Four decades ago Iran’s then-leader, the western-orientated Mohammad Reza Pahlavi — the Shah of Iran, the self-styled King of Kings — began the last year of his corrupt monarchy.

Dr Michael DeBakey, the world-famous cardiovascular surgeon who pioneered such now-common procedures as bypass surgery and invented a host of devices to help heart patients, has died. He was 99.

An inquest into the death of the youngest daughter of the late Shah of Iran was opened today, three days after she was found dead in a hotel