Today is Sunday; 3rd of the Iranian month of Mordad 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 19th of the Islamic month of Shawwal 1437 lunar hijri; and July 24, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1172 lunar years ago, on this day in 265 AH, the Iranian adventurer, Yaqoub Ibn Laith Saffar, founder of the short-lived Saffarid Dynasty, died in Jondi Shapour in Khuzestan, due to severe stomachache and was succeeded by his brother Amr. A coppersmith by profession, he started gathering fighting men around him in Sistan in the town of Zaranj, which is now in Afghanistan, to annihilate the “khwarej” (or renegades) in the region. This earned him fame, and he soon brought the whole of Sistan under his control before participating in wars in Kerman and Fars. He then ousted from Naishabur, Mohammad Ibn Taher, the Abbasid governor of Khorasan, which led to conflict with the caliphate in Baghdad. He next attacked Tabaristan on the Caspian Sea and collected taxes there, before withdrawing to Rey. Mo’tamed-Billah, the self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, offered him the governorship of Khorasan, Tabaristan, Gorgan, Rey, and also the position of security-chief in Baghdad. Yaqoub who despised ease, pleasure, squandering of the public treasury and oppression of the masses, paid scant regard to the caliph, and resorted to battle, but was defeated through treachery. He then withdrew from Iraq into Khuzestan, and was preparing for another attack when he died. There are conflicting reports about Yaqoub Saffar’s religious beliefs, with claims that he had Ismaili Shi’ite tendencies.

868 solar years ago, on this day in 1148 AD, European Christian invaders started the siege of Damascus during the Second Crusade, but thanks to the stiff resistance of the Muslim defenders and the timely arrival of fresh forces led by the Turkic ruler, Noor od-Din Zangi, they were decisively defeated five days later, resulting in the disintegration of the crusade that was led by King Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany.

511 solar years ago, on this day in 1505 AD, Portuguese marauders on their way to India, after discovering the sea route round the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of southern Africa with the help of Muslim navigators, whom they treacherously killed, sacked the flourishing Muslim city-state of Kilwa on the eastern coast of Africa (in what is now Tanzania), and killed the sultan for refusing to pay them enough money.

233 solar years ago, on this day in 1783 AD, expansionist Russia, taking advantage of the internal power struggle in Iran between the Zand Dynasty and Qajar warlord, Agha Mohammad Khan, duped Georgia in the name of Christianity to renege its age-old traditional ties with the Persian Empire, by imposing the Treaty of Georgievsk. The humiliating treaty stipulated that Georgia will not have any diplomatic ties with any country without the approval of Russia, and that every new Georgian ruler would require the confirmation of the Czar. The results of the Treaty of Georgievsk proved disastrous for the Georgians. In 1795, a year after crowning himself Shahenshah of Iran, Agha Mohammad Khan asked Georgia to return to the Iranian fold. King Erekle on the assumption of Russian support, assembled an army to fight, but was soundly defeated in the Battle of Krtsanisi that saw his capital Tbilisi, along with the west Georgian kingdom of Imereti, surrender to the Iranian forces. In 1796, Catherine II sent an army to Transcaucasia, but her death the same year ended any Russian challenge to Iran. Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar, using Qarabagh as his base, launched a wide scale campaign to end Russian influence in Georgia, but his assassination in 1797 by a fellow Iranian ended his moves. In December 18, 1800, taking advantage of the weak-willed pleasure loving Fath Shah Ali’s rule in Tehran, Russia formally annexed Georgia and deposed the Bagratid Dynasty that had signed the Treaty of Georgievsk. Georgia, which regained its independence in 1991 following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, has made the fatal mistake of falling into the orbit of the US and Western Europe, while large parts of the country are virtually outside the control of the government in Tbilisi, such as the ethnic Turkic Muslim Abkhazia, and South Ossetia which is populated by ethnic Iranic Christians.

233 solar years ago, on this day in 1783 AD, the famous South American revolutionary, Simon Bolivar, was born in the capital of present day Venezuela, Caracas. He liberated many South American lands from Spanish colonial rule, and was elected president of the Federation of Greater Colombia that included present day Colombia, Venezuela, Panama and Ecuador. Soon Bolivar led the revolutionaries to liberate Peru, followed by the land named today in his honour as Bolivia. He dreamt of unity of South America within a federation but failed to fulfill his goal. He died in 1830.

214 solar years ago, on this day in 1802 AD, French author, Alexandre Dumas, was born. He wrote numerous novels on the French Revolution and history based on the memoirs of his father, who was an army general. Among his books, mention can be made of “The Three Musketeers”, and “The Count of Monte Cristo”. He was also a highly skilled playwright and has written a number of famous plays. He died in 1870.

