GERMANY. Wiesbaden. American hostages arrive back from being held in Iran. 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981, after a group of Islamist students and militants took over the American Embassy in Tehran in support of the Iranian Revolution. They were finally realeased after the United States agreed to release several billion dollars in Iranian gold and bank assets, frozen in American banks just after the seizure of the embassy and returned to Wiesbaden US airforce base in January 1981.