Today is Sunday; 7th of the Iranian month of Azar 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 27th of the Islamic month of Safar 1438 lunar hijri; and November 27, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1414 solar years ago, on this day in 602 AD, Roman Emperor Maurice was murdered by the usurper Phocas days after his overthrow, and before being beheaded was forced to watch his six sons executed. His eldest son and designated heir, Theodosius, fled to the Sassanid court for aid, prompting the Iranian Emperor Khosrau Pervez, who years earlier had sought asylum in Constantinople and regained the throne in Ctesiphon with the aid of Maurice by defeating Bahram Chubin, to launch a massive invasion of the Roman Empire. Maurice, during his 20-year reign, had successfully brought to an end the intermittent wars between the Iranians and Romans, and his backing of Khosrau Pervez had yielded rich rewards, since for the first time in nearly two centuries the Romans were no longer obliged to pay the Persians millions of pounds of gold annually for peace. Thus, the seizure of power by Phocas renewed the traditional wars, and resulted in the loss of Syria, Egypt and all of modern day Turkey, right up to the gates of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) to the Iranians. Phocas was eventually killed and replaced by Heraclius who successfully ended the 25-year war that proved cataclysmic for both the empires, which within the next five years were overrun by Arab Muslims, thereby completely changing the demography and history of the region.

1229 lunar years ago, on this day in 209 AH, the Iranian Sunni Muslim compiler of Hadith, Mohammad Ibn Majah al-Qazvini, was born in Qazvin. He travelled widely through Iran, Iraq, Syria, Hejaz, and Egypt, to gather hadith and compiled his book "Sunan", which contains 4000 hadith. Although later this compilation was included in the "Sihah as-Sitta" or the Six Primary Books of Hadith of Sunni Muslims, it is still regarded as the weakest one. Perhaps for fear of the Abbasid regime, Ibn Majah failed to collect genuine information about the Sunnah and Seerah of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) from the main sources of his time, that is, Imam Ali al-Hadi (AS) and Imam Hasan al-Askari (AS), the 10^th and 11^th Infallible Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt respectively. Like his Iranian compatriots before him, such as Bukhari, Muslim Naishapuri, Tirmizi, and Abu Dawoud Sijistani, he also did not seek the company of the disciples and companions of the blessed progeny of the Prophet to ascertain whether the hadith he had gathered were really genuine. Ibn Majah died in 273 AH in his hometown Qazvin at the age of 64.

921 solar years ago, on this day in 1095 AD, at a time when Muslims ruled Spain Sicily, and the Mediterranean islands, and the scientific achievements of Islamic scholars were attracting intellectuals in Europe, Pope Urban II of the Catholic sect of Christianity, in a highly hatred-filled seditious speech during the Council of Clermont in France, called on thugs, brigands, and warlords of western Europe to mobilize an army for invasion of Muslim Syria. Earlier in March he had received an envoy from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos asking for help against Seljuq Turks who had taken over most of Anatolia (present day Turkey). In his seditious declaration which later became known as “Call for the First Crusade” the Pope did not mention Palestine or Bayt al-Moqaddas (Jerusalem), nor did he use the word “crusades” which was coined later by the savage hordes of western Europe that occupied and ravaged whatever lands that came into their path, whether Muslim or eastern Christian such as the Byzantines and the Armenians. In 1096 the first crusade landed in Constantinople and on entering Asia Minor was decisively routed by the Seljuqs. The next year, another crusade was diverted by the Byzantines towards Turkish-ruled Antioch and the possessions of the Fatemid Shi’ite Muslim dynasty of Egypt and North Africa in Syria, including Bayt al-Moqaddas, which was taken in 1099 with savagery beyond description and the massacre of 70,000 Muslim men, women, and children. Urban II died before receiving news of the Christian occupation of Bayt al-Moqaddas.

315 solar years ago, on this day in 1701 AD, Swedish physicist, Anders Celsius, was born in Uppsala in an academic family. His father and grandfather were mathematicians. He studied astronomy and in 1730, started lecturing at Uppsala University. He was placed in charge of the city's major observatory. In 1742, he invented the thermometer; hence the temperature is called Celsius. The Celsius fixed scale (often called centigrade) for measuring temperature defines zero degrees as the temperature at which water freezes, and 100 degrees as the temperature at which water boils. The Celsius degree was internationally accepted in 1948. He died in 1744.

200 solar years ago, on this day in 1816 AD, US soldiers attacked an Amerindian village in Florida and began the First Seminole War that lasted till 1819. The Seminole Wars, also known as the Florida Wars, were three conflicts in Florida between US army and the Seminole — the collective name given to the amalgamation of various groups of native Americans and the blacks who settled in Florida in the early 18th century. The Second Seminole War lasted from 1835 to 1842, and the Third Seminole War from 1855 to 1858. These were the largest conflicts in the United States between the War of 1812 against the British and the American Civil War of 1861-65. The first war with the Seminoles arose out of tensions relating to General Andrew Jackson's attack and destruction of Negro Fort in Florida. Jackson also attacked the Spanish at Pensacola. Ultimately, Spain ceded Florida. The United States has a bleak and bloody record of expansionism, aggression and ethnic cleansing.

190 solar years ago, on this day in 1826 AD, English pharmacist, John Walker, invented the first practical, strike-anywhere, friction match, which he first sold on 7 Apr 1827. He used three-inch splints of wood, tipped with potassium chlorate, antimony sulfide, and gum Arabic. The match head was ignited by drawing it through a fold of fine glass paper. This soon developed into the present day safety matches used all over the world.

