Today is Wednesday; 8th of the Iranian month of Dey 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 28th of the Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal 1438 lunar hijri; and December 28, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1123 solar years ago, on this day in 893 AD, a devastating earthquake destroyed the city of Dvin and most of its 70,000 people, in what is now the Republic of Armenia. Dvin was built by Khosrow III of Armenia in 335 on a site of an ancient settlement and fortress from the 3rd millennium BC. Since then, the city had been used as the primary residence of the Armenian Kings of the Arsacid dynasty. In 428, it became the residence of Sassanid appointed “marzipans” or governors, Byzantine “kouropalates” and later Omayyad and Abbasid appointed “ostikans” (governors). Dvin prospered as one of the most populous and wealthiest cities east of Constantinople. Its prosperity continued even after the partition of Armenia between Romans and Sassanid Persians, and eventually it became a target during the height of the Muslim conquests. Situated along the banks of the Metsamor River, 35 km to the south of modern Yerevan, the site of the ancient city is currently not much more than a large hill.

1031 lunar years ago, on this day in 407 AH, the able prime minister of the Buwaihid dynasty of Iran and Iraq, Abu Ghaleb Mohammad ibn Ali Waseti, titled Fakhr ol-Molk, was martyred in Ahwaz. He was the Minister of Emir Baha od-Dowla Daylami, and was a very virtuous and pious person, known for his charity and devotion to the genuine teachings of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). He started the practice of distributing among the needy people the 'Halva' or a sweet dish on the auspicious eve of 15th Sha'ban which also marks the birth anniversary of the Lord of the Age, the Prophet's 12^th and Last Infallible Successor, Imam Mahdi (may God hasten his reappearance to establish the global government of peace, prosperity and justice). Fakhr ol-Molk built the walls in Karbala around the holy shrine of Imam Hussain (AS). After Ibn-e Abi Amid and Saheb bin Abbad, he was the third most prominent vizier of the Buwaihid or Daylamite dynasty of Iran and Iraq that ruled for over a hundred years.

555 solar years ago, on this day in 1461 AD, Jam Nizam od-Din II, the most powerful ruler of the Samma Dynasty, succeeded his father Sanjar Sadr od-Din and ruled for 47 years over Sindh, parts of Punjab, Baluchestan and Gujarat. Towards the end of his reign he defeated a Mughal army sent against him by Shah Beg Arghun from Qandahar. Founded by Rajputs who had embraced the truth of Islam, the Samma civilization contributed significantly to the evolution of the "Sindhi-Islamic" architectural style, which is a blending of Persian art as well. Thatta, which is in modern Pakistan, was the capital of this kingdom that lasted almost two centuries from 1335 to 1527. The city is still famous for its necropolis, which covers 10 square km on the Makli Hill. Every year thousands perform pilgrimage to this site to commemorate the saints buried here. The graves testify to a long period when Thatta was a thriving center of trade, religion and scholarly pursuits.

394 solar years ago, on this day in 1622 AD, the English East India Company's ships defeated a Portuguese fleet of twenty-one sail under Admiral Ruy Frere, attacking them near Iran’s Jask Island in the Persian Gulf.

278 lunar years ago, on this day in 1160 AH, the great scholar Seyyed Ali Tabatabaie was born in holy Kazemain in Iraq. He wrote several books including commentaries on the “Mafatih” of Faiz Kashani, and the “Mukhtasir an-Nafe'” of Muhaqqiq Awwal. His famous work was “Riyadh al-Masa'el”, and for this reason, he is also known as “Saheb-e Riyadh”.

185 solar years ago, on this day in 1831 AD, Samuel Sharp, an enslaved black African youth led an uprising in Jamaica which was brutally crushed by the British at a great cost. The 8-day uprising resulted in the death of around 186 Africans, and in its aftermath, the colonial authorities convicted over 750 black people and sentenced to death 138.

157 solar years ago, on this day in 1859 AD, the British historian and politician, Thomas Babington Macaulay, died at the age of 59. Born in Leicestershire in a Scottish highlander family, he studied law and worked as an attorney, before turning to politics. He became a member of parliament, and after resigning was sent to India as Secretary to the Board of Control. An expert of the English language, during his 4-year tenure in British-ruled India from 1834 to 1838, he made English compulsory and discouraged the use of Persian which for centuries had been the court and official language of the Subcontinent, besides being the strategic cultural and religious link of the Muslims of South Asia with Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. He was scornful of the wisdom of the east, including the rich Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit heritage of India. He made English the medium of education in order to create Anglicised Indians, detached from their native culture and serving the interests of their colonial masters. Till this day in Indian culture, the term “Macaulay's Children” is used to refer to people born of Indian ancestry who adopt western culture as a lifestyle, or display attitudes influenced by the colonisers. On his return to Britain, Macaulay was elected to the parliament and later appointed war minister.

