Ayatollah Khomeini, the face of the Iranian revolution. (Peter Bregg/Canadian Press)

On Nov. 4, 1979, an angry mob of mostly university students overran and seized the U.S. embassy complex in Tehran, ostensibly to protest against then U.S. president Jimmy Carter allowing the deposed, former shah into the U.S. for medical treatment.

The seizure of the embassy was the capstone of a tumultuous year that saw Shah Reza Pahlavi, sick with cancer, abandon his throne amid rioting in the streets and the return of spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who would become the country's "Supreme Leader" in December 1979.

Khomeini would go on to preside over a difficult start to his revolution as factions fought in the street, Iraq invaded in the fall of 1980 and relations with the West deteriorated to an all-time low.

With Khomeini's encouragement, the students who seized the U.S. embassy held 52 Americans hostage there for 444 days.

Canadian journalists were among the few Western reporters allowed to operate freely in revolutionary Iran, at least until then Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor, at great personal risk, smuggled six American embassy workers out of the country in January 1980.

Among those documenting the events at the time was news photographer Peter Bregg, then with Canadian Press. He spent six months in Iran in that early period of revolutionary fervour. These are some of his pictures.

For those in the Toronto area, a more complete showing of Bregg's photos can be viewed at the IX Gallery, beginning Nov. 4, with opening remarks by former ambassador Taylor.