Today is Saturday; 25th of the Iranian month of Esfand 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 9th of the Islamic month of Rajab 1440 lunar hijri; and March 16, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2616 solar years ago, on this day in 597 BC, the Babylonian tyrant, Nebuchadnezzar II (or Bokht an-Nasar in Arabic) after capturing the holy city of Bayt al-Moqaddas, replaced the Israelite king, Jeconiah (Yaqunia) with his own uncle Zedekiah (Sadqiya), thereby bringing under direct rule of Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) the kingdom of Judah (Palestine), which until then was a tributary. Jeconiah was taken to Babylon as prisoner. Nine years later in 588 BC, when the evil Zedekiah, ignoring the advice of Prophet Jeremiah (Irmiyah), dared to side with Pharaoh Hophra of Egypt, the tyrant Nebuchadnezzar II descended with a mighty army and after an 18-month siege, captured Bayt al-Moqaddas, plundered it, and razed to the ground all edifices, including Solomon’s Mosque for the worship of the One and Only God. Zedekiah, along with his followers attempted to escape, but was captured, made to see his sons put to death, before his own eyes were pulled out, and carried fettered as a captive to Babylon, where he remained a prisoner until death. Nebuchadnezzar transported almost all the population of Palestine to Mesopotamia. It is worth noting that the recently executed Iraqi tyrant, Saddam of the repressive Ba’th minority, used to regard himself as reincarnation of Nebuchadnezzar, who is said to have been weaned on sow's milk.

1982 solar years ago, on this day in 37 AD, Roman Emperor Tiberius died at the age of 77 after a reign of 34 years in a paranoid state following the invasion of Syria by Iran’s Parthian Empire. The stepson and successor of Emperor Augustus Caesar, decades earlier he had been sent at the head of a large army to Armenia to try to wrest its control from Parthia, but failed to defeat the Iranians. However, after a year of negotiations, he was able to reach a compromise whereby the Iranians agreed to preserve Armenia as a buffer zone between the two empires and returned the prestigious standards of the legions they had captured during the wars against Parthia of the Romans under Marcus Crassus (53 BC – at the Battle of Carrhae), Decidius Saxa (40 BC), and Marc Antony (36 BC).  

829 solar years ago, on this day in 1190 AD, before embarking on the Crusades against Muslims in Palestine, the Christian knights of England launched a massacre of Jews in York. The terrified Jewish population fled to Clifford’s Tower, which was set fire by a Christian priest, and hundreds of Jews were burnt to death. At a time when Jews enjoyed all rights in Muslim lands, even becoming viziers, they were subjected to periodic massacres in Europe for their rejection of Prophet Jesus and their slandering of his mother, the Virgin Mary.  

519 lunar years ago, on this day in 921 AH, the Iranian historian and poet, Zain-ol-Abedin Ali bin Abdul-Momin, popular as Abdi Bek Navidi Shirazi, was born in Shiraz. His main book is a history of the Safavid Dynasty titled "Takmilat al-Akhbar", in which he has chronicled events beginning from the emergence of the Safavids till the year 978 AH.His main poetical works are three Khamsas, composed in imitation of the celebrated Nizami Ganjavi. Each Khamsa comprises five independent versified narratives. Of these, “Sahifat-al-Ikhlas”, mostly a descriptive account of the palaces, gardens, and artists of Qazvin (the then capital of the Safavids) is of special interest. His Divan of Persian poetry was published for the first time in Lucknow, India, in 1267 AH (1851). Among his other works, mention could be made of a versified book titled “Jam-e Jamshid”.

