Today is Friday; 31st of the Iranian month of Ordibehesht 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 13th of the Islamic month of Sha’ban 1437 lunar hijri; and May 20, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1490 solar years ago, on this day in 526 AD, as many as 300,000 people were killed when a devastating earthquake hit the sin-infested Byzantine city of Antioch in Syria (presently in Turkey and called Antakya). The city, founded by Seleucus I Nicator, the Greek general of the Macedonian marauder, Alexander the Great, was the capital of Syria from 300-to 64 BC. It was notorious for its vices, and was the epicenter of frequent earthquakes both during the Greek and Roman periods. In the Byzantine era, it was the centre of Hellenistic Jews and later of Christianity. Some years after the major earthquake when development was in progress, it was completely devastated by the Iranian Sassanid Emperor, Khosrow Anushirvan. In 1939, the French colonialists detached Antioch, Iskenderun and adjoining regions from Syria and gave it to Turkey, a move the government of Syria refuses to recognize, and considers the Hatay Province as sovereign Syrian territory, calling it Liwa al-Iskenderun (Iskendurun Province).

970 lunar years ago, on this day in 467 AH, the 26th self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid dynasty, Abdullah Ibn Ahmed al-Qa’im bi-Amrollah, died in Baghdad after a nominal reign of 45 years. During the first half of his long reign, hardly a day passed in the capital without turmoil, because of the insubordination of the Turks against the last of the rulers of the Iranian Buwayhid dynasty. Meanwhile, a new wave of Turkic conquerors from Central Asia, under Toghrul Seljuqi, were casting eyes on Iraq, after sweeping across Iran and overrunning Armenia, Anatolia and Syria. Toghrul, on the pretext of travelling to Mecca for pilgrimage to the holy Ka’ba, entered Iraq with a heavy force, and was acknowledged as Sultan by the puppet caliph, who conspired to replace the Buwayhids, during whose rule, both Arab and Persian culture had flourished in Iraq.

638 solar years ago, on this day in 1378 AD, Dawoud Shah, who over a month earlier had usurped the throne of the Bahmani Dynasty of Iranian origin of the Deccan (South India) by treacherously assassinating his nephew Mujahid Shah, was killed on the orders of his niece Rooh-Parwar Agha (sister of the deceased Mujahid Shah) and replaced by her younger brother, Mohammad Shah II. The court language of the Bahmanis, who traced their origin to the pre-Islamic Iranian hero Bahman, was Persian, and they promoted Iranian culture, art and architecture.

595 solar years ago, on this day in 1421 AD, Khizr Khan, who governed Delhi, Punjab and parts of northern India, as viceroy of the Turkic conqueror, Amir Timur, and after him of his son and successor, Shahrukh, died in Delhi. Two days later he was succeeded by his son, Mubarak Shah, in whose reign the famous Persian history “Tarikh-e Mubarak Shahi” was written in India.

510 solar years ago, on this day in 1506 AD, Italian navigator, Christopher Columbus, died in Valladolid in Spain at the age of 55 in the state of poverty, still believing he had discovered the coast of Asia. Born near Genoa in Italy, he took up service with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, after years of unsuccessful lobbying with the Italian republics of Genoa and Venice and the kingdom of Portugal, for finding a western sea route to Asia through the Atlantic, since the growing power of Ottoman Turks in southwestern Europe had blocked the land route to India and China. In 1492, following the fall of Granada (Gharnata), the last Muslim kingdom in Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella provided him ships and personnel, including Muslim navigators familiar with the sea routes of the Atlantic for his voyage. Columbus was acquainted with “Tabula Rogeriana” the Latin translation of the Muslim geographer al-Idrisi’s “Nuzhat al-Mushtaaq fi-Ikhteraaq al-Afaaq” – a description of the world and the first world map ever drawn in Europe. He landed on the eastern coast of Cuba, and thought that he had reached an island off the coast of India; hence the use of such terms as “Indies” and “Indians” by him for the American natives. In all, he made four voyages to the New World, and mercilessly slaughtered the native people in his quest for gold and riches, which did not avail him in his last days. Columbus was initially interred in a monastery in Valladolid – corruption of the Arabic word “Balad al-Waleed” or City of Waleed, founded by Muslims. Three years later, his remains were moved to a monastery on La Cartuja near Seville. In 1537, Maria de Rojas y Toledo, widow of Columbus' son Diego, was allowed to send the bones of her husband and his father to the cathedral in Santo Domingo on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola for burial. There they lay until 1795, when Spain ceded Hispaniola to France and decided Columbus' remains should not fall into foreigners' hands. A set of remains that the Spaniards thought were Columbus' were then dug up from behind the main altar in the newly built cathedral and shipped to a cathedral in Havana, Cuba, where they remained until the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898 and Spain brought them back to Seville. In 1877, workers digging inside the Santo Domingo cathedral unearthed a leaden box containing 13 large bone fragments and 28 small ones. It was inscribed "Illustrious and distinguished male, don Cristobal Colon." The Dominicans said these were the real remains of Columbus and that the Spaniards must have taken the wrong remains in 1795.

