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(Tehran, December '79 - amping up the noise machine)

With the situation regarding the American hostages in Iran at a standstill, now it was the UN's turn to get involved. An emergency session of the Security Council was called On December 2nd, with a universal condemnation of the situation in Iran.

Donald McHenry (U.S. Ambassador to the UN): “Governments, of course retain the right to require that foreign diplomatic personnel leave their soil. But every standard of International behavior, whether established by practice, by ethics, by treaty or by common humanity supports the principle that the personnel of a diplomatic mission and diplomatic property are inviolate. Even in the darkest moments of relations between countries, the security and well-being of diplomatic personnel has been respected.”

Iran however, decided its Ambassador would skip the session - so basically it turned into a sermon to the choir. It's interesting the Soviet Union stayed reasonably mum about the goings on, preferring the old "we don't dabble in others affairs" line of reasoning. Of course, nobody knew the Russians were going to be sending troops into Afghanistan two weeks later.

But that's another story.

And 1979 just kept rolling along.

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(On a scale of bad to worse - eleven)

Continuing our odyssey of November 4th, we arrive at 1979. This one went from bad to worse in a matter of hours. And stayed that way for a record 444 days. The U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran is largely thought to be responsible for bringing the Carter Presidency down and it did prove to be one series of epic blunders after the next, culminating in a disastrous rescue attempt that only served to aggravate an already out of control situation and further ramp up the chants of "death to America". But in the early hours of November 4, it only seemed like a diplomatic problem.

Richard C. Hottelet (CBSNews): “Young Iranians described as students, acting with the blessing of Ayatollah Khomeni have occupied the American Embassy in Tehran and hold more than fifty hostages there. They demand extradition of the Shah, who is now under medical treatment in New York.”

As the days wore on, there was no end in sight.

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(November 3, 1979 - by the end of the day it looked like this)

Saturday November 3, 1979 was supposed to be, by all intents and purposes a slow news day. South Korea had just buried its assassinated President Park Chung Hee, the 1980 Presidential race was getting started, the body of Mamie Eisenhower, former First Lady arrived in Kansas for burial and the coming week would mull Congress giving Chrysler a much needed bailout to stave off bankruptcy.

By the afternoon it got different. Five people were shot dead and at least eight were wounded during an Anti-KKK rally in Greensboro North Carolina, as carloads of whites opened fire on an otherwise peaceful demonstration. Twelve acknowledged Klan members would later be arrested. Protesters overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, signaling what would become a 444 day odyssey of hostages and attempted negotiations.

It goes to prove how quickly things can change, from seemingly nowhere.

But on the morning of the 3rd, when this CBS World News Roundup was broadcast, it was just another quiet weekend.