Today is Monday; 6th of the Iranian month of Ordibehesht 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 17th of the Islamic month of Rajab 1437 lunar hijri; and April 25, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2420 solar years ago, on this day in 404 BC, the armies of the Greek state of Sparta and its allies, led by General Lysander, decisively defeated the Athenians, thus ending the 27-year long Peloponnesian War against Athens that had gradually grown into an empire following the Iranian withdrawal from southwestern Europe. Lysander, an artful diplomat, who had cultivated good personal relationships with the Persian prince Cyrus, the son of Darius II, completely outwitted Athens and its allies, who facing starvation and disease from the prolonged siege, surrendered. The defeat stripped Athens of its walls, its fleet, and all of its overseas possessions. The nearly fifty years that preceded the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC had seen the emergence of Athens as a major power in the Mediterranean Sea. Its empire began as a small group of city-states, called the Delian League – from the island of Delos. After the withdrawal of Iran from Greece in 480 BC, Athens led a coalition of Greek city-states that continued to attack Persian territories in the Aegean and Ionia. Soon Athens proceeded to conquer all of Greece except for Sparta and its allies – known as the Peloponnesian League that completely shattered Athenian power. 

1241 solar years ago, on this day in 775 AD, the Battle of Bagrevand resulted in the decisive crushing of the year-long Armenian rebellion against the Abbasid Caliphate, thanks to an elite force of 30,000 Iranians from Khorasan under Amir ibn Isma’il, following the failure of the Arab governor Hassan ibn Qahtaba to pacify the situation. As a result, Muslim control over Transcaucasia was solidified, while several major Armenian families lost power and fled to the Byzantine Empire.

1219 lunar years ago, on this day 218 AH, the 7th self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, Abdullah al-Mamoun, died near Tarsus in what is now southwestern Turkey, during a campaign against the Byzantine Empire, at the age of 48 years, after a 24-year reign, four of which were involved in civil war with his step brother, Amin, the rival caliph in Baghdad whom he eventually ordered killed. Born to the tyrant Haroun's Iranian concubine Marajel, his capital was initially the Khorasani city of Merv, which is currently in the Republic of Turkmenistan. He earned lasting damnation for forcing Imam Reza (AS), the 8th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), to come to Merv from distant Medina, as part of his plot to isolate the Ahl al-Bayt from the ummah. When the Imam's popularity tremendously grew among the people during his two-year sojourn in Khorasan, the crafty Mamoun martyred the Prophet's rightful heir in Tous through a fatal dose of poison.

802 solar years ago, on this day in 1214 AD, Louis IX of France was born. He has earned lasting notoriety for his enmity towards Islam and invasion of Egypt, as part of the 7th crusade, in league with the Buddhist Mongols, who were ravaging Iran and the Muslim World from the east. In 1249, he occupied Damietta and advanced towards Cairo via the Nile Delta. After initial success against the tottering Ayyubid dynasty, he was decisively defeated by the Mamluk-led resurgent Muslim forces at the Battle of Fareskur in 1250, losing 30,000 French and other European soldiers. While trying to flee, he was captured along with his brothers, Charles d’Anjou and Alphonse de Poitiers, and confined in the house of Ibrahim Ibn Loqman, under the care of the eunuch, Sobih. Louis IX was ransomed for 400,000 dinars – a third of France’s total annual revenues those days. After pledging not to return to Egypt, the French king surrendered Damietta and left with his brothers and 12,000 war prisoners whom the Egyptian Muslims agreed to release. The Battle became a source of inspiration for Muslim writers and poets. One poem ended with the following verses:

“If they (the Franks) decide to return to take revenge or to commit a wicked deed, tell them:

“The house of Ibn Loqman is intact, the chains still there as well as the eunuch Sobih".

Louis IX, as an avowed enemy of Islam and Muslims, mobilised the 8th Crusade and in 1270 invaded Tunis along with his brother, Charles of Anjou, and Prince Edward of England, to use it as a base for attacking other Muslim lands, and Palestine if possible. However, disease and dysentery broke out in the camps of the Christians, and many died including the French king himself on 25 August, thereby aborting the Crusade.

