Iowa Almanac
Iowa Almanac -- Monday, November 04, 2024
Take and hostage. More from the Iowa Almanac in a moment. Election Day is Tuesday, November 5th. Now is the time to make a plan. Whether you plan to vote absentee by mail, in person at your county auditor's office before election day, or at your polling place on November 5th, it's important you take steps now to make your plan at voterready.iowa.gov. Remember, Election Day is Tuesday, November 5th. Find more information at voterready.iowa.gov. This message presented by the Iowa Secretary of State. Jessup native Katie Co. became a teacher, but she had always been fascinated by the work of Edward R. Murrow and his reporting from Britain during World War II. That ultimately led to a second career as a Foreign Service Officer. And that led to becoming a piece of history. In the summer of 1979, the 42-year-old became director of the Iran American Society, a nonprofit group established by the U.S. government to build educational and community relationships between the U.S. and Iran. She had only been on the job for four months when on November 4th, 1979, a group of Iranian students supporting the revolution took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking embassy workers hostage. While her office was two miles from the embassy, she too was soon taken hostage. For 444 days, 52 Americans were held by the student group. A rescue effort in the spring of 1980 was unsuccessful and led to the deaths of eight American servicemen. The hostage crisis dominated the presidency of Jimmy Carter and was clearly a factor in his landslide loss to Ronald Reagan in November of 1980. It was only when Reagan took the oath of office literally that the hostages were released by Iran into U.S. custody shortly after 12 noon on January 20th, 1981. Amazingly, all were safe and all were able to walk onto the plane to freedom. Catherine Coe returned to the Foreign Service, serving in Austria, Germany and Australia, ultimately retiring in 1996 and moving back to Iowa. Iowa native Catherine Coe, one of only two females taken hostage, along with 50 others, in Iran, on this date, in 1979. And that's Iowa Almanac for November 4th. There's more online at IowaAlmanac.com. Until tomorrow, I'm Jeff Stein.