496 solar years ago, on this day in 1520 AD, the Spanish conquerors of Mexico brutally massacred the Aztec people while celebrations were taking place at the Festival of Tocatl in the city of Tenochtitlan. The Europeans are notorious for their genocide of the native populations of the Americas and plundering of rich natural resources. The ruling elites in almost all American countries are descendents of the European occupiers.

394 solar years ago, on this day in 1622 AD, Osman II, the 16th Ottoman Sultan and the 8th self-styled Turkish caliph, was strangled to death by his vizier, Qara Davoud Pasha, at the age of 18, after a 4-year reign, and replaced by his deposed uncle, Mustafa I, who a year later was again deposed in favour of his 11-year old nephew Murad IV. Osman II was son of Sultan Ahmad and his Greek wife Maria – renamed Mah-Firuzeh Khadija on becoming Muslim. He ascended the throne at the young age of 14, as a result of a palace coup against his uncle Mustafa I. The cause of his killing was his plans to reorganize the army and the administrative system in the wake of the treaty imposed on humiliating terms in the Moldavian Wars when he personally led the Turkish forces into Poland, after securing the eastern borders with Safavid Iran by signing the Treaty of Serav with Shah Abbas I. He was fluent in Arabic, Persian, Greek, Latin and Italian.

385 solar years ago, on this day in 1631 AD, the city of Magdeburg in Germany was seized by forces of the Holy Roman Empire and most of its inhabitants massacred, in one of the bloodiest incidents of the Thirty-Year-War. Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly, who led the imperial forces, stormed the city and massacred about 20,000 inhabitants before burning down Magdeburg.

370 solar years ago, on this day in 1645 AD, the Manchurian Qing forces, led by Prince Dodo occupied the city of Yangzhou and for 10 days massacred almost the population for supporting the Ming loyalist government. It is said 800,000 people were butchered.

237 lunar years ago, on this day in 1200 AH, the prominent religious scholar, Hussain ibn Mohammad Saleh Khaledi, passed away. He was born in Bayt al-Moqaddas and learned the common sciences of his day in his hometown. He was a skilled writer and a talented poet.

214 solar years ago, on this day in 1802 AD, Napoleon Bonaparte reinstated slavery in the French colonies, revoking its abolition by the French Revolution, thus depriving a sizeable number of fellow humans of their rights of liberty and freedom.

210 solar years ago, on this day in 1806 AD, the English philosopher and economist, John Stuart Mill, was born. He learned logic and economics under his father and thereafter worked as a journalist and a writer. He was elected as the representative of the House of Commons for a single term. He followed the views of the French philosopher Auguste Comte, and believed in the originality of experience. In economics, he supported profiteering coupled with some vague concept of social justice. The books he wrote include “Principles of Political Economy”. He died in 1873.

163 lunar years ago, on this day in 1274 AH, the British formally deposed Bahadur Shah Zafar from the Mughal throne of Delhi and exiled him to Rangoon, Burma, thus ending over three and a quarter centuries of the rule of the Timurid dynasty, founded by Zaheer od-Din Babar – a protégé of Shah Ismail, the Founder of the Safavid Empire of Iran. The aging Bahadur Shah was accused of helping the uprising against British rule the previous year, and his sons and grandsons were shot in cold-blood by the British, who sadistically sent their heads to the Mughal king as gifts on the day of Nowrouz, the Spring Equinox, when traditional celebrations were in progress at the court for the New solar hijri year. Bahadur Shah Zafar was an accomplished poet in both Persian and Urdu.

