Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar

Agha Mohammad was the son of Mohammad Hasan Khan, chief of the Qoyunlu branch of the Qajar tribe. Rivals castrated him as a child, and he spent his youth as a hostage at the court of Karim Khan Zand in Shiraz. When Karim Khan died in 1779 he escaped to Mazandaran and united the Qajar clans.

He made Tehran his capital in 1786 and in 1794 defeated the last Zand ruler, Lotf Ali Khan. In 1795 he campaigned in the Caucasus, besieged Shusha and took Tbilisi, and in 1796 he was formally crowned shah on the Mughan plain. In 1797 he was murdered by his own servants at Shusha. The Qajar dynasty he founded ruled until 1925.