510 lunar years ago, on this day in 930 AH, the young 10-year old Shah Tahmasp I was crowned as the second Safavid Emperor of Iran, a week after the death of his father and founder of the Dynasty, Shah Ismael I. His reign of 54-years is the longest of any Muslim king of Iran, and was marked by foreign threats, primarily from the Ottomans in the west and the Uzbeks in the northeast. Upon adulthood, he was able to reassert his power and consolidate the dynasty against internal and external enemies. Although he lost Iraq and parts of Anatolia to the Ottoman invaders, his pious nature made him avoid unnecessary shedding of Muslim blood. As a result, after thwarting Ottoman designs in the Caucasus, Shah Tahmasp concluded the Treaty of Amasya, with Sultan Sulaiman, resulting in a peace that lasted 30 years and led to the development of Iran. He continued his father’s policy of enlightening the people with the teachings of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny). He assembled at his court in Qazvin leading ulema from all over Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, and Lebanon. As a descendant of the Prophet and head of the Safavid spiritual order tracing to Safi od-Din Ardebili, he was acknowledged as suzerain by the Shi’ite Muslim sultanates of the Deccan (Southern India). Shah Tahmasp is also known for the reception he gave to the fugitive Mughal Emperor Humayun of Hindustan (Northern Subcontinent) when the latter fled the seizure of power by the Afghan warlord, Sher Shah Suri. Humayun, whose father Babar, was a protégé of Shah Ismail Safavi, was treated as a royal guest, and besides military aid to recover his kingdom, was accompanied by a large retinue of Iranian noblemen, soldiers, and artists, which signaled an important development in Indo-Iranian relations, in all fields, such as art, architecture, language and literature. One of Shah Tahmasp's more lasting achievements was his encouragement of the Persian carpet industry on a national scale. He was an enthusiastic patron of the arts with a particular interest in the Persian miniature, especially book illustration. He had been trained in drawing himself, and had some talent. The most famous example of such work is the “Shahnama-e Shah Tahmaspi”, containing 250 miniatures by the leading court artists of the era.

477 lunar years ago, on this day in 963 AH, Ezzeddin Seyyed Hussein, the prominent Imami scholar, was martyred through poisoning at the age of 57 in the city of Sidon in what is now Lebanon. Born in the Jabal Amel region, he mastered the sciences of the day, and had attained higher degrees of Gnosticism.

230 solar years ago, on this day in 1789 AD, German physicist Georg Simon Ohm, was born in Brandenburg. In 1825 he demonstrated through research and experiments on the electrochemical cell invented by Italian scientist Alessandro Volta that there are no “perfect” electrical conductors. All conductors have some resistance. The next year, he stated the famous law known in his honour as Ohm’s Law: “If the given temperature remains constant, the current flowing through certain conductors is proportional to the potential difference (voltage) across it.” or V=iR. He died at the age of 65.

178 solar years ago, on this day in 1841 AD, John Murray, Scottish naturalist who, as one of its founders, coined the name oceanography, was born. He studied ocean basins, deep-sea deposits, and coral-reef formation. As a marine scientist, he took part in the Challenger Expedition (1872-76), the first major oceanographic expedition of the world. He was first to observe the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the existence of marine trenches. He attempted with Buchan to construct from temperature and salinity observations a qualitative theory of water movement in the world's oceans. With Alexander Agassiz, he put forward a modified hypothesis for coral reef development, arguing against Charles Darwin's hypothesis and suggesting that subsidence was not always a controlling mechanism. He died in 1914, killed by a motor car.

174 solar years ago, on this day in 1845 AD, German mathematician and physicist, Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, was born. He conducted extensive research on different rays and discovered X-ray in 1895. The unit of radiation of X-rays and Gama rays is named after him as Roentgen. He died in 1923.

160 solar years ago, on this day in 1859 AD, the Russian inventor and scientist, Alexander Popov, was born. He conducted extensive studies to build a device that would be able to record and broadcast sound. Thus, in 1895, he succeeded in inventing the tape recorder. He died in 1905.

