Today is Friday; 29th of the Iranian month of Mordad 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 16th of the Islamic month of Zi’l-Qa’dah 1437 lunar hijri; and August 19, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2002 solar years ago, on this day in 14 AD, the first Roman Emperor, Augustus Caesar, died in Rome at the age of 77 after a long reign of 41 years, during which his greatest achievement was conclusion of a treaty with Emperor Farhad IV (Phraates) of Iran’s Parthian Empire that ensured peace in what are now Palestine, Syria, and Turkey; in addition to return of the Roman Eagle Standards lost by Crassus to the Iranians in the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. He was also aware of the disastrous defeats suffered by Mark Antony in his campaigns against Iranians. Named Gaius Octavius, he was the maternal grandson of the sister of Roman dictator, Julius Caesar, who in his will declared him his adopted son and heir. With Mark Antony and Marcus Lepidus, he formed a triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar. Following their victory, the triumvirate divided the Roman Republic and ruled as military dictators. The alliance torn apart under the ambitions of its members: Lepidus was driven into exile and stripped of his position, and Antony committed suicide following his defeat at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. Four years later, Octavius declared himself emperor, with the title “Augustus Caesar”, thus ending the Roman Republic. The 8th month of the Julian calendar, was renamed “August” in his honour. Prophet Jesus (AS) flourished in his reign.

1111 lunar years ago, on this day in 326 AH, the famous vizier of the Iranian Buwaiyhid Dynasty of Iran-Iraq-Oman, Abu’l-Qasem Ismail Ibn Hassan Taleqani, known as Saheb Ibn Abbad, was born near Isfahan. He was a follower of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt and an outstanding writer, linguist, poet and statesman who held the post of prime minister for eighteen years, and whose wisdom is still proverbial today. He wrote mostly in Arabic on theology, history, grammar, lexicography, and literary criticism in addition to composing poetry. He learnt Hadith from his father and the holy Qur’an from his equally pious mother. In Isfahan, he studied under such great masters as Ahmad Ibn Farres ar-Razi and Abdullah Ibn Farres. Saheb was a patron of scholars and poets, and respected jurists and theologians. He had a great library in the city of Rayy containing over 100,000 books. He wrote over 30 books including one on Imamate, which proves the superiority of Imam Ali (AS) over all others. His other books include a Diwan or collection of poetry, a book on medicine, the 7-volume work on lexicography titled “al-Moheet”, and a biography of Seyyed Abdul Azim al-Hasani, the great-great-grandson of Imam Hasan Mujtaba (AS), whose shrine is the main centre of pilgrimage till this day in Rayy – a southern suburb of modern Tehran today.

983 lunar years ago, on this day in 454 AH, the Shafei jurisprudent, Mohammad Ibn Salamah al-Qazai, died. He compiled the book “ash-Shehab” on the aphorisms of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) arranged in alphabetical order. A commentary titled "Zou ash-Shehab" was written on this valuable work by Imami scholar, Ziya od-Din Fazlollah.

908 lunar years ago, on this day in 529 AH, Mustarshid-Billah, the 29^th self-styled caliph of the usurper Abbasid regime, after a reign of 17 years, was killed by assassins, believed to be hired by the Seljuqid sultan, Mas’oud, who resented the caliph’s bid to assert his independence in political affairs. When Mustarshid launched a military campaign against Mas'oud near Hamedan in western Iran, he was deserted by his troops, taken prisoner by the Sultan, but pardoned on promise not to quit the palace. Left in the royal tent, he was found murdered.

