Today is Wednesday; 31st of the Iranian month of Shahrivar 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 19th of the Islamic month of Zi’l-Hijjah 1437 lunar hijri; and September 21, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2035 solar years ago, on this day in 19 BC; the famous poet of ancient Rome, Publius Vergilius Maro, popularly as "Virgil", died at the age of 51. His masterpiece is the epic Latin poem "Aeniad" that tells the legend of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas's wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.

579 solar years ago, on this day in 1437 AD, Sultan Nasser Khan Farouqi of the Khandesh Muslim kingdom of Central India, died heartbroken three days after his humiliating defeat at the Battle of Lalling and the sack of his capital, Burhanpur, by the forces of Sultan Ala od-Din Ahmad Shah Bahmani of the Deccan. During his 38-year rule, Nasser Khan had built a strong realm which he had inherited from his father, but after him, under his weak and divided successors, the kingdom deteriorated and was finally absorbed by the expanding Mughal Empire.

440 solar years ago, on this day in 1576 AD, Gerolamo Cardano, Italian mathematician, physician, astrologer, and philosopher, died at the age of 75. Having widely studied the works of Muslim scientists from whom he borrowed extensively, he became known in Europe as the earliest founder of probability and the establisher of the binomial coefficients and the binomial theorem, which he mentions in his book “Opus Novum de Proportionibus”. He wrote more than 200 works on medicine, mathematics, physics, philosophy, religion, and music. Today, he is well-known for his achievements in algebra – corruption of the Arabic term “al-Jabr wa’l-Muqabela” invented by Muslim mathematicians. Among Europeans, he made the first systematic use of negative numbers, published with attribution the solutions of other mathematicians for the cubic and quartic equations, and acknowledged the existence of imaginary numbers.

358 solar years ago, on this day in 1658 AD, the scholar and controversial religious reformer of the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian Archipelago, Noor od-Din Mohammad Ibn Ali Ibn Hassan ar-Raniri, passed away in India. Born in the port city of Rander in Gujarat, India, in the late 1500s to a father of a mixed Yemeni-Indian ancestry and a Malay mother, he studied in the Hijaz, was a follower of the Shafe’i school of jurisprudence, and a member of the Rifa'iyya Sufi order. In 1637, he arrived in Acheh, North Sumatra, whose ruler, Sultan Iskandar Thani, appointed him to the highest religious office. He accused the followers of the sufi, Hamzah Fansuri, of heresy and had their books burned. He left Acheh in 1644 for Pahang in the Malay Peninsula, and after serving for several years, returned to India, where he died. During his years in Southeast Asia he wrote numerous works, including “as-Sirat al-Mustaqim” (The Straight Path) that led to the Islamization of Kedah. Raniri's longest work, the encyclopedic “Bustan al-Salatin fi Dhikr al-Awwalin wa-l-Akherin” (Garden of Kings Concerning Beginning and Ending), has received the most widespread attention. It is something of a "Mirror for Princes." It is divided into seven parts: (1) creation; (2) prophets and rulers; (3) just kings and wise ministers; (4) ascetic rulers and pious saints; (5) unjust rulers and oppressive ministers; (6) noble and generous people and brave men; and (7) intelligence, science, and the like.

258 solar years ago, on this day in 1758 AD, French linguist and orientalist, Antoine Isaac, titled Baron Silvestre de Sacy, was born in Paris. Having studied Semitic languages, he turned his attention to Iranology, and from 1787 to 1791 worked on the Pahlavi inscriptions of the Sassanid kings. In 1795 he became professor of Arabic in the newly founded school of living Eastern languages (Eecole Speciale des Langues Orientales Vivantes). He studied the Druze religion, the subject of his last and unfinished work, the “Expose de la Religion des Druzes” (2 vols. 1838). He published the following Arabic textbooks: “Grammaire Arabe” (2 vols. 1810), “Chrestomathie Arabe” (3 vols. 1806) and   “Anthologie Grammaticale” (1829). In 1806 he added the duties of Persian professor to his old chair. Among his other works are his edition of “Maqamaat Hariri” (1822), with a selected Arabic commentary, and of the “Alfiya” (1833), as well as the “Kalila wa Dimna” (1816) – the Arabic version of the Sanskrit “Panchatantra”. Other works include a version of “Abd-el-Latif, Relation Arabe sur l'Egypte”, essays on the “History of the Law of Property in Egypt since the Arab Conquest” (1805–1818), and “The Book of Wandering Stars”, a translation of a history of the Ottoman Empire and its rule of Egypt. To biblical criticism he contributed a memoir on the “Samaritan Arabic Pentateuch”, and editions of the Arabic and Syriac New Testaments for the British and Foreign Bible Society.

240 solar years ago, on this day in 1776 AD, part of New York City was burned shortly after British forces captured it during the rebellion of the 13 New England colonies – later called the American War of Independence. The west side at the southern end of the island of Manhattan saw the greatest damage, with the fire, believed to be an act of arson by the rebels, destroying 25 percent of the city. The British withdrew in 1783.

224 solar years ago, on this day in 1792 AD, three years after the victory of the French revolution, the monarchic system was formally replaced with a republic and a constitutional assembly called the National Convention took charge of the administration. In January 1793, the deposed King Louis XVI was executed along with many of his family members. The republic barely lasted 12 years, as Napoleon Bonaparte revived the monarchy and styled himself emperor.

184 solar years ago, on this day in 1832 AD, Walter Scott, Scottish author, poet, and playwright, died at the age of 61. His novels and poetry are based on historical accounts, and remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature. Famous titles include “Ivanhoe”, “Rob Roy”, “Old Mortality”, “The Lady of the Lake”, “Waverley”, “The Heart of Midlothian”, “Kenilworth”, “The Talisman”, and “The Bride of Lammermoor”.

