Today is Saturday; 11th of the Iranian month of Ordibehesht 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 22nd of the Islamic month of Rajab 1437 lunar hijri; and April 30, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian calendar.

1705 solar years ago, on this day in 311 AD, the 8-year persecution of the monotheist followers of Prophet Jesus (AS) as well as the Christians, launched by pagan Roman Emperor Diocletian, ended with the death of his successor, Galerius, who was also an obstinate pagan. Diocletian, who resigned two years after officially launching the persecution, also 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. Diocletian ordered that the leading followers of Mani be burnt alive along with their scriptures, while low-status Manicheans must be executed by the blade, and high-status Manicheans must be sent to work in the quarries and mines.

1377 lunar years ago, on this day in 60 AH, the Omayyad tyrant, Mu’awiyah, died in Damascus at the age of 80, nineteen years after usurping the caliphate from the Prophet of Islam’s elder grandson, Imam Hasan Mojtaba (AS), whom he martyred through poisoning in 50 AH in violation of the terms of the treaty signed in 41 AH. Of doubtful paternity and born to the lecherous Hind, the wife of Abu Sufyan, he grew up to become a staunch opponent of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) – having been brought up by two of the most spiteful enemies of Islam. In 8 AH when Mecca surrendered to the Muslims, two-and-a-half-years before the passing away of the Prophet, he reluctantly paid lip service to Islam to escape execution. During the caliphate of Omar ibn Khattab, he was surprisingly appointed as governor of the newly conquered vast province of Shaam (made up of today’s Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and the illegal Zionist entity Israel), a position he held for almost 20 years despite his dismissal by the Commander of the Faithful Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS) against whom he came out into open armed rebellion at the War of Siffeen. During the almost 40 years he had entrenched himself in the mostly Christian Levant (Shaam), Mu’awiyah did not spare any effort to distort the teachings of Islam, oppress, torture, and kill Muslims, and indulge in all cardinal sins. On his deathbed, contrary to the terms of the treaty with Imam Hasan (AS), he named as caliph his libertine and openly infidel son, Yazid – born of an adulterous affair with a Christian Bedouin woman – a criminal decision that led to three of the most heinous crimes in history. The Godless Yazid, in the first year of his reign brutally martyred at Karbala the Prophet’s younger grandson, Imam Husain (AS). In the subsequent two years of his evil rule, he desecrated the sanctity of the Prophet’s shrine and mosque in Medina by ordering a general massacre, rape and plunder of Muslims; and next ordered the sacrilegious storming of the holy Ka’ba in Mecca, during the midst of which he died, thereby ending the rule of the house of Mu’awiyah – while another branch of the Omayyads, the Marwanids, continued the evil work of terrorizing the Muslim ummah for some 70 more years before they were thrown into the dustbin of history.

1010 solar years ago, on this day in 1006 AD, at a time when Christian Europe was immersed in the dark ages, Islamic astronomers in Buwaiyhid-ruled Iraq and Fatemid-ruled Egypt recorded a supernova, giving descriptions of how light varied and was visible for almost a year. The speed of the still-expanding shockwave was measured nearly a millennium later. This is history's brightest "new star" ever recorded, at first seen to be brighter than the planet Venus. It occurred in our Milky Way galaxy, appearing in the southern constellation Lupus, near the star Beta Lupi. It was also recorded by Chinese astronomers as is evident from their books.

986 solar years ago, on this day in 1030 AD, Sultan Mahmoud Ghaznavi, the ruler of an emirate in what is now Afghanistan which he enlarged into an empire by conquering Khorasan, Eastern Iran, and parts of Central Asia and Northwest India including today’s Pakistan, died at the age of 60 in his birthplace Ghazni, after a rule of 33 years. He was the son of Sebuktagin, the Turkic slave and successor as governor of Eastern Khorasan of Alptigin, who himself was a Turkic slave and general of the Bukhara-based Persian Samanid Dynasty of Central Asia and Northeastern Iran. He led 17 expeditions into India, as far as Gujarat and what is now Uttar Pradesh, bringing in vast booty to finance his principal campaigns against the Shi’a Muslim Buwaiyhid Dynasty of Iran-Iraq and against the Khwarezmshahis and Samanids in Central Asia. Mahmoud, who massacred the Ismaili Shi’ites of Multan, killed more Muslims during his military campaigns than the Hindus of India, most of whose territories, except for Punjab, he left intact under their own control, contenting himself with annual tribute, and even circulating coins with Islamic emblems in Sanskrit script. During his raids in Iran, Mahmoud brought whole libraries from Rayy and Isfahan to Ghazni. He even demanded that the Khwarezmshahi court send its men of learning to Ghazni his capital, such as the famous scientists, Abu Rayhan Berouni and Abu Ali ibn Sina – although the latter declined and fled into the interior of the Buwaiyhid Empire. The notable poet Abu’l-Qassem Ferdowsi presented his masterpiece the “Shahnamah” to Mahmoud, who failed to appreciate his genius. Sultan Mahmoud, who received the title Yameen od-Dowla from the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, was a paradoxical person. In Afghanistan, Pakistan and among the Indian Muslims, he is celebrated as a hero, while others revile him. He was a great patron of arts, architecture, Persian literature and Iranian culture. He appointed Iranians to high offices as ministers, viziers and generals. In addition, he preferred and promoted Persian language instead of his native Turkic, and adopted the “Shir-va-Khorshid” or the Lion and Sun flag which was a symbol of pre-Islamic Iran