734 lunar years ago, on this day in 703 AH, the renowned Muslim worldwide traveler, Shams od-Din Mohammad bin Abdullah, popularly known as Ibn Battuta, was born in the northwest African city of Tangiers, which is now in Morocco. As a young man he started his initial journey to perform the Hajj, but after pilgrimage to Mecca, he kept on travelling, visiting over a period of thirty years, most of the Islamic world as well as many non-Muslim lands in the three continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. His journeys including trips to North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the West, and to West Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China, cover a total of 75,000 miles (121,000 km), surpassing by threefold the travels of his near-contemporary Marco Polo of Venice. In Iraq, he visited the holy shrine in Najaf of the Commander of the Faithful, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), and although a Sunni, he has admitted how people from far and near seek intercession with God through the First Infallible Successor of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) and are cured of their ailments. He then travelled all over Iran, and later, after visiting the Byzantine Empire, Europe and Russia, he arrived in India, where he was appointed the Qazi of Delhi by Sultan Mohammad bin Tughlaq. On his return to his homeland Morocco, again served as Qazi. He dictated to scribes the details of his travels in his book titled "ar-Rehla", and died at the age of 66.

426 solar years ago, on this day in 1590 AD, the Sultan of Morocco launched his successful attack to capture Timbuktu. Morocco sent 4,000 soldiers under the Spanish Muslim general, Judar Pasha, to conquer Songhai. After a five month journey across the Shara, Pasha arrived with only 1,000 men, but his soldiers carried guns. The 25,000 men of the Songhai were no match for the guns and Gao, Timbuktu and most of Songhai fall.

316 lunar years ago, on this day in 1121 AH, the prominent Bahraini scholar, Shaikh Sulaiman ibn Shaikh Abdullah al-Bahrani al-Mahuzi, passed away at the age of 46. He is the author of “al-Me’raj”, which is an explanation to the famous bibliographical work “al-Fehrist” of Shaikh at-Ta’efa Tusi, the Iranian Islamic jurisprudent and founder of the Islamic Seminary of holy Najaf. He also authored the book “al-Balaghah fi’r-Rijal” which is a critical biographical work of transmitters, narrators, and scholars of Hadith.

297 solar years ago, on this day in 1719 AD, British author and spy, Daniel Defoe's novel "Robinson Crusoe" was published in London. The character of “Crusoe” was partly based on the story of Alexander Selkirk (1676-1721), a Scotsman who spent four years stranded in the Juan Fernandez Islands – the island Selkirk lived on was named Mas-a-Tierra [Closer to Land] at the time and was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966. Defoe’s novel was also inspired by the Latin/English translation of the book “Hayy ibn Yaqdhan” by the Spanish Muslim polymath Ibn Tufail, who drew the name of the tale and most of its characters from an earlier work by the Iranian Islamic multi-sided genius, Abu Ali Ibn Sina (Avicenna).

272 solar years ago, on this day in 1744 AD, Swedish astronomer, Anders Celsius, died at the age of 43. He is famous for the temperature scale he developed. Celsius was born in Uppsala where he succeeded his father as professor of astronomy in 1730. It was there also that he built Sweden's first observatory in 1741. He and his assistant Olof Hiortner discovered that aurora borealis influence compass needles. Celsius' fixed scale (often called centigrade scale) for measuring temperature defines zero degrees as the temperature at which water freezes, and 100 degrees as the temperature at which water boils. This scale, an inverted form of Celsius' original design, was adopted as the standard and is still used in almost all scientific work

166 lunar years ago, on this day in 1271 AH, the prominent Islamic scholar, Seyyed Abu-Torab Khwansari, was born in the central Iranian city of Khwansar. He was an authority on theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, and exegesis of Holy Qur'an. He has left behind numerous compilations, which prove his profound knowledge. Among his works, mention could be made of “Qasd as-Sabeel”, and “Mesbaah al-Salehin”. He passed away in 1346 AH at the age of 75.

157 solar years ago, on this day in 1859 AD, ground was broken for the Suez Canal in Egypt. The first blow of the pickaxe was given by Ferdinand Vicomte de Lesseps at Port Sa’id. It was built to link the Mediterranean and the Red seas, and opened on 17th November 1869, thus materializing the age-old dreams of the Pharaohs, Emperor Darius I of the Persian Empire, the Fatemids, the Mamluks, and the Ottomans.

