This photo was taken in Cairo in 1939, celebrating an engagement that also marked an alliance of two royal dynasties.
The happy couple (second and third from left ont he upper side of the table) are Princes Fawzia of the Muhammad Ali dynasty of Egypt, sister of then-King Farouq and daughter of King Fuad I, and Crown Prince Mohammed Reza Pahlavi lof Iran, son and heir of the then ruler, Reza Shah.
The couple were married in 1939. In 1941, when his father was deposed, Mohammed Reza became the new Shah. The marriage produced one daughter but was not a happy one; Fawzia returned to Egypt in 1945 and obtained an Egyptian divorce; an Iranian divorce was granted in 1948 on condition her daughter remain in Iran. She married again after returning to Egypt; the Shah married two more times. He, of course, was overthrown in 1979 and died the following year, ironically, in Egypt. He is buried in the same Cairo mosque as many members of his onetime in-laws, the Muhammad Ali dynasty.
[view whole blog post ]