180 lunar years ago, on this day in 1257 AH, one of the leading revolutionary ulema of Iran's Constitutional Movement, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Tabatabai, was born. In cooperation with Ayatollah Seyyed Abdullah Behbahani, he courageously struggled against the suppressive and autocratic rule of Qajarid dynasty. Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Tabatabai was also a prominent scientist in addition to being an erudite Islamic scholar. He groomed numerous prominent students in line with development of Islamic sciences and teachings.

156 solar years ago, on this day in 1860 AD, during the Second Opium War, an Anglo-French force defeated Chinese troops at the Battle of Palikao (literally The Eight-Mile Bridge). It allowed Western forces to defeat the Qing Empire and take control of the capital Beijing on October 11.

156 solar years ago, on this day in 1860 AD, Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher and author, died at the age of 72. Known for his pessimism, at age 25 he published his doctoral dissertation, “On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason,” which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal world. He arrived at many of the same conclusions of Eastern philosophy, and would say: "Hatred comes from the heart; contempt from the head; and neither feeling is quite within our control.”

150 solar years ago, on this day in 1866 AD, English author and historian, Herbert George Wells, was born. He catapulted to fame with his science-fiction novels. Among his works are "The Time Machine", "The Island of Doctor Moreau", "The War of the Worlds", and "A Modern Utopia". He died in 1946.

135 solar years ago, on this day in 1881 AD, Qajarid Iran was forced to officially recognize Russia's annexation of the ancient Iranian land of Khwarezm in Central Asia through the Treaty of Akhal. Following Iran’s defeat in 1860, and with the increasing occupation of its territories in the southern Caucasus by Russia, and eastern Khorasan by Britain and the Afghans; Moscow stepped up its campaign to take full control of Central Asia. Forces led by Generals Mikhail Skobelev, Ivan Lazarev and Konstantin Kaufman led the campaign, while Iran was unable to react. The immobilized Naser od-Din Shah sent foreign secretary Mirza Sa'eed Khan Mo'tamen ol-Mulk to meet Ivan Zinoviev and sign the treaty, by virtue of which Iran would henceforth cease any claim to all parts of Transoxiana, setting the Atrak River as the new boundary. Three years later in 1884, the historical Iranian cities of Merv, Sarakhs, Ishqabad, and the surrounding areas were transferred to Russian control, and are now part of the modern republic of Turkmenistan. Khwarezm is a large oasis region on the River Oxus delta in West-Central Asia, bordered to the north by the Aral Sea, to the east the Qyzylkum Desert, to the south the Qarakum Desert and to the west the Ustyurt Plateau. Its famous capitals where Iranian scholars and scientists flourished were Kath, Gurganj and from the 16th century onwards Khiva. Today Khwarezm is divided among the republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.

107 solar years ago, on this day in 1909 AD, Ghanaian politician and independence leader, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, was born. In the first general election in Ghana in 1951, he led the Convention People's Party and was chosen premier. In 1957 Ghana gained independence from British rule. Thereafter, Nkrumah was the target of numerous plots, assassination attempts and coups. In 1966, while he was on a visit to China, General Joseph Ankrah staged a coup and seized power. Nkrumah, who died in Romania in 1972, played a pivotal role in establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement, and the Organization of African Unity.

97 solar years ago, on this day in 1919 AD, the well-known Islamic scholar of Pakistan, Fazl ur-Rahman Malik, was born in the Hazara area of British India (now in Pakistan). He studied Arabic at Punjab University, and went on to Oxford University in Britain, where he wrote a dissertation on the famous Iranian Islamic philosopher-physician, Abu Ali Ibn Sina. Afterwards, he began a teaching career, first at Durham University where he taught Persian language and Islamic philosophy, and then at McGill University where he taught Islamic studies until 1961, when he returned to Pakistan to head up the Central Institute of Islamic Research. Because of hindrances, he resigned from the post and returned to teaching, moving to the United States and teaching at UCLA as a visiting professor for a few years. He moved to the University of Chicago in 1969 and established himself there becoming the Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Islamic Thought. At Chicago he was instrumental for building a strong Near Eastern Studies program that continues to be among the best in the world. He died in 1988. In his memory, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago named its common area after him, due to his many years of service. His books include: "Prophecy in Islam: Philosophy and Orthodoxy", "Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition", "Major Themes of the Qur'an", "Islamic Methodology in History", and "Health and Medicine in the Islamic Tradition".

52 solar years ago, on this day in 1964 AD, the island state of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea gained independence from British rule. Once part of the Roman Empire, it became an Islamic island for over three-and-a-half centuries until its occupation by the Crusaders in the medieval era. Several times it was raided by the Ottoman Turks, and in 1798 was occupied by France, before falling to the British. Malta covers an area of 316 sq km. The official language is Maltese which is heavily influenced by Arabic, and is actually a variant of the now extinct Sicilian Arabic dialect, written today in the Latin alphabet.

35 solar years ago, on this day in 1981 AD, Belize in Central America, gained independence from British colonial rule. Formerly known as British Honduras, it covers an area of almost 22965 sq km, and shares borders with Mexico and Guatemala.

29 solar years ago, on this day in 1987 AD, the US intruding forces in the Persian Gulf, in a blatant act of state terrorism in support of Saddam during the imposed war, used helicopter gunships to attack the Iranian merchant vessel “Iran Ajr” and scuttled it. Four Iranian crewmen were martyred and 26 wounded.

15 solar years ago, on this day in 2001 AD, the Islamic Republic of Iran opened in Tehran the First Universal Exhibition of Holy Culture and Defense with the theme of the Islamic Revolution and the 8-year war imposed by the US (1980-88) through Saddam of the repressive Ba’th minority regime of Baghdad.