873 solar years ago, on this day in 1153 AD, Baldwin III of the usurper Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem occupied the city of Ascalon (Asqalan in Arabic) in Palestine near Gaza, which was a strong bastion of Egypt’s Fatemid Shi’ite Muslim dynasty and a site of pilgrimage, since it had a mausoleum, believed to be the site of burial of the holy head of the Martyr of Karbala, Imam Husain (AS). He marched with a huge army of Christian mercenaries from Europe and began to destroy the surrounding orchards in January.  For five months there were many skirmishes and victories and defeats on both sides. Ascalon was vast and virtually impenetrable; behind its massive walls and gates were determined defenders including Arabs, Iranians, and Berbers. Just when the Crusaders were tired and planning to leave, an accidental fire in one of the towers of Ascalon, made them stay. After bitter fighting the city surrendered, and the Fatemids took away to Cairo for reburial what they considered to be the head of Imam Husain (AS), the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). Half a century earlier in 1099, the Battle of Ascalon was fought outside the city during the First Crusade and the occupation of Bayt al-Moqaddas by the Crusaders. Although it led to the defeat of the Fatemids, the city’s defenders made of large contingents of Arabs, Iranians, and Berbers, ensured that it remained in Egyptian hands. The fall of Ascalon thus led to the downfall of the Fatemid Dynasty. Amalric succeeded his brother Baldwin as king of the usurper kingdom of Jerusalem in 1162, and led several expeditions from Ascalon into Egypt. The Kurdish adventurer, Salah od-Din Ayyubi, taking advantage of Crusader assaults, imposed himself in Cairo as Prime Minister, and then seized power himself. In 1187, he took Ascalon and in 1191, during the Third Crusade, he demolished the city because of its potential strategic importance to the Christians. It was again occupied by the Crusaders but retaken in 1247 by Egyptian Muslims. In 1270, Baybars, the Turkic Mamluk sultan of Egypt, ordered the citadel and harbour of Ascalon to be destroyed. Ascalon was rebuilt in the 16th century as an Arab town during Ottoman rule. In the British Mandate period over Palestine, it had a large edifice on top of a hill with a fragment of a pillar showing the place where the head of Imam Husain (AS) was supposedly buried. In 1948 Ascalon was seized by the illegal Zionist entity, its name changed to Ashkelon, and its Arab inhabitants driven away from their homes. In July 1950, the shrine was destroyed at the instructions of General Moshe Dayan in accordance with the Israeli policy of erasing all Muslim historical and religious sites.

354 solar years ago, on this day in 1662 AD, the French author and mathematician and innovator of calculation devices, Blaise Pascal, died at the age of 61. He became religious in the waning years of his life and wrote a book on Christianity titled “Provincial Letters”.

162 solar years ago, on this day in 1854 AD, the First Sioux War began when US soldiers killed Lakota chief ‘Conquering Bear’. These wars were part of the genocidal policies to exterminate the native Amerindians, and lasted till 1891, resulting in the massacre of thousands of ‘Red Indians’.

145 solar years ago, on this day in 1871 AD, American aviator Orville Wright, who with his elder brother Wilbur, invented the first powered airplane, Flyer, capable of sustained, controlled flight (17 Dec 1903), was born in Dayton, Ohio. The history of aviation is as old as Man’s quest to fly since antiquity. The earliest known record is of Yuan Huangtou, a Chinese prince, who was briefly airborne by tying himself to a kite. In the heyday of Islamic science and civilization, there are records pertaining to the Spanish Muslim polymath, Abbas ibn Firnas, who flew from Jabal al-Arus Hill by employing a rudimentary glider in the 9th century AD – a thousand years before the airplane was invented.

140 solar years ago, on this day in 1876 AD, British Assyriologist, George Smith, died at the age of 36 of dysentery in Syria, on his way home from a 3rd trip to Mesopotamia (Iraq). In 1874, Smith had completed the translation of the complete Epic of Gilgamesh – the Chaldaean account of the Great Flood – one of the oldest-known written works of literature which he discovered at Nineveh.

128 lunar years ago, on this day in 1309 AH, the prominent Iranian Islamic scholar, Ayatollah Shaikh Zain ol-Abedin Mazandarani, passed away. After preliminary studies in Iran, he left for the famous seminary in holy Najaf, Iraq, for higher studies under prominent ulema such as the celebrated Ayatollah Sheikh Morteza Ansari Dezfuli. He soon attained an elevated spiritual status. He always thought of the poor and the needy and strove to solve their problems. He was also very modest and was highly respected by the ulema and people. He was instrumental in enlightening a sizeable section of the Nizari Ismaili community of India with the rational beliefs of the Ithna Ashari or Twelver School during discussions in Najaf with a Khoja delegation that had come on pilgrimage. At his behest Mullah Qader Hussain returned to the Subcontinent espousing the Twelver Shi’ite creed. His preaching was instrumental in convincing several more Khoja families to leave Nizari Ismailism and become Twelvers.

124 solar years ago, on this day in 1892 AD, prominent Iranian calligrapher, Mirza Reza Kalhor, passed away at the age of 64 in Tehran. Born in Kalhor, near Kermanshah in western Iran, he was an expert in horse riding and archery before coming to Tehran and learning the art of calligraphy from Mirza Mohammad Khwansari, whom he outshone. His fame attracted the attention of the Qajarid king, Nasser od-Din Shah, who appointed him as his tutor in calligraphy. Kalhor who never took advantage of his ties with the royal court, led a simple life by subsisting from the earnings he received in copying books and manuscripts.

