November 4th 1979 saw the start of the Iran hostage crisis.

On that day Iranian students took over the United States embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage. They wanted the US to return the recently deposed Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to Iran for trial. He was at that time in the US for treatment of his cancer. Pahlavi left the US not long after the start of the crisis, and died during it, making it kind of pointless by the end, at least according to the original intent. It did prove popular which was probably why it continued.

Image: By Johnson Babela [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DF-SN-82-06759.jpg)