Today is Wednesday; 1st of the Iranian month of Dey 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 21st of the Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal 1438 lunar hijri; and December 21, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1376 solar years ago, on this day in 640 AD, Muslim Arabs captured the Babylon Fortress in the Nile Delta (near Cairo) after a seven-month siege. The strategic fortress that marked the boundary between Lower and Middle Egypt, was said to have been built by rebel Assyrian captives in the reign of Sesostris, and hence was called Babylon after the famous city and empire of the same name in Mesopotamia or present day Iraq. Other accounts say it was built by the Babylonian followers of the Achaemenid Iranian Emperor, Cambyses in 525 BC. Thus, built by the Persians, it was taken over by the Romans, and finally fell to the Muslims, whose ranks included several Iranian converts to Islam.   

655 solar years ago, on this day in 1361 AD, Christian mercenaries in the service of the kingdoms of Castile and Leon, ambushed at Linuesa, a Spanish Muslim army of the Emirate of Granada that was returning home after a victory. Next month in January 1362, Mohammad VI of Granada won a decisive victory over the Christian aggressors by completely routing the Castilians.

418 solar years ago, on this day in 1598 AD, Battle of Curalaba resulted in a major defeat of the Spanish invading troops in southern Chile by the local Mapuche natives, led by cacique Pelentaru. In Chilean historiography, the defeat suffered by Martín García Onez de Loyola, is often called Disaster of Curalaba, and marks the end of Spain’s "Conquista" period in Chile.

195 lunar years ago, on this day in 1243 AH, the Iranian city of Erivan and the khanate of the same name in the Caucasus, was occupied by Russia after stiff resistance by the governor Hussain Qoli Khan Qajar, during the two-year war that led to the signing of the humiliating Turkmenchay Treaty by the inefficient ruler Fath Ali Shah Qajar, resulting in the detachment from the Persian Empire of what are now the Caucasus republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, along with Nakhichevan. Erivan was renamed Yerevan and became the centre of the Russian oblast of Armenia. For more than two millenniums, most of the Caucasus, including Daghestan and the eastern section of Georgia were part of the various Persian Empires. In 1501, Shah Ismail, the Founder of the Safavid Empire, had liberated Erivan from the Aq Qoyounlu Turks. In 1736, in the waning years of the Safavid Dynasty, the area was designated as Khanate of Erivan and corresponded to most of present-day central Armenia, most of the Igdır Province and of Kagızman district of the Kars Province of present-day Turkey, and the Sharur and Sadarak districts of the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic. At the time of the Russian occupation, over 80 percent population of Erivan was Muslim – made up of Persians, Azeris, and Kurds – while Armenian Christians numbered only 15,000 or less than 20% of the population. The Russians forced the majority of Muslims to leave and replaced them with Christians and Armenians in the city and the countryside in order to change the demography of the region. Ḥussain Qoli Khan Qajar, who was known for his bravery, honesty and justice, refused to make any deal with the Russian occupiers, as is evident by Russia’s anger as demonstrated in Article XII of the Turkmenchay Treaty, which specifically deprived him and his brother of the right to sell or exchange their property in Erevan, a right granted to all others.

192 solar years ago, on this day in 1824 AD, English surgeon, apothecary, geologist, palaeontologist, and political activist, James Parkinson, died at the age of 69. He is most famous for his 1817 work, “An Essay on the Shaking Palsy” in which he was the first to describe "paralysis agitans", a condition that would later be renamed Parkinson's disease by Jean-Martin Charcot. The symptoms of Parkinson's Disease are a generalized slowness of movement, a tremor or slight shaking on one side of the body when at rest, some stiffness of the limbs, and problems of gait or balance

184 solar years ago, on this day in 1832 AD, during the Egyptian–Ottoman War, Turkish forces were decisively defeated in the Battle of Konya, just outside the city of the same name in modern-day Turkey. The Egyptians were led by Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mohammad Ali Pasha, the Ottoman appointed Albanian Khedive of Egypt. The Egyptians after rapidly taking Bayt al-Moqaddas and the coastal regions of Palestine and Lebanon, took over Syria and advanced into Anatolia. Konya was Ibrahim's greatest victory. He lost 262 dead and 530 wounded, whereas the Ottomans lost 3,000 dead and over 5,000 taken prisoner, including many senior officers. Nothing remained between Ibrahim's army and the Turkish capital, Istanbul, after the battle. Political parleys, however, led to the signing of the Peace Treaty of Kutahiya, whereby the Ottoman Sultan ceded greater Syria to Mohammad Ali for his lifetime, and ceded Egypt's rule to Mohammad Ali's dynasty in perpetuity, with nominal allegiance to the self-styled Turkish caliph. As a postscript to Konya, it should be added that seven years later, the Ottoman Sultan Mahmoud abrogated the Treaty of Kutahiya and attacked the Egyptian forces, but was again routed by the Egyptians at the Battle of Nizib, on the frontier between the Ottoman Empire and Syria, on June 24, 1839. Ibrahim Pasha had earlier distinguished himself in Arabia, where he penetrated into the Najd to nab the Wahhabi desert brigand, Abdullah ibn Saud, and sent him to Istanbul for public execution, for having desecrating the holy shrine of Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) grandson, Imam Husain (AS) in Karbala.

