Anti-American Art: Den of Spies

You may recall it as the Iran Hostage Crisis. In Iran they remember it, probably more accurately, as the "Takeover of the U.S. Spy Den." This was the first of many stamps issued later on various anniversaries to mark the occasion of the seizure of the US embassy in Teheran by militants shortly after the victory of the 1979 Islamic revolution. Here, an illustrated version of a photo montage: the crowd crashes the gates, a US flag burns, and one of the embassy staff is blindfolded. From the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1982.