141 solar years ago, on this day in 1878 AD, the British-installed Pahlavi tyrant, Reza Khan Savadukhi, was born in the village of Alash in Savadukh County, Mazandaran, in an obscure peasant family to a Muslim refugee woman named Noushafarin Ayromlou, from the Russian-occupied Iranian parts of the Caucasus land of Georgia. It is said, his father was a certain Abbas Ali Khan, a petty military officer, who died when the boy was only 8 months old. His mother soon remarried and entrusted the child to her brother, who after sometime handed him to a military man named Vartan Gorg-e Koohi, who as the surname suggests means “mountain wolf” in Persian. The boy who had a harsh upbringing, was apparently exploited and abused, resulting in his acquirement of brutal characteristics, including treachery, disloyalty, faithlessness, etc. that would last throughout his life. At the age of sixteen he joined the Cossack Brigade and his skill with the artillery made him known as “Reza Maksim”. He was promoted through military ranks, mainly because of the favours shown by the armed forces commander, the Qajarid prince, Abdol Hussein Mirza Farmanfarma, whom he was to eventually betray, imprison and kill his sons. The crafty British saw in the brutal, immoral and Godless Reza Khan a potential stooge to tighten their colonial hold on Iran, and in 1921 they imposed this illiterate soldier on the inefficient king, Ahmad Shah Qajar, as war minister and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, with the titles of Mirpanj and Sardar Sepah. Later the British made him prime minister to the Shah, and in 1925 placed him on the Peacock Throne as the new king of Iran. He immediately launched a reign of terror, suppressing the people, confiscating their property, censoring the media, mistreating the ulema, banning religious gatherings, imposing the European dress code on the Iranians at the expense of their traditional attire, destroying the national culture, and forcing the women to unveil in public. When World War 2 started, he tried to cozy up to the German Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler, a move that made his masters the British depose him, replace him with his son, Mohammad Reza, and send him into exile on Mauritius island, and then to South Africa, where he died in 1944.   

132 lunar years ago, on this day in 1308 AH, the prominent source of emulation, Ayatollah Shaikh Mohammad Hassan Aal-e Yasin, passed away at the age of 88 in his hometown, Kazemayn, where he was head of the seminary. He studied in the seminary of holy Najaf under such famous scholars, as Shaikh Mohammad Hassan Najafi – author of “Jawaher al-Kalaam” – and became Marja’ after the passing away of the celebrated Ayatollah Shaikh Morteza Ansari Dezfuli. Despite mastery over various branches of Islamic sciences, he wrote mainly on jurisprudence. His works include “Asraar-al-Faqaha”.

112 solar years ago, on this day in 1907 AD, the famous Iranian poetess, Parvin E’tesami, was born in the northwestern city of Tabriz in an academic family. Her father, Yusuf E’tesam ol-Molk, was an acclaimed translator and author who frequented the company of prominent poets and literary figures, such as the Poet Laureate Malik osh-Sho’ara Mohammad Taqi Bahar, and the Lexicographer Allamah Ali Akbar Dehkhoda. She learned Iranian and Arabic literature from her father and showed her talents for writing poems as of childhood. On graduation from high school she started teaching in Tabriz. She accompanied her father on his journeys around Iran and abroad, gaining valuable experiences and reflecting them in her poetry. Her Divan includes odes, elegies, and other styles of poetry. A realistic poetess she maintained strong ethical and religious beliefs. Parvin E’tesami passed away at the young age of 35 years in 1941.

80 solar years ago, on this day in 1939 AD, on the eve of World War II, Czechoslovakia was occupied by German Nazi forces, following Adolf Hitler’s occupation of Austria.

79 solar years ago, on this day in 1940 AD, the Swedish author, Selma Lagerlof, died at the age of 82. She was the first woman who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1909.

74 solar years ago, on this day in 1945 AD, ninety percent of the city of Wurzburg in Germany was destroyed in only 20 minutes by British bombers. Over 5,000 men, women, and children were mercilessly killed by the British.

51 solar years ago, on this day in 1968 AD during the Vietnam War, American occupation troops cold-bloodedly massacred over 500 men, women and children in the village of Mai Lai that shocked the civilized world.

