Today is Thursday; 2nd of the Iranian month of Dey 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 22nd of the Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal 1438 lunar hijri; and December 22nd, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2162 solar years ago, on this day in 146 BC, the third and last of the bloody Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome ended with the victory of the Romans and the end of the Carthaginian Empire. The first Punic War lasted 17 years from 264 to 241 BC and was fought in Sicily and the Mediterranean Sea. The second Punic War also lasted 17 years from 218 to 201 BC, and saw fluctuating fortunes. Initially Carthage was victorious, with its famous general Hannibal leading his North African forces into Spain from whence he crossed the Alps into Italy and besieged Rome with an army of elephants, before the turn of the tide against him, and his fleeing from place to place, until he finally died in Syria. The 3rd Punic War lasted only three years from 149 to 146 BC, and led to the total defeat of Carthage with the Roman Empire emerging as the paramount power in the Mediterranean lands of southern Europe and North Africa.

1772 solar years ago, on this day in 244 AD, Diocletian, an obstinate pagan who on becoming Roman Emperor, mercilessly persecuted monotheists and followers of other religions, was born near Salona in Dalmatia (Solin in modern Croatia) in a family of low status. His father was a freed slave, and according to some accounts he himself was a freed slave. The first forty years of his life are mostly obscure. Of crafty nature, while serving as a commander, he was proclaimed emperor in 284 by his soldiers in Asia Minor on the sudden and suspicious death of Numerian, the son and recently proclaimed successor of Emperor Carus – who days earlier had died of wounds in Mesopotamia during the war against Emperor Bahram II of the Sassanid Persian Empire. During his 21-year rule, Diocletian massacred tens of thousands of monotheist followers of Prophet Jesus (AS) as well as adherents of the sect called Christianity, invented by Paul the Hellenized Jew. He also brutally martyred the devoted Palestinian monotheist, Jirjis, known to the West by his Latinized name, Saint George, for refusing to worship the idols of the Roman pantheon. Diocletian destroyed the newly built church in Nicomedia in present day Turkey and burned all scriptures. He ordered the persecution of Manicheans, as a political ploy, compounding religious dissent with international politics, since followers of this creed amongst the Romans were supported by the Sassanid Empire of Iran, which he had managed to defeat with great difficulty in 299 and impose the humiliating Peace of Nisbis in northern Mesopotamia and Armenia on Emperor Narseh. He committed suicide six years after abdicating the throne.

1434 lunar years ago, on this day in 4 AH, the Muslims started the campaign against the Israelite tribe of Bani Nadheer around Medina by besieging their forts when the Jews, in alliance with the Arab infidels and hypocrites, refused to leave, despite their breach of the covenant of Medina for peaceful co-existence. They had incited Meccan polytheists to attack Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), in addition to their own attempts on his life. God Almighty revealed the ayahs of Surah Hashr, allowing the Prophet to take action. The Prophet entrusted the standard to his cousin and vicegerent, Imam Ali (AS), to launch the campaign. In a few days, the rebellious Israelites sued for peace, and were allowed to leave on 600 camels along with their women, children, livestock and riches. Some settled in Khaybar while others left for Syria. Centuries earlier, Israelite tribes had migrated to Hijaz from Palestine to await the advent among the Arabs of the Last and Greatest Messenger foretold by God in the Torah and other heavenly scriptures. But when Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) proclaimed his mission, the Israelites denied him, even though they recognized him as the one prophesied by Moses and other prophets. The Prophet, as per divine commandment, offered peace and truce to the Jews, as the People of the Book, but despite their pledges the Israelites never kept their words and always plotted against Islam and the Prophet.

1160 solar years ago, on this day in 856 AD (242 AH), Damghan in northeastern Iran was rocked by a terrible 7.9 degree earthquake that killed an estimated 200,000 people, with 45,096 fatalities in Damghan alone. It was the sixth deadliest earthquake in recorded history. Also known as the Qumis Earthquake, because of its nearness to the ancient Parthian city of Qumis, which was destroyed, the quake badly affected water supplies in the area, partly due to springs and qanats drying up, but also because of landslides damming streams. Half of Damghan and a third of the town of Bustam were also destroyed. The usurper Abbasid regime was ruling Iran in those days.

Iran lies within the complex zone of continental collision between the Arabian Plate and the Eurasian Plate, which extends from the Bitlis-Zagros belt in the south to the Greater Caucasus mountains, the Apsheron-Balkan Sill and the Kopet Dag mountains in the north.[3] The epicentral area is located in the Alborz mountain range, in which oblique north-south shortening is accommodated by a combination of thrusting and sinistral (left-lateral) strike-slip faulting.

1136 solar years ago, on this day in 880 AD, Luoyang, eastern capital of the Tang Dynasty of China, was captured by rebel leader Huang Chao during the reign of Emperor Xizong. Before his death in 884, Huang Chao captured the Guang Prefecture, where his army killed a large number of Muslims, Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians. The ethnicity of the killed was Persian, Arab, and Jew. The Tang Dynasty, established in 618, was well past its golden age, already weakened a century earlier by the rebellion of the Iranian-Sogdian general Aan Lushan, during which thousands of Arab and Persian Muslims had been involved.  Within a few decades of the rebellion of Huang Chao, the Chinese empire broke up into competing states of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period.

