Mir-Hossein Mousavi was born during turbulent times in Iran's history.

The 67-year-old architect and painter turned politician, was born two weeks after the allied powers, Britain and the Soviet Union, invaded Iran in 1941, forcing Iran's monarch, Reza Shah Pahlavi to hand over his throne to his 22 year old son Mohammad Reza.

On Monday, Sep. 29, 1941, Mousavi birthday, the Time Magazine revealed how “Reza, a choleric old man” had relied on Britain's “whip-smart” Minister Sir Reader William Bullard for his every move.

The article titled Two Mohammeds said although the British had not officially played kingmakers, they had done “yeoman work behind the scenes.”

Iranians still recall how during World War II the allies ignored the country's neutrality, only to simultaneously enter Iran on August 26, 1941. Iran's neutrality didn't matter as the two powers sought to secure Iranian oil fields and ensure supply lines for the Soviets fighting against Germany on the Eastern Front.

Mousavi, the son of a tradesman, was raised in the northwestern city of Khameneh. He proved to be a diligent student, obtaining his Masters degree in Architecture from Tehran's prestigious Melli (Shahid Beheshti) University in 1969.

During the same year, the young Mousavi designed main building of the Provincial Water and Sewerage Company of Isfahan. He made his first mark on Iran's politics in 1971, when he started the design of the building known as “Kanoun Tohid” which served as one of the major venues for anti-Shah forces before the revolution.

Five years later, the then 33 year old, began his career as an academic, teaching architecture students at the same university.

The current president of the Iranian Academy of Arts, has served as Iran's Foreign Minister and Prime Minster in the 1980s, during the eight year long Iran-Iraq war. In the early years of the revolution, Mousavi was the editor-in-chief of the official newspaper of the Islamic Republic Party, the Jomhouri-e Eslami (Islamic Republic) newspaper.

After constitutional amendments removed the post of prime minister in 1989, Mousavi dedicated much of his time in the past two decades to the arts.

The 67-year-old is married to the first female chancellor of a university after the 1979 revolution, politician, writer and academic Zahra Rahnavard and has three daughters.