131 solar years ago, on this day in 1885 AD, the Indian National Congress was founded by members of the occultist movement known as the Theosophical Society by Allan Octavian Hume, Dadabhai Naorozji, Dinshaw Wacha, Surendranath Banerjee, and William Wedderburn. It led the Indian Independence Movement against British rule. After independence in 1947, it became the dominant political party, led by the Nehru-Gandhi family for the most part. Today its dominance has been eroded, and it is only able to form coalition governments with other parties.

121 solar years ago, on this day in 1895 AD, a motion picture was shown for the first paying audience at the Grand Cafe in Paris, marking the debut of the cinema. It was produced by the celebrated French inventors and founders of the film industry, the Lumiere Brothers – Auguste and Louis – who earlier in March the same year had screened at a private audience the first movie showing workers leaving the Lumières' factory in Lyon.

110 solar years ago, on this day in 1906 AD, Iran's first Constitution, drafted by the newly formed parliament, was signed by the Qajarid king, Mozaffar od-Din Shah. It initially contained 51 articles, and later 107 more articles were added to it. The constitution was tampered with and changed constantly, especially during the despotic rule of the British-installed and American-backed Pahlavi regime. Passages pertaining to people's rule and the Islamic shari'ah were eliminated, while clauses were added to spread corruption and depravity in society for weakening the people's cultural values in order to strengthen the repressive rule of the Pahlavis. Following the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 that ended domestic despotism and foreign hegemony, the Iranian people voted for a popularly drafted constitution to replace the obsolete one.

108 solar years ago, on this day in 1908 AD, an earthquake of 7.2 degrees hit the city of Messina, in Sicily, killing over 75,000 people. The Italian mainland also suffered heavy damage, and the shocks were felt within a 300 km. Moments after the earthquake, a 12 m tsunami struck nearby coasts causing even more devastation. 91% of structures in Messina were destroyed.

48 solar years ago, on this day in 1968 AD, the illegal Zionist entity, in violation of all international laws, attacked the Beirut International Airport, destroying 13 civilian planes of several countries sitting on the tarmac. The pretext was an alleged attack on an Israeli airliner in Athens that was blamed on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), but it was no justification to breach the sovereignty of an independent country and destroy the airliners of third countries.

8 solar years ago, on this day in 2008 AD, a day after the Zionist army launched its 22-day holocaust on the besieged Gaza Strip, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa (religious decree) saying that anyone killed while defending Palestinians in Gaza would be considered a martyr. Despite the brutality of its attack that resulted in the death of almost 1,500 men, women, and children, and destruction of the infrastructure, in addition to several thousand wounded, the illegal Zionist entity failed to topple the popularly elected Hamas-led Palestinian government.

7 solar years ago, on this day in 2009 AD, on Ashura, the 10^th of Muharram, in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, some fifty mourners were martyred and hundreds of others injured while commemorating the tragedy of Karbala and the martyrdom of Imam Husain (AS), the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (blessings of God upon him and his progeny), when Takfiri terrorists blew up through remote control in the midst of a procession of mourners an unsuspecting person to whom they had handed a suitcase full of explosives, along with money as bribe to carry it through the crowd. On the same day, in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, a similar cowardly act of terrorism was carried out by the Takfiris at a procession of mourners, resulting in the martyrdom of a dozen people and wounding over a hundred others. The Takfiris are financed by Saudi Arabia and provided ammunitions by CIA and Zionist agents to tarnish the image of Islam through such dastardly acts.

3 solar years ago, on this day in 2013 AD, the repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority regime of the Persian Gulf island state of Bahrain, arrested prominent religious leader, Shaikh Ali Salman, the head of the main opposition bloc al-Wefaq, as part of the US-Saudi-Zionist backed campaign to quell the aspirations of freedom of the Shi’a Muslim majority. The regime soon released him, but in 2015 he was again illegally arrested and in a sham trial sentenced to a 9-year prison term on trumped up charges, despite the fact he and his followers advocate a peaceful non-violent struggle for materialization of the suppressed rights of the majority, without resorting to arms.

AS/ME