921 solar years ago, on this day in 1095 AD, King Roger II of Sicily was born at Mileto, Calabria, in what is known as the “Toe of the Italian Peninsula’. At the age of 35, he became king, after having been Count of Calabria during the rule of his father, Roger I – a Norman adventurer from Normandy in northern France who had seized Sicily from the Fatemid Shi’ite Muslim Empire after over three centuries of glorious Islamic rule. For 24 years till his death Roger II ruled Sicily, and influenced by the rich culture and civilization of Islam, he drew around him distinguished Muslim scientists, architects, statesmen, and even soldiers. The famous Islamic geographer Seyyed Mohammad al-Hassani al-Idrisi and the Spanish Muslim polymath Abu Salt al-Andalusi – who had formerly served the Fatemids in Egypt – were among the dignitaries at the Norman court in Palermo. Idrisi – a descendent of Imam Hasan (AS), the elder grandson and 2nd Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) – wrote for Roger the book “Nuzhat al-Mushtaaq fi-Ikhteraaq al-Afaaq”. Known in Latin as “Tabula Rogeriana”, it is a description of the world and the first world map ever drawn in Europe that later enabled navigators like Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Ferdinand Magellan and others to rediscover the Americas. It took Idrisi fifteen years to write this monumental work which contains commentaries and illustrations as well as the first perfect map of the Eurasian continent including its link to North Africa. Roger II also hired many Muslims who were trained in long-established traditions of centralized government. These included Abdur-Rahman an-Nasrani, a Greek convert whose name was Latinized as Christodulus and who served as the Emir of Palermo with the title “Ammiratus-Ammiratorum” (a corruption of “Amir al-Omara”), and later Amir al-Bahr (navy commander), which gave rise to the English word Admiral.

702 lunar years ago, on this day in 736 AH, the great scholar and founder of the Sarbadaran Movement, Shaikh Khalifa Mazandarani, was martyred in Sabzevar, Khorasan. Born in Amol in Mazandaran near the Caspian Sea, after mastering various branches of Islamic sciences, he came to Khorasan where in Sabzevar he launched the Sarbadar Movement against the repressive rule of the Ilkhanid Mongols, especially the local governor Togha Timur, who was notorious for his cruelty and high taxation of the people. The movement, which was mostly made up of the downtrodden, spread to neighboring cities. Its charismatic leaders included Shaikh Khalifa’s successor, Hassan Juri, and later Ali Mu’ayyad, all of whom revived the teachings of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). For the next 50 years, the Sarbadar – a Persian term which means, heads bound on gallows, to signify their readiness for martyrdom – ruled most of Khorasan, although not on dynastic basis. They regarded as their spiritual leader, Shaikh Mohammad Jamal od-Din al-Makki al-Ameli of what is now Lebanon, who was later martyred in his homeland by the enemies of the Ahl al-Bayt, and earned immortality as Shaheed al-Awwal (or First Martyr).

413 solar years ago, on this day in 1603 AD, Mohammad III, the 13th Sultan and 5th self-styled caliph of the Ottoman Dynasty, died of gluttony and drinking at the age of 37 after a reign of 8 years during which he was mostly embroiled in wars in Europe against the Hapsburgs against whom he won a decisive victory in the Battle of Keresztes (known in Turkish as the Battle of Hajova) in Hungary in 1602. He is notorious even in Ottoman history for having nineteen of his brothers and half-brothers executed to secure power. They were all strangled by his deaf-mutes.

377 solar years ago, on this day in 1639 AD, the French poet and playwright, Jean Racine, was born. He catapulted to fame at a young age upon writing the tragedy "Andromaque". For a while, he was the official chronicler at the French court. Among his works mention can be made of "Iphigenie". Racine died in 1699.

323 solar years ago, on this day in 1693 AD, a major earthquake jolted the Mediterranean island of Sicily, flattening the three main cities including the capital Palermo. This quake is considered as the worst in the history of Italy, and it claimed more than 80,000 lives.

247 solar years ago, on this day in 1769 AD, the Sino-Burmese War of 1765–69 ended with an uneasy truce between the Qing dynasty of China and the Konbaung dynasty of Burma (Myanmar). China under the Qianlong Emperor launched four invasions of Burma between 1765 and 1769, which were considered as one of his Ten Great Campaigns. The war, which claimed the lives of over 70,000 Chinese soldiers, is considered "the most disastrous frontier war that the Qing dynasty had ever waged", and one that "assured Burmese independence". Burma's successful defense resulted in the present-day boundary between the two countries.

