After spending some time looking over my Shenasnameh(Goverment Issued Major ID) with my father-in-law we realized that my birth date was set in the year 2536. He explained that the Shah changed the calender to start from when Cyrus the great ruled over the land. The change came in 1976 but the revolution had taken hold just a short year or two later and the idea was scrapped. My Shenasnameh is one of few surviving examples of this period of time because most the Shenasnameh's of that time were destroyed when they were updated to the Islamic style Shenasnameh after the revolution where the lion with scimitar was also removed.
Short description of the events of those times:
The Shah saw himself as heir to the kings of ancient Iran, and in 1971 he held an extravagant celebration of 2,500 years of Persian monarchy. In 1976 he replaced the Islamic calendar with an "imperial" calendar, which began with the foundation of the Persian empire more than 25 centuries earlier. These actions were viewed as anti-Islamic and resulted in religious opposition. - See more at: http://www.iranchamber.com/history/mohammad_rezashah/mohammad_rezashah.php#sthash.og5jA0Kv.dpuf
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