pretty much out of a thousand years of pent-up flavor deprivation and Iran found itself in the good luck spot not because it was good luck but because of the sort of situation it makes people say oh good
luck buddy Southwest Asia had become the center of a power play between these two superpowers one which would become known as the great game Go Fish Britain and Russia have begun to take over territories from Iran's culture Dynasty including harad which was ceded to Afghanistan also notable British non-colony the cultures tried to strengthen the Iranian State through a series of measures and reforms that will later be known as defensive modernization it actually kind of reminds me of what Japan was doing a few decades prior however this didn't exactly pan out Iran's government at this time
suffered from weak and largely divided institutions thus while the government had a massive deficit it didn't have the strength it needed to effectively raise taxes with the government attempting other ways of making money in 1872 for instance NASA radin Shah sold off the rights to build new dams trams railroads regular roads mines and Industrial plants to Baron Julius to reuter for which the newspaper is named after an arrangement Lord kurzon described as the most complete surrender of the entire resources of a kingdom into foreign hands that has ever been dreamed of much less accomplished in
history but then Germany wanted to build a railroad from Berlin to Baghdad which Britain and Russia feared would make the Ottoman Empire a German Ally the 1907 anglo-russian convention saw Iran split into a British and a Russian exclusive influence Zone leaving a neutral buffer zone in the middle all marched by the European classic awkward straight lines to pay no attention to anything in the name of ending hostilities between the two Powers this treaty saw Iran Afghanistan and Tibet become little more than anglo-russian buffer zones which actually fun fact is why Afghanistan has his weird little
finger Corridor up here then in 1908 attitudes toward Iran suddenly changed for no particular reason working under a concession from the Iranian government British businessman William Darcy hired George Reynolds to prospect for oil no after seven years of searching across the country oil was finally discovered in Rosenstein and the anglo-persian oil company was founded the following year was the British government owning a majority stake on the company this effectively meant that Britain now controlled Iran's oil exports now something I think is really important to understand about Iran is that it is incredibly diverse it's not
just Persians as a series turkmen's baluchis Arabs Kurds and dozens of other groups from across this general area all live within this 80 million strong country and you know you probably have a diverse ancestry as well but can you name all your great-grandparents what about your great-great-grandparents if you want to understand your family and your heritage why not check out myheritage not my Heritage specifically that'll be Genie of vlogger's job next year no my Heritage is a leading service for family history and DNA testing around the world with over 90 million customers provided with over
18 billion historical records to look through with myheritage discovering your old relatives and building your family tree couldn't be simpler in fact you can even bring your ancestors back to life well not in the Frankenstein kind of way since my Heritage gives you the tools to repair colorize and even animate old pictures see what they would look like in real life you know in fact it's not only useful for finding out where your ancestors came from or if you share ancestry with any famous historical figures but you can also learn of distant relatives you never
knew about you can even get in touch with them and they can even show you what they found about their and also your ancestors sign up for a 14 day free trial and enjoy all the amazing features my Heritage has to offer and if you decide you want to continue your subscription click the link below and you'll also get a 50 discount when World War the original series struck Iran declared itself neutral although given their position right between Britain Russia and the Ottoman Empire which the first two were now at war against this declaration of
neutrality didn't exactly amount to much yeah we feel you there bud Russia is supported by Britain the Ottomans supported by Germany and the cultures supported by nowhere in Europe fought for virtually the entirety of the war even after Russia had to punch out a year early something about communism not sure the Persian campaign eventually ended with the Treaty of mudros alongside turkey's surrender from the war entirely which is a whole story for another time and afterwards in the anglo-persian agreement of 1919 which gave the anglo-persian oil company drilling rights all across Iran with Russia abandoning
its sphere of influence in the North Britain wanted to establish a protected over Iran much like it already had across the Middle East however many other powers namely the United States denounced this move as hegemonic as the U.S did not like colonial empires and also wanted to drill for Iranian oil in addition the agreement would be denounced by the Iranian modulus or Parliament just three years afterward I like that actually changed anything between the wards the culture Dynasty would be replaced by the new Pahlavi Dynasty and the anglo-purchase Iranian Oil Company signed a 60-year agreement
promising to pay Iran four pounds for every ton of oil exported in exchange for Iran having no control over its oil exports in World War the Next Generation Iran noticed that German armies have been quite successful in their campaigns against the Soviet Union expecting Germany to ultimately win the war clearly not realizing how terrifying that would have been Iran refused Britain and the Soviet Union's request to expel German residents within Iran and so the two invaded the country to ensure the Persian Corridor would stay open allowing supplies shipped into the Persian Gulf to still reach
the Soviet Union Reza pachlovi was deposed in place of his more Western friendly Crown Prince Mohamed Reza pahave who would continue to roll until the Islamic revolution in 1979 now Iran might not have been part of the British Empire like India or Egypt but by the mid 20th century it would have been hard to doubt Britain's influence over Iran when prime minister Muhammad wasadek tried to nationalize the anglo-iranian oil company in 1953 he was met with a coup that ousted him from power and thrust the Shah back into the number one spot but if you
want to see how this all pants out in the latter half the 20th century well this video was actually collaboration with the channel Faultline this is Iran in the 1950s if you look at the way that people are dressed what kind of cars they're driving and everything else you'd be forgiven for thinking that this was somewhere like San Francisco then in the 80s Iran began to look more like this [Music] any video on this channel will tell you you can't truly understand a country and its motivations without understanding its geography to find out more about
this head over to my channel Faultline after this video you know what actually I'm bad at writing conclusions so this video is over [Music] thank you [Music]