34 solar years ago, on this day in 1985 AD, the valiant Iranian commander, Mahdi Bakeri, attained martyrdom at the age of 30 at the fronts of the war imposed on Iran by Saddam of the repressive Bath minority regime at the behest of the US. Born in Miandoab in northwestern Iran, he was active since high school against the despotic British-installed and US-backed Pahlavi regime, whose agents had earlier martyred his elder brother. After victory of the Islamic Revolution he joined the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on its formation, and in view of his ability served as prosecutor at the revolutionary court and later as mayor of Oroumiyeh, the capital of West Azarbaijan Province. On the invasion of the country, he marched to the warfronts and after demonstrating his battle prowess was promoted to commander of the Ashura Brigade. Several times he was injured and recovered from his wounds, before attaining martyrdom during the Badr Operations.

31 solar years ago, on this day in 1988 AD, Baghdad’s repressive B’ath minority regime bombarded the northeastern Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabche with internationally-banned chemical weapons, killing 5,000 men, women, and children, and maiming 10,000 others, at a time when Iraqi Kurdish combatants welcomed Iran’s Muslim combatants as liberators from Saddam’s tyrannical rule. Western regimes, such as the US, Germany, France and Britain, which had supplied Saddam with chemical weapons, remained silent in the face of these barbaric crimes against humanity. The UN also ignored the catastrophe for several years.

7 solar years ago, on this day in 2012 AD, Aziz Abu Saber, Brazilian geologist and environmentalist, passed away in his hometown Sao Paulo. He was one of Brazil´s most respected scientists, honoured with the highest awards of Brazilian science in geography, geology, ecology and archaeology. Graduated in geography, he was a former president of the Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência (Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science), Emeritus Professor of the University of Sao Paulo and member of the highest rank - Order Grão-Cruz in Earth Sciences - of the Academy of Science. Among the awards, he has received the UNESCO Prize on Science and the Environment in 2001 and the Prize to the Intellectual of Brazil in 2011. The contributions of Abu Saber to science range from the first research of oil camps in Brazil's northeast to surveys of Brazil's natural realms and the restoration of the history of forests, camps and primitive humans over geologic time in South America. He made central contributions to biology, South American archaeology, and to Brazilian ecology, geology and geography. He has published more than 480 works, most of them scientific publications. Among his scientific proposals are FLORAM, the Code of biodiversity and his theory of refuges related to the Amazones. Abu Sáber was the first person to classify scientifically the Brazilian and South-America territory in morphoclimatic domains.

5 solar years ago, on this day in 2014 AD, the people of Crimea voted in a referendum to secede from Ukraine to join Russia. In ancient times, Crimea was the home of the Iranian tribes of Cimmerians and Scythians, before being colonized by the Greeks, who were followed by the Romans, the Goths, the Huns, the Bulgars, the Khazars, the Byzantine Empire, the Qipchak Turks, and the Muslim Mongols of the Golden Horde. The area became the site of overlapping interests and contact between the medieval Slavic, Turkic and Greek spheres, and a center of slave trade. Slavs were sold to Byzantium and other places in Anatolia during this period. In the 1230s, this status quo was swept away by the Mongol invasions, and Crimea was incorporated into the territory of the Golden Horde throughout the 14^th century. The Crimean Muslim Khanate, a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, succeeded the Golden Horde and lasted from 1449 to 1779, building a glorious Muslim civilization. In 1571, the Crimean Tatars attacked and sacked Moscow, burning everything but the Kremlin. Crimea was seized by Russia in 1783. From 1853 to 1856, it was the site of the principal engagements of the Crimean War – a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of France, Britain, and the Ottoman Empire. During the Russian Civil War, following the victory of the Red Army over the White Army, it became part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1921 as the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (which became part of the Soviet Union in 1922). In the Second World War the peninsula was occupied by Nazi Germany from July 1942 to May 1944. After its liberation, it was downgraded to the Crimean Oblast, and Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin ordered the mass deportation of the Crimean Muslim Tatars for alleged collaboration with the Nazi forces. A total of more than 230,000 people were deported, mostly to Uzbekistan, at the time about a fifth of the total population of the Crimean Peninsula. In 1954, by an internal political action by Communist Party General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, Crimea became a territory of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union. In 1991, on the disintegration of the USSR, it became part of independent Ukraine as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. In the wake of the crisis created in Ukraine by the West, the Crimean people held a referendum and decided to join Russia.

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