Today is Thursday; 13th of the Iranian month of Khordad 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 26th of the Islamic month of Sha’ban 1437 lunar hijri; and June 2, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1561 solar years ago, on this day in 455 AD, the Vandals led by King Genseric entered Rome and for two weeks plundered the capital of the Western Roman Empire following the killing of Emperor Valentinian III and the forced marriage of his daughter Eudocia to Palladius, son of the new Emperor Petronius Maximus in violation of the treaty between the two sides. Eudocia was betrothed to Genseric’s son, Huneric, and thus her marriage was an affront to the ambitions of the Vandal king who set sail from North Africa to attack Italy. Despite the pleas of Pope Leo I to spare the city, Genseric looted great amounts of treasure, damaging objects of cultural significance such as the Temple of Jupiter Optimus by stripping away the gilt bronze roof tiles – hence the modern term vandalism. The usurper Petronius Maximus fled rather than face the Vandals, but was caught and killed by the Roman citizens along with his son Palladius. The Vandals departed with many shiploads of captives from Rome and sold them into slavery in North Africa.

1126 solar years ago, on this day in 891 AD, Talha ibn Ja’far Muwaffaq-Billah, the regent who in alliance with the powerful Turkic Guard was the virtual ruler of the usurper Abbasid Caliphate for most of the reign of his brother, Mu’tamid, the 15th self-styled caliph, died in Baghdad. In 861, he was present at the murder of his father, the tyrant Mutawakkil in Samarra by the Turkic guards. According to the historian Tabari he had been drinking with his father that night, and came upon the assassins while going to the toilet. It is not known whether he was an accomplice in his father’s murder with his elder brother, Muntasir, who immediately declared himself the caliph. At the time his cousin, Muhtadi, the 14th self-styled Abbasid caliph was killed by the Turks in June 870, he was in Mecca and immediately hastened to Samarra, where he and his Turkic associate Musa ibn Bugha effectively sidelined the new caliph, Mu’tamid to assume control of the government. Within a short time, he was conferred an extensive governorate covering most of the lands still under caliphal authority: western Arabia, southern Iraq with Baghdad, and Fars in central Iran. His successful defence of Iraq against the Saffarids of Iran and the suppression of the Zanj Rebellion of the black people made him more powerful. A year after Muwaffaq’s death Mu’tamid died, and the caliphate was seized by his son, Ahmad ibn Talha with the title Mu’tadid-Billah, by sidelining the dead caliph’s son and heir apparent, Mufawwad.

1006 solar years ago, on this day in 1010 AD, the Battle of Aqbat al-Bakr took place around Espiel in Islamic Spain in the context of the “Fitna” (sedition), resulting in a defeat for the Caliphate of Cordoba by a joint army of Muslims and Christian mercenaries assembled from different parts of Spain. The forces of Cordoba were commanded by the newly installed self-styled Omayyad caliph, Sulayman ibn al-Hakam, and the Muslim rebel forces of the Andalusian-Castilian Alliance trying to overthrow him were under the command of Mohammad ibn Hisham, and Christian warlords including Ermengol I, Hugh I, and Ramon Borrell. Although the caliphate of Cordoba survived for another two decades before it disintegrated in 1031 into several Muslim Taifas (or principalities), the Christians became emboldened by their unholy alliance with Muslims that four centuries later would result in the end of Muslim rule in what is now Spain and Portugal.

918 solar years ago, on this day in 1098 AD, the 8-month siege of the Syrian Muslim city of Antioch (currently in Turkey) ended as the Crusaders from Europe occupied the city, but failed to take the citadel. The invading force was made up of Christian knights and experienced warriors under the joint command of Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemund of Taranto, and Raymond IV of Toulous. This military expedition led by Catholic Europe was organized by Pope Urban II with the goal of responding to an appeal from Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who requested that west European Christians come to his aid to fight the Seljuq Sultanate of Asia Minor. The organized force caught the Muslims by surprise, because of over-confidence of the Turkish defenders, who viewed this batch of experienced warriors as another of the Peasants’ Army that they had defeated a year earlier. In brief, the Crusader invaders marched south along the coast, occupying several cities, and in 1099 seized the holy city of Bayt al-Moqaddas from the Ismaili Shi’a Muslim Fatemid Dynasty of Egypt-North Africa, massacring 70,000 Muslim men, women and children, including local Christians and Jews.

682 lunar years ago, on this day in 755 AH, the Hanafi jurist and Arabic poet, Abu Taleb Fakhr od-Din Ahmad bin Ali Hamadani, popular as Ibn Fasih, passed away in Damascus at the age of 75. Born in Kufa, he studied and taught in Baghdad, before moving to Syria. He versified several works of jurisprudents, which is indicative of his mastery over the Arabic language.

253 solar years ago, on this day in 1763 AD, the uprising of the Amerindian natives against the British occupiers started in what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan. Known as Pontiac's Rebellion, after the most prominent Amerindian Chief, who campaigned to drive out the Anglo-Saxon invaders from the Great Lake regions of what is now the US and Canada, it lasted for two years. The British resorted to brutal tactics, deception, massacres, and genocide, including spreading of epidemics, such as the smallpox virus, in order to decimate the native population. The 2-year war demonstrated the possibilities of pan-tribal cooperation in resisting European expansion despite the conspiracies of the colonialists to divide Amerindian tribes. It was the first war between Europeans and Native North Americans that did not end in complete defeat of the Amerindians.

223 solar years ago, on this day in 1793 AD, Maximillian Robespierre, a member of France’s Committee on Public Safety, initiated the “Reign of Terror”, a purge of those suspected of treason against the French Republic. Months of the Great Terror, followed the Revolution in France as thousands died beneath the guillotine.

