Today is Friday; 11th of the Iranian month of Mordad 1398 solar hijri; corresponding to 30th of the Islamic month of Zil-Qa’dah 1440 lunar hijri; and August 2, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2234 solar years ago, on this day in 216 BC during the Second Punic War, the numerically superior Roman army was defeated at the Battle of Cannae by the North African Carthaginian forces led by the famous general, Hannibal.

1220 lunar years ago, on this day in 220 AH, Imam Mohammad Taqi (AS) the 9^th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) attained martyrdom in Baghdad as a result of a fatal dose of poison administered by Mu'tasim, the 8^th self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime. Known as Jawad or the Generous, because of his generosity in both spiritual and material matters, he was only 25 years old on this day, having been entrusted with the Imamate by God Almighty 17 years ago at the tender age of 8 years, following the martyrdom of his father, Imam Reza (AS) in distant Khorasan. Like the Prophets Jesus and John the Baptist, who since childhood displayed the God-given wisdom, Imam Jawad (AS) enlightened all those who came into contact with him. His memorable debates with scholars, while yet a boy, are recorded in books of history and hadith. We hereby extend our heartfelt condolences on the martyrdom anniversary of the 9^th Imam and will present you a special feature later in our programme.

742 solar years ago, on this day in 1277 AD, Iranian statesman, Mo'in od-Din Sulaiman Pervaneh, who served as Chancellor and Regent of the Persianized Seljuq Sultanate of Roum, was killed by Abaqa Khan, the ruler of the Iran-based Ilkhanid Empire during the invasion of Anatolia (present-day Turkey), on suspicion of betrayal of Mongol interests. Son of Muhazzab od-Din Ali Dailami, an Iranian from Kashan, who served as the vizier to the Seljuq Sultan Kaykhosrow II in 1243 at the time of the Battle of Kose Dagh that resulted in the Seljuqs becoming Mongol vassals, Moin od-Din received a good education and became commander of Tokat and later of Erzinjan. Through influence of Mongol commander Bayju he was made chamberlain to the Konya palace of Kaykhosrow on whose death in 1246 he married the sultan’s widow, Gurju Khatun, and earned reputation as “Master of Intrigues”. In the dispute among the sultan’s sons for the throne, Pervaneh supported Qilij Arslan IV and declared him successor. He then captured the port of Sinop on the Black Sea and twelve surrounding castles from the Christian Empire of Trebizond. Apprehensive that the sultan might eliminate him, he had Qilij Arsalan IV strangled to death in Aksaray in 1265, and placed on the throne his victim’s minor son as Kaykhosrow III (ruled till 1283). In the last 16 years of his life Pervaneh was the undisputed player in Anatolian politics involving the Seljuqs, the Mongols and the Mamluk dynasty of Egypt-Syria under Sultan Baybars. During the Mamluk-Ilkhanid Wars, his policy was characterized by multiple allegiances to keep all options open. In 1275, when Baybars was in Syria, Pervaneh played a pivotal role in dissuading him from his planned invasion of the Anatolian heartland and directed him towards raids in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. In 1277 Baybars entered the Seljuq sultanate and on 18 March defeated the Mongol army in Elbistan, while Pervaneh, who was in command of the Seljuq contingent expected by both Baybars and the Mongols, took flight to Tokat along with the young sultan. At the news of his troops' defeat, Abaqa hastened to Anatolia in July 1277 and savagely punished the Seljuq Turks, massacring tens of thousands of people. Deeming him responsible for Baybars's foray into Anatolia, Abaqa had Pervaneh killed. Pervaneh built several monuments that survive today such as the Ala od-Din Jame’ Mosque in Sinop, and the nearby Alaiye Madrasah, also called the Pervaneh Madrasah. In Tokat he built the Gok Madrasah. Originally founded as a hospital and medical school, it now houses a museum.

642 solar years, ago, on this day in 1377 AD, a huge Russian army led by Knyaz Ivan Dmitriyevich was defeated in the Battle of Pyana River by the small forces of the Khan of the Blue Horde, Arab-Shah Muzaffar. Dmitriyevich, who was drunk, was drowned along with several of his commanders; hence the river was named “Pyana”, meaning "drunken" in Russian. Arab-Shah seized Nizhniy Novgorod.

221 solar years ago, on this day in 1798 AD, the Battle of the Nile ended in Egypt with the defeat of the French navy by the British led by Admiral Horatio Nelson.

170 solar years ago, on this day in 1849 AD, the Founder of the Khedive Dynasty of Egypt, Mohammad Ali Pasha, died in Cairo at the age of 80 after ruling for 45 years as a nominal governor of the Ottoman Empire, but in fact the virtual ruler, who at times challenged the Grande Porte and even waged war against his overlords, as far as the interior of Anatolia (modern Turkey). An ethnic Albanian Muslim, he was dispatched to Egypt by the Ottoman Sultan, following the withdrawal of Napoleon Bonaparte and the French forces in 1801. In 1805, he proclaimed himself the “Khedive” (Persian for Viceroy or Ruler) of Egypt and Sudan by eliminating all rivals. He transformed Egypt into a regional power. He initiated wide ranging reforms and established for the first time a professional bureaucracy. In the 1820s, he sent the first educational mission of Egyptian students to Europe. This contact resulted in the birth of literature that is considered the dawn of Arabic literary renaissance, known as “an-Nahdha”. To support the modernization of the industry and the military, he set up several schools in various fields. In 1835, he founded the first indigenous press in the Arab World, the Bulaq Press, which published the official gazette of the government. Bulaq also published rare old Arabic books, as well as Persian and Turkish. Mohammad Ali Pasha pursued military campaigns, initially on behalf of the Ottoman Sultan, Mahmoud II, in Arabia and Greece, capturing Athens in 1827 before the combined attack of the British-French forced him to retreat. Later he came into open conflict with the Ottomans because of his personal ambitions, which brought Syria under his control for ten years and made him advance as far as Qonya in 1832. Earlier, he launched the expedition into Hijaz to liberate the holy cities of Mecca and Medina from desert brigands of the Najd led by Abdullah ibn Saud of the heretical Wahhabi cult who had desecrated the holy shrines. After purging the Hijaz of the Wahhabis, he sent his son Ibrahim Pasha in 1812, to completely destroy and rout out the Aal-e Saud from Najd. After a two-year campaign, the Aal-e Saud clan was crushed and most of its members captured. The leader, Abdullah Ibn Saud, was sent to Istanbul, and executed for having desecrated the holy shrines. In short, Mohammad Ali established the dynasty that lasted till the military coup of 1952 and the ouster of King Farouq by General Mohammad Najib and Colonel Jamal Abdun-Nasser.