747 lunar years ago, on this day in 690 AH, Muslims liberated from Crusader occupiers the city of Beirut – the capital of what is now Lebanon. The campaign was led by the Mamluk sultan of Egypt and Syria, al-Ashraf Khalil Qalawun, a Qipchaq Turk, who went on to liberate the other cities, thus completely ending the 200-year Crusader presence in the Levant.

239 solar years ago, on this day in 1777 AD, the famous German astronomer and mathematician, Carl Friedrich Gauss, was born. He transformed the science of mathematics since the great inventions by Islamic mathematicians of mostly Iranian origin, and for his contributions to theory in magnetism and electricity, a unit of magnetic field has been named “the Gauss”. He devised the method of least squares in statistics, and his Gaussian error curve remains well-known. He anticipated the SI system in his proposal that physical units should be based on a few absolute units such as length, mass and time. In astronomy, he invented the heliotrope for trigonometric determination of the Earth's shape. With Wilhelm Weber, he developed an electromagnetic telegraph and two magnetometers. In religion, he rejected the Christian Bible as forgery, saying his beliefs were based on search for truth. He believed in the immortality of the soul and its permanence after death, with belief in the Eternal, Righteous, Omniscient and Omnipotent God that make his beliefs near to the Islamic concept of the One and Only Creator.

224 solar years ago, on this day in 1792 AD, John Montagu, British politician, inventor, explorer, and 4th Earl of Sandwich in Kent for whom the snack “Sandwich” is named, and which he invented in 1762, died at the age of 75. It is said that while working at his desk for long hours, he used to tell his servants to bring him meat between two slices of bread. Captain Cook named the Sandwich Islands (in Hawaii) in his honour. As First Lord of Admiralty (1771-82) during the American Revolution, he was held responsible for the British navy's disastrous unpreparedness for war.

213 solar years ago, on this day in 1803 AD, the United States of America, as part of its expansionist policy, paid $15 million to France to take control of 2.14 million km of disputed land, which Spain had originally seized from the native Amerindians and named it New Spain. The dubious deal that more than doubled the size of the US is known as the Louisiana Purchase, and encompasses the present-day states of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska; parts of Minnesota west of the Mississippi River; most of North Dakota; nearly all of South Dakota; northeastern New Mexico; northern Texas; the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide; and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans. Parts of this area were still claimed by Spain at the time of the purchase.

209 lunar years ago, on this day in 1228 AH, the prominent jurisprudence, Shaikh Ja'far Kashef al-Gheta, passed away in the holy city of Najaf in Iraq. He had succeeded his teacher Allamah Bahr al-Oloum as Marja', and like his other prominent teacher, Wahid Behbahani, he campaigned against Akhbaris, writing some books and essays to reject their views. During the Wahhabi attack on Najaf, he defended the city, and later wrote important books against this heretical cult. He was the teacher of many prominent ulema.

191 lunar years ago, on this day in 1246 AH, the prominent Iranian Islamic scholar Mullah Ali bin Jamshid, known as Akhound Noori, passed away. He was an expert in Islamic philosophy, and among his numerous compilations, mention can be made of “Hawashiy-e Asfaar” on the famous Safavid-era philosopher, Mullah Sadra’s work “al-Asfaar al-Arba”.

180 solar years ago, on this day in 1834 AD, John Lubbock, English banker, politician, naturalist and archaeologist who coined the terms “Neolithic” and “Paleolithic”, was born. He undertook archaeological work identifying prehistoric cultures. As a naturalist, he studied insect vision and colour sense. He published several books on natural history and primitive man. Before his death he was made 1st Baron Avebury.