135 solar years ago, on this day in 1881 AD, 250,000 Germans petitioned to bar foreign Jews from entering Germany because of their treason against Prophet Jesus and the slandering of his Virgin Mother, Mary, in addition to their fleecing of Christians of money through usury.

143 solar years ago, on this day in 1874 AD, Italian electrical engineer, Marchese Guglielmo Marconi, who invented the wireless telegraph (in 1935), known today as radio, was born. In 1894, he began experimenting on the “Hertzian Waves” – the radio waves Heinrich Hertz had first produced in his laboratory a few years earlier. Lacking support from the Italian Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, he turned to the British Post Office. Encouraging demonstrations in London and on Salisbury Plain followed. Marconi obtained the world's first patent for a system of wireless telegraphy in 1897, and opened the world's first radio factory at Chelmsford, England in 1898. In 1909 he became a Nobel laureate.

118 solar years ago, on this in 1898 AD, the US declared war on Spain by deceitfully blowing up its own ship “Maine” in the Havana harbor of Spanish ruled Cuba. The war lasted four years during which the US occupied the Spanish possessions of Cuba, Philippines and Guam Island.

101 solar years ago, on this day in 1915 AD, during World War I, the Battle of Gallipoli began when the Peninsula of the same name in Turkey was invaded by a joint force of British, French, Australian, and New Zealand troops. The aim was to capture the Ottoman capital, Istanbul, but ended in a major failure for the Allied forces who withdrew on 9 January 1916. The campaign was one of the greatest Ottoman victories during World War I. In Turkey, it is regarded as a defining moment in the nation's history.

90 solar years ago, on this day in 1926 AD, Iran’s first radio transmission and wireless telegraph station became operational. Soon more such stations were set up the same year in Mashhad, Tabriz, Shiraz, Khorramshahr, and Kermanshah. The next year all Iranian cities became connected to the national network.

45 solar years ago, on this day in 1971 AD, as part of public protests in the US against the war in Vietnam, over 200,000 Americans staged anti-war demonstrations in Washington against the administration’s military policies. The US which invaded Vietnam in 1964, deployed as many as 500,000 troops, of which a tenth, that is, 50,000 were killed and tens of thousands of others wounded. In 1975 was forced to withdraw its troops, having failed to break the resolve of the Vietnamese people, despite its brutal tactics, including use of internationally-banned chemical weapons.

42 solar years ago, on this day in 1974 AD, a leftist military coup known as the Carnation Revolution, overthrew the fascist Estado Novo regime of Portugal. Marshal Antonio de Spinola was named head of state by a 7-member military junta. The Portugal changed from an authoritarian dictatorship to a democracy after two years of a transitional period known as PREC (Processo Revolucionário Em Curso), characterized by power dispute between left and right wing parties.

32 solar years ago, on this day in 1984 AD, a prominent figure of the Islamic Revolution, Hojjat al-Islam Mahdi Shahabadi, attained martyrdom at the warfronts against Saddam’s despotic Ba’th minority regime. Following the completion of his Islamic studies, Martyr Shahabadi actively participated in the struggles against the Shah’s dictatorship. He was incarcerated by the Pahlavi regime on several occasions and was ruthlessly tortured. Following the victory of the Islamic Revolution, he was elected as a lawmaker. With the outbreak of the imposed war, he left for the warfronts to defend the country. He would say: “If martyrdom can safeguard our monotheist system; and if martyrdom can convey our Islamic thoughts to the world; we are prepared for martyrdom.”

22 solar years ago, on this day in 1994 AD, two Catholic Hutu Sisters in Rwanda ordered some 600 frightened Tutsis out of their Benedictine compound into the hands of Hutu soldiers, who promptly massacred them. In 1997 Sister Gertrude (Consolata Mukangango) and Sister Maria Kisito (Juliene Makubutera), having escaped to Belgium, were put on trial on the basis of eyewitness accounts. In 2001 they were convicted, and let off with light sentences, despite their complicity in mass murder. Gertrude was sentenced to 15 years in prison and Kisito to 12 years.