105 solar years ago, on this day in 1911 AD, Machu Picchu, "the Lost City of the Incas" was rediscovered by American historian Hiram Bingham. It was the place in Peru where the last Incan Emperors found refuge from the Spanish invaders of South America.It is situated on a mountain ridge through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). The Incas built the estate around 1450, but abandoned it a century later. Machu Picchu is now an important tourist attraction. Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of what the structures originally looked like. Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. In 2007, Machu Picchu was voted one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in a worldwide Internet poll.

95 solar years ago, on this day in 1921 AD, The League of Nations arbitrarily handed over to Britain the mandate to govern the former Ottoman provinces of Palestine, Iraq, and Transjordan, while France was given control of Syria and Lebanon, as per the plan drawn to traumatize the fate of Muslim lands after World War 1 and to finally implant in the region the illegal Zionist entity called Israel.

93 solar years ago, on this day in 1923 AD, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in Switzerland and imposed upon Turkey to settle the conflict that had originally existed between the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire, the French Republic, the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of Greece, and the Kingdom of Romania since the onset of World War I. It replaced the failed Treaty of Sevres, which was signed by all previous parties but later rejected by the Turkish national movement which fought against its terms and the loss of territory. The Treaty of Lausanne defined the borders of the modern Turkish Republic, which gave up all claims to the remainder of the Ottoman Empire and in return the Allies recognized Turkish sovereignty within its new borders. The treaty divided the Kurdish-populated Ottoman region among Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Article 39 allowed Turkish nationals to use any language they wished in commerce, public and private meetings, and publications. The treaty specifically protected the rights of the Armenian, Greek and Jewish communities, while the former Ottoman provinces of Baghdad, Basra and Mosul were lumped together to form Iraq. Turkey and Greece agreed to a massive exchange of religious minorities. Christians were deported from Turkey to Greece and Muslims from Greece to Turkey. The treaty came into force on 6 August 1924, when the instruments of ratification had been officially deposited in Paris, France by all the parties.

72 solar years ago, on this day in 1944 AD, Operation Gomorrah was launched by the Allied air forces against the hapless German city of Hamburg during World War 2, with the British and Canadian planes bombarding at night and the American aircraft bombarding in the day. By November, over 9,000 tons of explosive were dropped, killing thirty thousand men, women, and children, and destroying two hundred and eighty thousand (280,000) buildings. The barbarism of the victorious Allied forces, especially the Americans, in Germany and Europe, has been hushed up in order to conceal the mass massacres of the people and wide scale rape of women, while in order to mislead world public opinion, western propaganda has been directed at Nazi crimes.

34 solar years ago, on this day in 1982 AD, the prominent Iranian author and translator, Dr. Hamid Enayat, passed away. After getting his BA in Iran, he left for Britain, obtaining a PhD in economics and political studies at London University. After returning to Iran, he lectured and conducted extensive research at Tehran University. He compiled and translated several books on philosophy and political ideology. Among his works is the book: “Islam and Socialism”.

24 solar years ago, on this day in 1992 AD, in Bosnia, Serb prison guards at a former ceramics factory of Keraterm, fired machine guns through metal doors of "Room 3" where over 200 Muslim prisoners were held. The carnage continued for hours. In 2001 Dusko Sikirica the former Serb camp commander, along Dragan Kolundzija and Damir Dosen was tried at the International Criminal Court in Hague for the slaughter. Sikirica was sentenced to a mere 15 years in prison for the mass murder, while Dosen and Kolundzija were let off with more lighter 5 and 3 year sentences. Around 3,000 detainees, mainly Bosniak Muslims, passed through the Keraterm concentration camp located outside the city of Prijedor. The detainees, who lived in an atmosphere of terror and constant fear, were subjected to daily physical violence, constant humiliation, degradation, inhumane conditions, and fear of death. Severe beatings were commonplace. All manner of weapons were used during these beatings, including wooden batons, metal rods, baseball bats, lengths of thick industrial cable that had metal balls affixed to the end, rifle butts, and knives. The 15-to-60 year old Muslim detainees were subject to killings, beatings, sexual assaults, and other cruel and humiliating actions.

23 solar years ago, on this day in 1993 AD, Iranian researcher, Dr Mrs Ismat Sattarzadeh, passed away at the age of 82. Born in Tabriz, she was well versed in Turkish language beside her mother tongue Azeri and obtained PhD in Persian language and literature. She translated from Turkish into Persian such works as “Soodi’s Commentary on the Divan of Hafez”, and “Anqaravi’s Commentary on Mowlana’s Mathnavi”.  She won the award for Iran’s Best Book of the Year.

15 solar years ago, on this day in 2001 AD, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the last Tsar of Bulgaria when he was a child, was sworn in as Prime Minister of Bulgaria, becoming the first monarch in history to regain political power through democratic election to a different office.

AS/ME