145 solar years ago, on this day in 1871 AD, the Camp Grant Massacre of Amerindians occurred in Arizona. Despite the fact that the Pinal and Aravaipa Apaches had surrendered to the US forces, the unmanly massacre of mostly women and children took place while most of the Apache men were hunting in the mountains. A total of 144 Aravaipas and Pinals were killed, mutilated, and nearly all of them scalped in a shocking manner by the supposedly civilized Americans, while 29 children were captured and sold into slavery in Mexico.

120 solar years ago, on this day in 1896 AD, with the assassination of the 4th Qajarid King, Naser od-Din Shah, a bleak 50-year era of Iran’s history came to its end and the stage was set for the Constitutional Revolution. He was shot dead by the freedom-seeker, Mirza Reza Kirmani, a follower of the famous pan-Islamic campaigner, Seyyed Jamal od-Din Asadabadi, at the shrine of Seyyed Abdul-Azim al-Hasani (AS) in Rayy, south of Tehran. Naser od-Din Shah’s long rule is marred by bitter incidents such as murder of the highly competent Prime Minister, Mirza Mohammad Taqi Khan Amir Kabir; the Russo-British struggle for control of Iran, and the scandalous tobacco concession to a British company that had to be annulled because of the historic fatwa issued by Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi.

119 solar years ago, on this day in 1897 AD, British scientist, Joseph John Thomson, first announced the existence of electrons (as they are now named). He told his audience that earlier in the year he had made a surprising discovery. He had found a particle of matter a thousand times smaller than the atom. He called it a corpuscle, meaning "small body." Although Thomson was director of the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, the scientists present found the news hard to believe. They thought the atom was the smallest and indivisible part of matter that could exist. Nevertheless, the electron was the first elementary particle to be discovered.

71 solar years ago, on this day in 1945 AD, Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, committed suicide in a bunker in the German capital, Berlin, when the Allied forces converged from all sides for the final assault upon him to end World War 2. Born in Austria in 1889, he joined the German army in World War I, and after the war, resentful of the humiliating defeat, founded the Nazi Party by blending his socialist and radical nationalistic views. He was imprisoned for eight months in 1923 for attempts to stage a coup, during which he wrote his book “Mein Kemp” (My Struggle), to introduce his political beliefs. Shortly after release he became German chancellor and a year later the German president. Thereafter, through the dreaded Gestapo, he suppressed his opponents and heavily militarized Germany as part of his plan to avenge the defeat in World War 1. In 1939 he started World War 2 with the goal of conquering all of Europe and if possible the world, by forging alliances with Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. After initial victories all over Europe, the German Nazi forces were pushed back and finally defeated in 1945.

41 solar years ago, on this day in 1975 AD, with the Vietcong forces’ capture of Saigon, capital of the pseudo state of South Vietnam, the country once again became united and the decades-long war, begun by the French and continued by the Americans, formally ended, as South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh unconditionally surrendered to the communists. The US, which unnecessarily intervened in Vietnam on the pretext of preventing spread of communism, suffered a humiliating defeat with the loss of over 50,000 American soldiers, despite indulging in brutal war crimes against the people of Vietnam, including mass massacres and use of internationally-banned chemical weapons. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in honour of the famed revolutionary leader, who for decades had led the untiring struggles for a united and independent Vietnam – against French colonialism, against the Japanese occupiers, against the designs of Chiang Kai-shek of pre-communist China, against France’s bid to re-impose its rule after World War 2, and finally against the Americans.

36 solar years ago, on this day in 1980 AD, the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in London was occupied by a group of anti-revolutionaries, five days after the failure of the stealth US commando mission in Tabas. A group of six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy in South Kensington, and took twenty embassy staffers as hostage, along with some six visitors and a police officer, who was on guard. The hostage-takers demanded the release of several terrorists in Iran who were nabbed for their role in bomb blasts in the southern parts of the country. Tehran rejected their demands, and on May 5, the frustrated terrorists martyred two employees when the special British forces mounted a raid and reportedly killed five of the gunmen. Part of the embassy was damaged in the exchange of gunfire.

12 solar years ago, on this day in 2004 AD, Iranian author, Kiyoumars Saberi Foumani, passed away at the age of 63. His opposition to Pahlavi dictatorial rule led him to write political satirical poems. Following the victory of the Islamic Revolution, he wrote articles on political and social topics, under the penname “Gol Aqa”, which later took the form of a highly popular satirical magazine. He has left behind a number of books.

AS/ME