Today is Thursday; 20th of the Iranian month of Esfand 1394 solar hijri; corresponding to 30th of the Islamic month of Jamadi al-Awwal 1437 lunar hijri; and March 10, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2257 solar years ago, on this day in 241 BC, the Battle of the Aegates Island, off the coast of Sicily, was won by the Romans who sank the Carthaginian fleet to bring the First Punic War to its end after 23 years of seesaw fighting, mainly on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters and also to a lesser extent in North Africa. Carthage, located in what is now Tunisia, was the dominant Western Mediterranean power at the beginning of the conflicts, controlling an empire extending from the coasts of what is now Libya to Morocco, as well as southeastern parts of Spain and the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, and the Balearic Archipelago .The series of wars between the two powers vying for supremacy were known to the Romans as the "Punic Wars" because of the Latin name for Carthaginians: “Punici”, derived from Phoenicia, in what is now Lebanon, to which the Semitic-speaking peoples of Carthage in North Africa traced their origins.

1005 lunar years ago, on this day in 432 AH, the Iranian scholar Abu’l-Abbas Ja’far ibn Mohammad al-Mustaghfiri, passed away. Born in Nasaf near the Iranian city of Samarqand, in what is now the Republic of Uzbekistan, he is famous for his compilation of the medical manual attributed to Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) and titled “Tibb an-Nabi”. Both Khwaja Naseer od-Din Tusi and Allamah Mohammad Baqer Majlisi have praised his work. Although a follower of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, he was a devotee of Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) Ahl al-Bayt.

724 solar years ago, on this day in 1291 AD, Arghun Khan, the 4th ruler of the Mongol Ilkhanid Dynasty of Iran, Iraq, and parts of Syria and Anatolia, died after a reign of seven years during which he sent delegations, at least four times, to the Pope in Rome and to major European powers for forging a Buddhist-Christian alliance in a bid to exterminate Islam and Muslims. The plan never materialized because of the growing power and resolve of the Turkic Mamluk rulers of Egypt-Syria in defeating both the Buddhist Mongols and the European Crusaders. Arghun was son of Abaqa Khan and his Christian wife, Haimash Khatun, and the grandson of the destroyer of Baghdad, Hulagu Khan. He had seized the throne from his uncle Tekudar ‘Ahmad’ Khan and executed him for having become Muslim. He also martyred the Iranian vizier, Shams od-Din Mohammad ibn Baha od-Din Juwaini, who had served efficiently for 22 years under three Ilkhans – Hulagu, Abaqa and Ahmad Tekuder. His then appointed as vizier the Jewish Sa’d od-Dowla Ebheri, who openly hurt the sentiments of Iranian Muslims. Arghun baptized his sons, Ghazaan and Oljeitu as Christians, but the two brothers who eventually rose to the throne as the 7th and 8th Ilkhans, after the brief reigns of their uncle (Geikhatu) and father’s cousin (Baydu), became Muslims – along with over 100,000 other Mongols. They transformed the Ilkhanid Dynasty into a bastion of Islam with promotion of Persian culture and language and adherence to the path of the Ahl al-Bayt of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).

280 solar years ago, on this day in 1735 AD, an agreement between Nader Shah Afshar of Iran and Czarist Russia was signed near Ganja in what is now the Republic of Azerbaijan, according to which the Russian troops were withdrawn from Baku. The Russians also ended their occupation of Daghestan when Nader Shah threatened to march upon Moscow.

212 solar years ago, on this day in 1804 AD, a formal ceremony was conducted to transfer ownership of the Louisiana Territory from France to the United States. This area like the rest of the southern and western states of the US was under Spain’s jurisdiction. On 30th November 1803 AD, Spanish representatives had officially transferred the Louisiana Territory in North America to a French representative, and just 20 days later, France sold the same land to the United States in a deal known as the as the Louisiana Purchase. 