148 solar years ago, on this day in 1868 AD, US Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer’s 7th Cavalry killed Amerindian Chief, Black Kettle, and slaughtered about 100 Cheyenne (mostly women and children) on the Washita River near present day Cheyenne, in Oklahoma State.

121 solar years ago, on this day in 1895 AD, Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator, and armaments manufacturer, signed his last will and testament at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after his death. He deposited the huge amount in a bank in Stockholm. In it, he provided for most of his fortune to be put in trust to establish the Nobel Prizes. As the inventor of new, more powerful explosives used in the weapons of war, especially, whose use in the killing of fellow human he deeply regretted, he left a legacy to reward those persons who provided benefits to mankind. Prizes were to be established in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology, literature and a prize for peace. He died a year later of a cerebral hemorrhage in San Remo, Italy. Unfortunately, in violation of his will, the peace prize has been politicized and given to warmongers and those leaders with a criminal record of massacre of fellow humans, as part of the West’s domineering, divisive, exploitative and murderous policies.

75 solar years ago, on this day in 1941 AD, German troops lost the fierce battle of tanks against Soviet forces in Kursk near Moscow during World War II, triggering the start of the Nazi army's failure on the Russian front.

63 solar years ago, on this day in 1953 AD, Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature, died in Boston at the age of 65. Born in New York, his poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The drama “Long Day's Journey Into Night” is often numbered on the short list of being among the finest American plays in the 20th century. O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.

45 solar years ago, on this day in 1971 AD, with the withdrawal of British occupation troops, the Persian Gulf islands of Abu Musa, Greater and Lesser Tunbs, returned to Iran’s sovereignty. These three Iranian islands are strategically located near the Strait of Hormoz, which links the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. Britain had seized these islands in 1887.

36 solar years ago, on this day in 1980 AD, almost two months after the start of the 8-year war imposed on Iran by the US through Saddam, Iran’s Navy defeated the Iraqi navy, destroying a large number of vessels and inflicting huge damage on al-Bakr oil platform at the headwaters of the Persian Gulf. The Iraqi navy was virtually eliminated, and to mark this great victory, this day has been marked over the past 31 years as Navy Day in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

24 solar years ago, on this day in 1992 AD, the newly independent republics of Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Azerbaijan joined the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), which was founded by Iran, Turkey and Pakistan in 1984, after dissolution of the Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD), which the three countries had set up in 1964. ECO is one of the biggest regional organizations in the world and covers a population of over 400 million people.

24 lunar years ago, on this day in 1414 AH, the Source of Emulation, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Abdul-‘Ala Musawi Sabzevari, passed away at the age of 86 in Najaf – said to be poisoned by the repressive Ba’th minority regime of Baghdad. Born in Sabzevar in Khorasan, northeastern Iran, until the age of 14, he continued his education in Islamic studies and Arabic literature, under his father and uncle, Ayatollah Seyyed Abdullah Burhan, before moving to holy Mashhad where for 8 years he benefited from prominent scholars such as Abdul-Jawad Adib Nayshapuri, Mirza Askar Shahidi (known as Aqa Buzurg Hakim), Seyyed Mohammad Assar Lavasani and Ali Akbar Nahavandi. At the age of 22, he went to Iraq for higher studies at the famous seminary of holy Najaf, where he completed courses in jurisprudence, theology, philosophy, exegesis of the holy Qur’an, and other Islamic sciences, under leading Ayatollahs such as Mirza Hussain Na’ini, Aqa Ziya Iraqi, Mohammad Hussain Gharavi Isfahani, Seyyed Abu’l-Hassan Isfahani, Seyyed Hussain Badkube'i and others. He learned exegesis of the Qur'an, way of debating and theology through participating in the sessions of Allamah Mohammad Jawad al-Balaghi. He also received permission for hadith transmission and accreditation for Ijtihad from Allamah Mamaqani, Shaikh Abbas Qomi, and while he was only 36 year old, he began teaching advanced jurisprudence courses. In 1413, at the age of 85 he became head of the Najaf Seminary and Marja’ of world Shi’a Muslims, following the death of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Qasim Khoei, but passed away after a year. He had memorized the holy Qur’an, and was active in political and social spheres in both Iran and Iraq, firmly supporting the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini. In March 1979, he issued a message hailing the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. In 1991, he issued a fatwa in support of the 1991 uprisings of the Iraqi people, and never compromised with Ba'th regime, as a result of which his house was besieged several times. He also sent expert delegations to Europe, North America, and Asian and Arab countries. His major work is the exegesis in 30 volumes titled “Mawahib al-Rahman fi tafsir al-Qur’an”.

9 solar years ago, on this day in 2007 AD, the Bahamas ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, bringing to 141 the number of countries that have done so. The treaty, which bans all nuclear explosions, will not enter into force until it has been ratified by all 44 states listed in an annex that participated in a 1996 disarmament conference and had nuclear power or research reactors at the time. Only 34 countries, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, have ratified the pact. The holdouts include the nuclear-armed powers: The United States of America, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.

6 solar years ago, on this day in 2010 AD, Iran and Turkmenistan inaugurated the last section of the Sarakhs-Tehran pipeline for supply of Turkmen gas to northeast Iran.

AS/ME