121 solar years ago, on this day in 1895 AD, China was forced to handover the Island of Formosa to Japan as per the Shimonoski Treaty. Known as Taiwan today, the island returned to Chinese sovereignty as per decisions of the Potsdam Conference following Japan's defeat in World War II. In 1949, when the communists emerged victorious in the Chinese civil war the pro-western former government authorities fled Beijing to Taiwan and with US meddling declared the island independent. Beijing insists on the return of Taiwan to mainland China.

97 solar years ago, on this day in 1919 AD, the British occupation of Afghanistan ended as per the Treaty of Rawalpindi, following the end of the 3rd Anglo-Afghan war. The term Afghanistan was used for the first time in 1857 as official name of a country, although the local tribes were known as 'Afghans' for centuries. The first independent Afghan state was set up in 1747 by Ahmad Khan Durrani, an ethnic Pashtun general of Nader Shah Afshar of Iran, who on the latter's death seized control of the eastern parts of Iranian Khorasan and the Pashto-speaking regions of the Moghul Empire of India, as well as the Punjab, to declare himself king. British attempts to meddle in Afghanistan led to the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1839-to-1842. Thereafter, a seesaw struggle ensued between the two sides with the British aggressively pushing their colonial policies in Kabul through threats, diplomacy, and wars, until formal independence in 1919. Afghanistan, which is under US occupation for the past 12 years, was throughout history part of successive Persian empires, while its eastern parts were occasionally under Indian rule. Today it shares borders with Iran, Pakistan, China, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and covers an area of 647,000 sq km.

93 solar years ago, on this day in 1923 AD, Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto, French-Italian sociologist, economist and philosopher, died at the age of 75. In 1906 he made the famous observation that 20% of the population owned 80% of the property in Italy. This was later generalized by Joseph M. Juran and others into the so-called Pareto principle – also termed the 80-20 rule. He was also responsible for popularising the use of the term "elite" in social analysis.

86 solar years ago, on this day in 1930 AD, Russian orientalist, Vasily Vladimirovich Bartold also known as Wilhelm Barthold, died at the age of 61. He specialized in the history of Islam and the Turkic peoples (Turkology). He was the first to publish obscure information from the early Arab historians on Kievan Rus, which later emerged as Russia. He also edited several scholarly journals of Muslim studies, and contributed extensively to the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam. Bartold wrote three authoritative monographs on the history of Islam, namely, Islam (1918), Muslim Culture (1918) and The Muslim World (1922). He also contributed to the development of Cyrillic writing for the Muslim countries of Central Asia. Most of his writings were translated in English, Arabic, and Persian. Bartold's collected works were reprinted in 9 volumes between 1963 and 1977, and whilst Soviet editors added footnotes deploring his 'bourgeois' attitudes, his prestige was such that the text was left uncensored, despite not conforming to a Marxist interpretation of history. His works include: “Ulugh-Beg”, “Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion”, “Mussalman Culture”, "A Short History of Turkestan", and “An Historical Geography of Iran”.

38 solar years ago, on this day in 1978 AD, people of the southwestern Iranian city of Abadan staged huge demonstrations against the inhumane arson attack on Rex Cinema by agents of the British-installed and American-backed Pahlavi regime. In this tragic incident, 277 women, men, and children lost their lives.

25 solar years ago, on this day in 1991 AD, a group of the Soviet Union’s army commanders staged a coup against President Mikhail Gorbachev to end his policy of reforms, while he was holidaying in the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea. However, Boris Yeltsin, the President of the Russian Federation, foiled the coup. The ensuring developments speeded up the end of the suffocating, anti-religious and totalitarian Soviet Union in December 1991 and led to the emergence as independent republics of many of the lands occupied by Czarist Russia.

11 solar years ago, on this day in 2005 AD, religious scholar and poet, Sheikh Mohammad Hussain Bahjati, who wrote under the penname “Shafaq”, passed away at the age of 72. Born in Yazd, he enrolled at the Islamic seminary of Qom at an early age, studying under the leading scholars, such as Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hussain Borouerdi and the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA). An expert in jurisprudence, hadith, history and languages, including Arabic and English, he was the classmate of the current Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, National Expedience Chief, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. He was the first poet of revolutionary poetry following the victory of the Islamic Revolution. Imam Khomeini (RA) had appointed him as his representative and Friday Prayer Leader of Yazd. He subsequently served as Friday Prayer Leader of Ardakan, and later taught Arabic and Persian at the Qom Seminary, in addition to his cultural activities in Tehran at the Sepah Publications.

AS/MG