114 solar years ago, on this day in 1902 AD, Cuba became independent on the withdrawal of US occupation forces, which had seized the country during the 4-year war against Spain, fought from 1989-to-1902. Before withdrawing, the US installed Tomas Estrada Palma as president, and imposed a constitution on Cuba that allowed Washington to interfere in its domestic affairs. This caused resentment among the people, and finally led to the victory of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 under Fidel Castro. Since the US has adopted an irrationally hostile policy against the Cuban people.

106 solar years ago, on this day in 1910 AD, Japan, which had occupied the Korean Peninsula three years earlier by defeating both Russia and China, formally announced annexation of this land and renamed it Joseon. The Korean people revolted against Japan, and during World War II, fought against the Japanese army, alongside Allied Forces. After Japan’s defeat and end of World War 2, Korea became the target of US imperialism and was divided into North and South at the 38th Parallel. The US brutally bombarded North Korea in the 1950s, and still has thousands of American occupation forces in South Korea, in violation of international laws. Washington periodically resorts to hooliganism, and is currently holding provocative military exercises to thwart any bid for unity of the two Koreas by keeping tensions high.

89 solar years ago, on this day in 1927 AD, the crafty British, as per the Treaty of Jeddah, handed over to the desert brigand Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud, the historical land of Hijaz and its religious and commercial centres, such as the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, the seaport of Jeddah and the agriculture-rich resort of Ta’ef. A couple of years earlier, the Wahhabi heretics had occupied Hijaz by driving out the other British agent, Sharif Hussain, and slaughtering over a hundred thousand Muslims, in addition to desecrating the holy shrines of the sacred cemeteries of Jannat al-Baqie in Medina and Jannat al-Mu’alla in Mecca. Five years later in 1932, Hijaz was formally joined with Najd to create the spurious country called Saudi Arabia, which annexed the oil-rich eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula on the Persian Gulf against the wishes of the local people, and then seized from Yemen the provinces of Najran, Jizan, and Asir.

82 solar years ago, on this day in 1934 AD, the one-sided Treaty of Ta’ef was imposed on Imam Yahya of Yemen by Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud, ruler of the British created state called Saudi Arabia, according to which the regions of Najran, Jeezan, and Asir were occupied for a period of 40 years. In 1974 and again on its unification in 1990, Yemen demanded the return of these vast territories, but Saudi Arabia, backed by the US, has refused to return them, in violation of the Treaty of Ta’ef. Currently, Saudi Arabia has unleashed state terrorism on Yemen, and has been criminally bombarding the country, killing so far some four thousand men, women and children.

58 lunar years ago, on this day in 1379 AH, the prominent Iranian literary figure, Abu’l-Hassan Foroughi, passed away in his hometown Tehran. He was a lecturer on history and geography, especially at Tehran University. He wrote many books, including “Tarikh-e Adabiyat-e Iran” (Literary History of Iran), and in French language, titled “Social and Philosophical Ideas”.

56 solar years ago, on this day in 1960 AD, Cameroon became a republic following independence from joint British and French colonial rule. Cameroon is located in West Africa with a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. It covers an area of 475,000 sq km and shares borders with Nigeria, Chad, Central Africa, Congo, Gabon, and Tropical Guinea. Over one-fourth of the population is Muslim, who form the majority in the northern and western parts.

14 solar years ago, on this day in 2002 AD, East Timor, with a population of about 800,000, celebrated independence from Indonesia, but a legal battle loomed with Australia over the Greater Sunrise natural gas field in the Timor Sea. The field lies 95 miles south of East Timor and 250 miles north of Australia.

9 solar years ago, on this day in 2007 AD, Nigeria's largest state, Niger, sued US drug firm Pfizer for using 200 children as "guinea pigs" for a drug test in 1996 that led to multiple deaths and deformities. In 2010 a leaked WikiLeaks cable said Pfizer hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against Nigeria’s former attorney general Michael Aondoakaa to pressure him to drop legal action over the company’s experimental antibiotic, Trovan.