Under increasing international pressure, particularly from President Jimmy Carter of the United States, the Shah pushed forward major democratic reforms in the late 1970s, designed to gradually restore the constitutional monarchy as it had originally been. However, several uprisings in 1978 and 1979 culminated in the Shah, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had kept the fact secret, to leave the country with his family to seek treatment overseas. Within several days the Shah's government had effectively collapsed and the Second Revolution had begun.