Tehran hosted the 1943 meeting between Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin.
The Tehran Conference took place from November 28 to December 1, 1943, at the Soviet embassy in Tehran, Iran. It was the first wartime conference attended by all three leaders of the Allied “Big Three.” Their discussions focused on military strategy, postwar planning, and cooperation among Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
The most consequential agreement was a commitment to launch a major cross-Channel invasion of Nazi-occupied France. This decision led to Operation Overlord, the campaign that began with the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944. Stalin also agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan after Germany’s defeat.
Tehran is commonly confused with Casablanca, Yalta, or Potsdam because all four cities hosted major Allied conferences. Casablanca, in January 1943, involved Churchill and Roosevelt but not Stalin. Yalta and Potsdam came later, in 1945, after the Big Three had already met at Tehran.
The conference was also known by the codename Eureka. Beyond battlefield plans, the leaders discussed Iran, Turkey, Poland, Germany’s future, and the proposed international organization that eventually became the United Nations.