October 26, 1919. A pagent

Marie Downey Werner rehearses the role of Victory in act to be preformed for the King and Queen of Belgium. Washington Times, October 26, 1919.

On this day in 1919, the Washington Times ran photos of a pageant being practiced for the visit of the King and Queen of Belgium.

Allegorical plays, particularly featuring women, were quite popular at the time.

On monarchy, on this day in 1919, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and his twin sister Ashraf were born in Persia.  He'd become the final Shah of Iran.

His story is fairly complicated, and of course his downfall lead to epic consequences.

His father was Reza Khan Pahlavi and his mother was his second wife, Tad ol-Molouk.  Khan became the first Shah of the Pahlavi Dynasty, if you can consider it that, given its short duration.  His father had been a general in the Persian Cossack Brigade that served Imperial Russia up until 1920, and the British for a time thereafter.  He was of mixed Iranian and Georgian ancestry, and his mother was from a Muslim immigrant to Persia from Georgia.  They were not royals, but that changed when his father, a military strong man who was scene as the potential savior of Persia from Bolshevism, was elevated to that role following a 1925 coup. 

The son grew up in the shadow of a domineering father who was an admirer of Hitler and who believed that showing affection to male sons encouraged homosexuality.  His mother doted on him but was highly superstitious.  He rose to power himself when his father fell after a joint Soviet British invasion in 1941 which allowed a route to be opened up through the country for supplies.  The Iranian military offered no effective resistance and the embarrassment lead to the change in governments.

The new Shaw would rule until 1979 when he'd be put to flight due to the Islamist revolution which converted the country into an "Islamic Republic", which it remains today.  His monarchy was quixotic, and was in the unenviable role of attempting to be a liberalizing reformer while ruling as a monarch.  This lead to animosity with conservative Shiia clerics which ultimately lead to his downfall.