110 solar years ago, on this day in 1909 AD, Ayatollah Shaikh Fazlollah Noori was martyred in Tehran through hanging by agents of colonial powers. He strove to promote justice in society, playing a leading role in the Constitutional Movement against the despotism of the Qajarid kings. After formation of the first national parliament and drafting of the Constitution, he voiced his protest to some of its clauses which were contrary to Islam. He staged a sit-in at the shrine of Hazrat Abdul-Azim al-Hassani in Rayy, south of Tehran, along with other leading activists, ending the protest when parliament promised not to contradict the shar'ia. Colonial agents plotted against him and martyred him on trumped up charges.

97 solar years ago, on this day in 1922 AD, the Scottish-American inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, died at the age of 75. Bell's career was influenced by his father – whose interest was the mechanics and methods of vocal communication – by his mother who was deaf, and by his grandfather who had published “The Practical Elocutionist and Stammering and Other Impediments of Speech”. As a teenager, Alexander was intrigued by the writings of German physicist Hermann Von Helmholtz, “On the Sensations of Tone”. At age 23 he moved to Canada. In 1871, he began giving instructions in Visible Speech at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes that set his course in developing the transmission of voice over wires. He cofounded Bell Telephone Co in 1877.

55 solar years ago, on this day in 1964 AD, the US staged the Gulf of Tonkin incident by using gunboats camouflaged with North Vietnamese markings to fire on its own destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy, in order to find a pretext for American involvement in the Vietnamese War. The US is notorious for its lies, deceit, and terror tactics. In 1898, in order to find a pretext to wage war against Spain and seize part of its colonial possession, the US had destroyed its own ship, USS Maine, in the harbour of Havana and then blamed it on the Spanish as justification for the 4-year 1898-1902 War during which it occupied Cuba, Guam Island and the Philippines. The latest such examples of US deceit and terror were the 9th September 2001 incidents in New York of the supposedly hijacked aircraft that brought down the twin towers of the 110-storey high World Trade Center, as a pretext to whip up anti-Islamic sentiments in order to start the present crusade against Muslims and attack and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq.

32 solar years ago, on this day in 1987 AD, more than a million people gathered in Tehran, calling for the overthrow of the Aal-e Saud regime and administration of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina by an international Islamic body, following the killing of over four hundred mostly Iranian pilgrims near the holy Ka’ba by forces of the heretical Wahhabi cult.

31 solar years ago, on this day in 1988 AD, the UN fact-finding team to Iran and Iraq, published two reports, announcing that the repressive Ba'th minority regime of Saddam had used chemical weapons against Iran several times during the 8-year US-imposed war. This was the first admission of the UN about the wide-scale use of chemical weapons by the Iraqi army against Iran. Nonetheless, the UN Security Council did not issue any resolution against Saddam’s use of internationally banned chemical weapons against Iran. During the imposed war, Saddam frequently attacked both Iranian combatants and civilians with toxic weapons, but the West which had equipped him with these illegal arsenal, turned a blind eye to his crimes against humanity. For this reason, hours after release of reports by the UN probe team, Iraqi jetfighters chemically bombarded the western Iranian city of Oshnavieh, injuring 2,400 civilians. The UN fact-finding team also confirmed the occurrence of the Iraqi attack that took place after acceptance of ceasefire by Iran.

30 solar years ago, on this day in 1989 AD, Indian Peace Keeping Forces in Sri Lanka carried a massacre of 64 ethnic Tamil civilians. This policy of discrimination against the ethnic Indian migrants to Sri Lanka turned the Tamils against the Indian government and resulted in the assassination of former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, who earlier during a state visit to Colombo was almost hit on the neck by the butt of a gun of a Tamil soldier during the ceremonial inspection of the guard of honour.

29 solar years ago, on this day in 1990 AD, prominent Iranian musician, Morteza Nay-Davoud, died at the age of 90. A student of Gholam-Hussein Darvish, in addition to cooperation with the national radio network, he founded a school of music, and groomed students.

29 solar years ago, on this day in 1990 AD, Saddam, the tyrannical ruler of the repressive Ba'th minority regime of Iraq, occupied Kuwait, on getting a green signal from the US through its ambassador in Baghdad, April Gillespie. Soon the US denied any involvement and assembled an international military force to drive out Saddam after some seven months of his occupation of Kuwait. When Iraq’s long-suppressed Shi’ite Arab majority, rose to rid the country of the Ba’th minority regime, the US ordered Saddam to massacre the masses and desecrate the holy shrines of Najaf and Karbala.

13 solar years ago, on this day in 2006 AD, Takfiri terrorists backed by the US and Saudi Arabia triggered two bomb blasts in a Shi’a Muslim neighbourhood of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, resulting in the martyrdom of over 60 men, women, and children, including 11 young soccer players, besides injury to over a hundred other innocent people.

AS/SS