Al Jazeera Documentaries

After decades of royal rule millions of Iranians took to the streets in a popular movement against a regime that was seen as brutal, corrupt and illegitimate. Revolutionary forces, under the leadership of Grand Ayatollah Khomeini, forced the Shah of Iran into exile. His government was overthrown and replaced by a new Islamic order. The Islamic revolution put Iran on a new path - one that brought it to war with its neighbour and ongoing conflict with the West. Anatomy of a Revolution tells this story.

Thirty years after the founding of the Islamic republic, the ideals that inspired the uprising continue to inform every day life in modern Iran. So how has the revolution managed to sustain itself through war, international isolation, economic sanctions, and regional turbulence? And how has Iranian society changed since the seismic upheaval of 1979?

Al Jazeera revisits the events of June 1989 through the stories of those present. In 1989, hundreds of thousands of people flooded onto the streets of Beijing and into Tiananmen Square demanding democracy, freedom of speech and an end to corruption. After a seven week standoff, the government called in the troops and a bloody battle ensued. The number of deaths is not known. The Chinese Red Cross initially issued a statement saying that 2,600 people had been killed but rapidly retracted that. The Chinese government claimed that 241 people died, including 23 soldiers. Twenty years on, Al Jazeera speaks to some of those who took part in the world's largest and most influential pro-democracy movement. Through their personal stories and the stories of others who witnessed this historic movement, It happened in Tiananmen Square recreates an era when a new generation of Chinese wanted to finally break from the shackles of Mao's Cultural Revolution.

In 1964, Gamal Abdul Nasser, the Egyptian president, convened the first Arab summit. His aim was to lead an Arab response to the state of Israel. The Arab leaders voted to set up a body to organise the Palestinians in their diaspora. Ahmad al-Shuqairy, a Palestinian diplomat, was chosen to head the newly-formed body. Al-Shuqairy wanted an organisation that would not just kowtow to Arab regimes. Four months later, he convened the first Palestinian parliament in Jerusalem. There the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organisation was officially announced.

On July 19, 1979, the Sandinista revolution removed what many considered to be one of Latin America's most brutal dictatorships. Thirty years later, and with the Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega once again in power, Al Jazeera's Lucia Newman visited Nicaragua and found that many of the revolution's promises have remained unfulfilled.

In the aftermath of Arab defeat in the 1967 Six Day War, Palestinian guerrilla factions consolidated their grip on the refugee camps in the Arab world. In 1969, Fatah leader Yasser Arafat was elected chairman of the PLO, marking a new era in which the guerrillas overthrew the traditional hold of more established Palestinian families. In Jordan, armed Palestinians had set up a state within a state, but Jordan's King Hussein's patience with the Palestinians was wearing thin. The Jordanian army was deployed to the streets and vicious street battles soon erupted between Jordanian soldiers and Palestinian guerrillas.

In 1974, the PLO was named the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and Yasser Arafat received a standing ovation at the General Assembly of the UN. But another Arab country was to be the stage for the next chapter of the Palestinian tragedy. After its expulsion from Jordan, the PLO had moved its headquarters to the Lebanese capital, Beirut. In April 1975, civil war broke out in Lebanon. In 1982, Israel launched an invasion of Lebanon and Palestinian forces quickly collapsed and the PLO was driven out of Beirut. After more than 10 years in Lebanon, it was the end of an era.

Yasser Arafat soon found himself engaged in a fratricidal fight for control of the PLO - and for his life. In July 1983, fighting broke out in Lebanon between pro- and anti-Arafat forces. In a daring air and sea journey from his new headquarters in Tunisia, Arafat managed to slip into Lebanon in disguise to join his fighters. The Syrian-backed Amal militia and anti-Arafat factions besieged the Palestinian camps in Beirut and southern Lebanon in an on-and-off onslaught that would last three years and become known as the Camps War.

By 1987, national unity had become the slogan of the time. That unity was about to get a huge boost from an unexpected place. In December 1987, in Gaza an Israeli driver killed four Palestinian labourers and wounded nine when his car ran off the road. The Israelis called it an accident. The Palestinians said it was premeditated murder. The incident sparked an outbreak of Palestinian protests that spread like wildfire throughout the Occupied Territories. The Intifada - or uprising - was born.

There was a promise of a new world order in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War. Negotiations resumed, which would lead to a historic return to their homeland for the PLO leadership. But the challenges of nation-building proved overwhelming and new political forces were emerging within Palestinian society that would threaten the role and the relevance of the PLO. In spring 2002, Israeli forces surrounded Arafat's headquarters. Arafat held out until October, when he was struck down by a mystery illness and eventually died in a Paris hospital.