165 solar years ago, on this day in 1851 AD, the first higher polytechnic institute in Iran, Dar al-Fonoun School, was founded in Tehran by the celebrated Prime Minister, Amir Kabir Mirza Mohammad Taqi Khan. Initially, this academy taught engineering, mineralogy, pharmacy, and other common sciences of the day. The first batch numbered 150 students for a six-to-seven year course. Many of the graduates became statesmen of the country.

118 solar years ago, on this day in 1898 AD, French scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discovered 2 new elements that they later named radium and polonium

96 solar years ago, on this day in 1920 AD, Somalian general and founder of the Dervish state, Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, died at the age 64. A religious and patriotic leader, he fought the 20-year Somaliland Campaign against British, Italian and Ethiopian occupation forces. The British, who were fearful of him, have called him the “Mad Mullah”. In several of his poems and speeches, Hassan said that the British "have destroyed our religion and made our children their children" and that the Christian Ethiopians in league with the British were bent upon plundering the political and religious freedom of the Somali nation.

52 solar years ago, on this day in 1964 AD, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded by eight guerrilla groups, and several educational, social, medical, cultural, and financial organizations, with Yasser Arafat as Chairman. In 1974, PLO was granted observer status at the UN and by 1982 had established relations with more than 100 countries. In the same year, the lightly armed Palestinian combatants in Lebanon came under heavy attacks from the well-equipped army of the illegal Zionist entity, and the PLO was forced to shift its headquarters to Tunis. Thereafter, its armed struggle subsided, and in September 1993, Arafat betrayed the Palestinian cause by signing the Oslo Treaty in Norway, thereby recognizing the illegal Zionist entity called Israel. PLO has become extremely unpopular amongst the Palestinians because of its compromising policies and its kowtowing to the West and Israel.

34 solar years ago, on this day in 1982 AD, the famous Urdu poet of the Subcontinent and writer of the Pakistani national anthem, Hafeez Jullundhri, passed away in Lahore at the age of 82. Born in Jullundhur in Punjab in undivided India in a Rajput Muslim family, from 1922 to 1929, he was editor of several monthly magazines namely, "Nou Nehal", "Hazaar Dastaan", "Tahzib-e Niswaan", and "Makhzan". His first collection of poems “Naghma-e Zar” was published in 1935. Jullundhri actively participated in the struggle against British colonial rule and used his writings to propagate the cause for creation of Pakistan. In early 1948, he joined the forces for the freedom of Kashmir and wrote the Kashmiri Anthem, "Watan Hamara Azad Kashmir". After the independence, he migrated to Lahore in the new state of Pakistan. He wrote many patriotic songs during the Pakistan-India war in 1965. Jullundhri's monumental work of poetry is “Shahnama-e Islam” that gave him incredible fame and which in the manner of the famous Iranian poet Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, is a record of the glorious history of Islam in verse.

31 solar years ago, on this day in 1985 AD, Saddam of Iraq’s repressive Ba’th minority regime, signed a military pact with the Soviet Union for the latest weaponry to use against Iran in the ongoing 8-year war which he had imposed on the orders of the US. Like the capitalist US, the communist superpower was also worried about an eventual victory by the Islamic Republic of Iran that would change equations in the region, including in Afghanistan which was already under Soviet occupation. Despite the sophisticated arms and armaments procured from almost all military powers of the world, Saddam’s dream of defeating Iran turned into his nightmare.

28 solar years ago, on this day in 1988 AD, an explosion aboard a US passenger plane over Lockerbie in Scotland claimed 270 lives. The US and Britain, accused two Libyan nationals of involvement in the alleged bombing and used the UN Security Council as a tool to impose sanctions on Libya in 1992. In 1999 the Libyan regime of Mo’ammar Qadhafi was forced to handover two of its nationals to the Hague Tribunal for trial, resulting in the acquitting of one of them and life imprisonment for the other. In August 2003, the Libya accepted responsibility for explosion of the US passenger plane and paid compensation to its victims. A month later, the UN Security Council annulled the sanctions imposed on Libya. This kowtowing to the West was not able to save Qadhafi from those who had installed him in power through a military coup in 1969. In 2011, he was overthrown and killed like a rat while fleeing.

9 solar years ago, on this day in 2007 AD, security forces of Bahrain’s repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority regime, stormed the houses of the country's most outspoken Shi’a Muslim opposition group at dawn, kidnapping at least seven of its members. Shi’a Muslims account for over 75 percent of Bahrain's 450,000 citizens, and struggling for their rights despite acute oppression.

AS/SS