155 solar years ago, on this day in 1861 AD, Umar Ta’l seized the important West African city of Segou in Mali, after a series of victories that ended the animist Bambara kingdom, thereby preventing it from serving as a base for penetration of the region by the French colonialists. He thus founded a brief Islamic empire, encompassing much of Senegal, Mali and Guinea. Born in Futa Tooro, Senegal, he was a political leader, Islamic scholar, and military commander, who in his youth, after performing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, had stayed for six years in Damascus to acquire higher Islamic studies. In Syria, he was highly impressed by the trends and tactics of the Ottoman Turkish governor, Ibrahim Pasha, whom he befriended. On returning to West Africa, he assumed leadership of the Tijaniyya Sufi brotherhood in the Sudan. Umar Ta’l remains a legendary figure in Senegal, Guinea, and Mali, and is remembered as a hero of the anti-French resistance.

155 solar years ago, on this day in 1861 AD, the Canadian Poetess, Pauline Johnson, was born. She was from the Mohawk Red Indian Tribe, a large group of which were forced to emigrate from the US to Canada. This talented poetess has left behind four collections of poems. She died in 1913.

140 solar years ago, on this day in 1876 AD, Scottish-American inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, after years of experiments and designs of various apparatuses by different scientists, spoke the famous sentence "Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you" into the liquid transmitter he had invented, while Watson, listening at the receiving end in an adjoining room, heard the words clearly. This was in effect the first telephone call. The conversation between Bell and his assistant, Thomas Watson, happened in Boston. The same day, an ebullient Bell wrote his father of his "great success" and speculated that "the day is coming when telegraph [phone] wires will be laid on to houses just like water and gas - and friends converse with each other without leaving home." Bell received the first telephone patent three days before. Later that year, Bell succeeded in making a phone call over outdoor lines

120 solar years ago, on this day in 1896 AD, Italian troops, which had attacked Abyssinia (present day Ethiopia), were crushed in Adowa region. The aim of Italian forces was to occupy Abyssinia and to establish a link between two of their colonies in the Horn of Africa – Eritrea and Somaliland. Despite the modern military equipment of the Italian army, the Abyssinian forces triumphed and inflicted major fatalities and financial losses on the aggressors. Italy, under the Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, occupied Ethiopia from 1936 until its defeat in 1941 during World War 2.

48 solar years ago, on this day in 1968 AD, during the Vietnam War, the Battle of Lima Site 85, resulted in the largest single ground combat loss of United States Air Force members (12) during the American aggression. 

41 solar years ago, on this day in 1975 AD, during the Vietnam War, the Ho Chi Minh Campaign was launched by North Vietnamese troops on Ban Mê Thuột, South Vietnam, as a prelude to the capture of Saigon on the final push for victory over US-supported secessionist state of South Vietnam.

31 solar years ago, on this day in 1985 AD, the prominent jurisprudent, Ayatollah Seyyed Hussein Khademi, passed away at the age of 83. Born in Isfahan, he was a product of the famous seminary of holy Najaf in Iraq, where he attained Ijtehad at the young age of 26, after studies under such leading ulema as Ayatollah Mirza Mohammad Hussain Na’ini, Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Hassan Isfahani, and Shaikh Mohammad Jawad Balaghi. On his return to Iran, he became politically active against the repressive policies of the British-installed Reza Khan Pahlavi, especially the ban on women’s hijab and the brutal suppression of Islamic culture and values. Later, Ayatollah Khademi participated in the campaign for nationalization of Iran’s oil industry led by Ayatollah Seyyed Abu’l-Qassem Kashani. In 1963, with the start of the struggles of The Father of Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (God bless him), for establishment of the sacred Islamic system in Iran, Ayatollah Khademi stepped up his political activities that culminated in the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

25 solar years ago, on this day in 1990 AD, Pakistani poet, Dr. Abdul-Hamid Irfani, passed away at the age of 80. He played a leading role in reviving the Islamic culture and countering the West’s cultural invasion, as one of the prominent students of the acclaimed philosopher- poet of the subcontinent, Allama Iqbal Lahori. Dr. Irfani compiled more than 40 books in different fields; several of which have been published in Iran. In 1945, two years before the birth of Pakistan, he was sent to Iran as an English lecturer by the British Indian government. After independence in 1947, he stayed in Iran as the cultural and press attache at the embassy of Pakistan in Tehran. On returning to Pakistan, Dr, Irfani lectured at Lahore’s Punjab University.

AS/ME