226 solar years ago, on this day in 1790 AD, the Ottoman fortress of Izmail (Ismail and Hajidar in Turkish) on the River Danube in what is now southwestern Ukraine was stormed and captured by Russian General, Alexander Suvorov, who in three days massacred 40,000 Muslim men, women and children. He unabashedly wrote to Moscow boasting about his crime against humanity, saying he ordered his forces to go from house-to-house and room-to-room to kill all Muslims, and when the massacre was over, he wept that there no more Turks left to be killed. It was the end of almost four centuries of Muslim culture in this part of Eastern Europe, although the Turks later took the city and the surrounding region briefly, before losing it to the Russians in 1809. The defeat was seen as a catastrophe in the Ottoman Empire, while in Russia it was glorified in the country's first national anthem, with the words: Let the thunder of victory sound! The Russians destroyed all mosques and traces of Islamic culture, replacing the city with churches and cathedrals.

136 solar years ago, on this day in 1880, English writer Mary Ann Evans, who wrote under the masculine penname “George Eliot”, died at the age of 61 at Chelsea. Her books included “The Mill on the Floss”, “Silas Marner” and “Middlemarch”. She was driven out of England with her companion, George Henry Lewes, for a while for living an adulterous life without being married.

77 solar years ago, on this day in 1939 AD, Indian Muslims observed a "Day of Deliverance" from Congress to celebrate the resignations of members of the Indian National Congress following Britain's decision to involve India in World War II. In 1938 and 1939, the Muslim League had tried to bring to light the grievances of Muslims in Indian states run by Congress governments. These efforts led to documents like the 1938 Pirpur Report, proving pro-Hindu and anti-Muslim bias in Congress-ruled areas. The All-India Muslim League President, Mohammad Ali Jinnah (later the Founder of Pakistan) said in his nationwide address: “I wish the Musalmans all over India to observe Friday the 22nd December as the “Day of Deliverance” and thanksgiving as a mark of relief that the Congress regime has at last ceased to function. I hope that the provincial, district and primary Muslim Leagues all over India will hold public meetings and pass the resolution with such modification as they may be advised, and after Jum'a prayers offer prayers by way of thanksgiving for being delivered from the unjust Congress regime. I trust that public meetings will be conducted in an orderly manner and with all due sense of humility, and nothing should be done which will cause offence to any other community, because it is the High Command of the Congress that is primarily responsible for the wrongs that have been done to the Musalmans and other minorities.”

The Day of Deliverance was celebrated throughout India by non-Muslim Congress opponents, including Christians, Zoroastrians, Anglo-Indians, and especially the All-India Depressed Classes Association, led by Dalit Leader B. R. Ambedkar.

60 solar years ago, on this day in 1956 AD, Britain and France ended the 50-day occupation of the city of Port Sa’eed in Egypt, and withdrew their forces that had entered the Suez War along with the illegal Zionist entity on the invasion of the Sinai Peninsula. The joint air raids destroyed a large number of Egyptian installations in and around the Suez Canal. The cause of the war was nationalization of the Canal by President Jamal Abdun-Naser of Egypt that ended the illegal control of the British and the French on this vital waterway.

27 solar years ago, on this day in 1989 AD, Romania’s president and leader of the Romanian communist party, Nicolae Ceausescu, was ousted. Three days later he was executed along with his politically active wife and some senior members of the pro-Soviet dictatorial regime. His totalitarian policies had destroyed Romania’s economy and the whole infrastructure.

24 solar years ago, on this day in 1992 AD, the “Terror Archives” were accidentally discovered by Paraguay’s lawyer and human-rights activist Dr. Martin Almada, and judge Jose Agustin Fernandez, in a police station in a suburb of Asuncion (Lambare), capital of Paraguay. Fernandez was looking for files on a former prisoner. Instead, he found archives describing the fate of thousands of Latin Americans who had been secretly kidnapped, tortured, and killed by the security services of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chile. This was known as Operation Condor. The “Terror Archives” listed 50,000 people murdered, 30,000 people disappeared and 400,000 people imprisoned. They also revealed that other countries such as Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela cooperated, to various degrees, by providing intelligence information that had been requested by the security services of the Southern Cone countries. Some of these countries have used portions of the archives, now in Asuncion's Palace of Justice, to prosecute former military officers. Much of the case built against Chile’s notorious General Augusto Pinochet by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon was made using those archives. Almada, is himself a victim of Condor. He has called these documents “a mountain of ignominy, of lies, which Alfredo Stroessner [Paraguay's dictator until 1989] used for 40 years to blackmail the Paraguayan people.” Almada has urged the UNESCO to list the “Terror Archives” as an international cultural site.

11 solar years ago, on this day in 2005 AD, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the leader of Egypt's main Islamic opposition group, joined the world’s growing number of conscientious people and researchers in publicly calling the alleged Holocaust of Jews in Europe during World War 2 as a “myth”. He slammed Western regimes for criticizing disclaimers of the Holocaust that allegedly occurred in Europe during World War 2, as claimed by the Zionists to justify the illegal existence of Israel on the soil of Palestine. The West, which on the pretext of freedom of expression allows insulting of Islamic sanctities, has passed laws to prevent any research by historians and academicians on the number of Jews throughout Europe before World War 2 and the supposed Nazi gas chambers. The Islamic Republic of Iran was the first country to officially call the alleged Holocaust as myth and has held international conferences in this regard.

AS/MG