Ayatollah Khomeini's foundation to become the central figure and religious leader of the Iranian revolution began in his childhood. He was born into a fairly wealthy Shiite Muslim family on September 24, 1902. His real name was Ruhollah Musavi, but he adopted the name Khomeini after his birthplace. He never truly knew his father because he was assassinated in 1903. When Khomeini was four years old, he began attending a local religious school and continued to attend until he was sixteen. He then furthered his education at a theological college. He studied with Yazdi Ha'iri, a prominent Islamic scholar of the time. After completing his university studies, he became an Islamic teacher at the Ha'iri school. After Ha'iri's death, Ayatollah Boroujerdi took his place as the most important religious figure, and Khomeini became his follower. Khomeini preached against the continuing shift away from traditional Islam in Iran and gained a cadre of followers. He obtained the title ayatollah, meaning "sign of God", in the 1950s. Ayatollah Boroujerdi died in 1961 giving Khomeini the opportunity to compete for the position of the next great religious leader. He succeeded and became the grand ayatollah. Khomeini's political involvement in Iran increased and became more public. As the Shah continued to implement reforms that increasingly distanced Iran from Islamic customs and values, Khomeini began to actively protest. Khomeini's most notable protest took place in June 1963. He essentially made a speech denouncing the Shah and stating that Iranians wanted to see the Shah leave the country. Due to the crackdown on free speech at the time, Khomeini was arrested for negative comments about the government. Some Iranians protested… half the paper… Nian students took 66 Americans hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, marking the beginning of the Iranian hostage crisis. The Iranian government refused to obey the Carter administration in releasing the hostages. This event lasted 444 days during the Reagan administration in 1981. The crisis may not have ended if it were not for sanctions and oil embargoes. Khomeini indoctrinated the nation's youth through schools. He was against free speech and arrested those who expressed opposition to his regime. Khomeini was very anti-Western and wanted to reverse some of the Shah's Westernization policies. Ayatollah Khomeini instituted many new policies that followed Islamic principles, such as the oppression of women, the banning of Western culture, and the implication of shar'ia law. He remained in power until his death 1989.