Militant Iranian college students, fueled by anti-American sentiment, stormed the US embassy in Tehran, taking 90 hostages, including 66 Americans, in a brazen act of defiance. The crisis would last 444 days, straining US-Iran relations and cementing Ayatollah Khomeini's revolutionary grip on the country. The event sent shockwaves globally, prompting international condemnation and a failed US rescue mission.