176 solar years ago, on this day in 1840 AD, Thomas Hardy, English novelist and poet, was born in Higher Bockhampton and almost given up for dead until an observant midwife noticed he was breathing. He was driven by a sense of somber doom by the failure of his readers to wake up to the dreary fraud of their beliefs, and he devoted the last half of his long life to writing poems that expressed his haunted vision. Hardy died in 1928, and was buried in the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey in London. His work included “Tess of D'Ubervilles” and “Jude the Obscure”.

152 solar years ago, on this day in 1864 AD, the series of battles and wars in the northwestern Caucasus, starting with the Russian encroachment on the Persian Empire, and known as the Russian-Circassian War, ended after approximately 101 years with the signing of loyalty oaths to the rule of the Tsars by the subdued Circassian Muslim leaders. Started in 1763 with Catherine the Great’s attack on the Persian Empire, since the northwestern Caucasus was part of Greater Iran, the seesaw struggle saw Russia steadily advance into the Caucasus by setting up forts as springboards for further conquests, as Iran gradually retreated, leaving the area to the local Circassians to defend themselves from 1817 onwards. The long war claimed the life of over a million Muslims, while, of the 500,000 Circassians deported by Russia in the 1860s, a large fraction of them died in transit from disease. Some of the Circassians migrated to the interior of Iran as refugees. Following the end of the 101-year war, the Ottoman Empire offered to harbour the Circassians who did not wish to accept the rule of Russia, and many migrated to Anatolia, ending up in what are now modern Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Israel, Iraq and Kosovo.

134 solar years ago, on this day in 1882 AD, Italian adventurer, Giuseppe Garibaldi, who unified Italy as one single kingdom under King Emmanuel II of Sardinia, died at the age of 75. In 1860, he had set sail from Genoa to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies – Kingdom of Sicily and Kingdom of Naples – that had been set up 1816. Earlier he was involved in military enterprises in Brazil, Uruguay and some parts of Europe, and had served as General of the Roman Republic in 1849. He is considered one of the three “Fathers of the Fatherland”, along with Count Camillo Cavour, King Victor Emmanuel II for unifying Italy.

92 solar years ago, on this day in 1924 AD, after centuries of oppression, displacement, torture and genocide by the white Anglo-Saxon occupiers from Europe, the original native people of what is called the United States of America were granted citizenship in their own occupied ancestral lands, with the signing of the so-called Indian Citizenship Act by President Calvin Coolidge. The Amerindians are still discriminated in the US and Canada.

74 solar years ago, on this day in 1942 AD, during World War II, the major counter attack of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, known as the Desert Fox, started in North Africa against the British forces, who had attacked and occupied Libya. Rommel’s counter-attack which continued for nearly a month saw his forces drive the British out of Libya and advance up to the vicinity of Alexandria in northern Egypt. The continued advancement of German forces threatened the fall of the strategic Suez Canal, but Rommel’s troops were decisively defeated by the British on November 1942.

70 solar years ago, on this day in 1946 AD, following a referendum, Italy became a republic – a day celebrated since as Republic Day in that country. This was also the first time that Italian women were entitled to vote.[ Victor Emmanuel III's son, Umberto II, was forced to abdicate and exiled.

53 solar years ago, on this day in 1963 AD, the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (God bless him), while commemorating the anniversary of Ashura or 10th Moharram, marking the tragic martyrdom of Imam Husain (AS) in Karbala, castigated the British-installed and American-supported Shah for his anti-Islamic policies. In his address in Qom, to a large gathering of people, students and religious scholars, the Imam exposed the treasons of the Pahlavi regime to the Muslim Iranian nation. He pointed out: “They are against the foundations of the divine religion of Islam and the ulema and aim to destroy Islam and the ulema. People; you should know that our Islam and country are threatened. We are deeply concerned about the situation of Iran and the state of the Shah’s despotic regime.”

47 solar years ago, on this day in 1969 AD, the Source of Emulation, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Mohsen al-Hakeem, passed away in holy Najaf, Iraq, at the age of 84. After attaining the status of Ijtehad he lectured at the Najaf seminary and guided the Muslim people amid the different political and social upheavals in Iraq and abroad. Following the six-day Zionist war and occupation of large parts of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, he sent telegrams to heads of Muslim states, calling on them to set aside differences and think of the interests of the Ummah. He authored several books, including “Haqayeq al-Osoul”, and “Nahj ul-Fuqaha.”

20 solar years ago, on this day in 1996 AD, a list of countries that are considered the most corrupt by international business people had the following top ten: Nigeria, Pakistan, Kenya, Bangladesh, China, Cameroon, Venezuela, Russia, India and Indonesia.

16 lunar years ago, on this day in 1421 AH, Ayatollah Seyyed Mahdi Rouhani passed away at the age of 78 in his hometown Qom and was laid to rest in the holy shrine of Hazrat Ma’soumah (SA). At the age of 20 he had left for Iraq for higher studies at the famous Islamic seminary of holy Najaf, and on return to Iran, attended the classes of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hussain Boroujerdi, before becoming an accomplished teacher on higher levels of Islamic sciences. He focused on the commonalities in the previously revealed heavenly scriptures like the Torah and Evangel, with the Holy Qur’an – God’s final and universal revelation for all mankind. He became the first scholar to start discussions at the Qom seminary on a critique of Marxism and dialectical principles. When Imam Khomeini (God bless him) launched the people’s grassroots movement, he joined the masses, and on the victory of the Islamic Revolution and establishment of the Islamic Republic, he served for three terms as the elected representative of the people of Qom at the Assembly of Experts.

AS/ME