Today is Sunday; 10th of the Iranian month of Ordibehesht 1396 solar hijri; corresponding to 3rd of the Islamic month of Sha’ban 1438 lunar hijri; and April 30, 2017, of the Christian Gregorian calendar.

1706 solar years ago, on this day in 311 AD, the 8-year persecution of the monotheist followers of Prophet Jesus, as well as the Christians, launched by pagan Roman Emperor Diocletian, ended with the death of his successor, Galerius, who was also an obstinate pagan. Diocletian, who resigned two years after officially launching the persecution, also ordered the persecution of Manicheans, as a political ploy, compounding religious dissent with international politics, since followers of this creed amongst the Romans were supported by the Sassanid Empire of Iran. Diocletian ordered that the leading followers of Mani be burnt alive along with their scriptures, while low-status Manicheans must be executed by the blade, and high-status Manicheans must be sent to work in the quarries and mines.

1434 lunar years ago, on this day in 4^th AH, Imam Husain (AS), the younger grandson and 3^rd Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA), was born in Medina. Hailed by the Prophet as the Twin Leader of the Youths of Paradise, along with his elder brother, Imam Hasan Mojtaba (AS), the Martyr of Karbala needs no introduction. Later in our programme you will listen to a special feature on the life and times of Imam Husain (AS), whose birthday is marked in the Islamic Republic of Iran as Roz-e Pasdar or Day of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), in view of their self-sacrificing role in defence of the values of the Islamic Revolution and national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran. We extend hearty felicitation to conscientious people all over the world.

1378 lunar years ago, on this day in 60 AH, Imam Husain (AS) arrived in Mecca after leaving his hometown Medina on the night of Rajab 29, following the demand of the Godless Yazid conveyed through governor Waleed ibn Otbah of Medina, to give oath of allegiance to his illegitimate rule. The Meccans received the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) with great rejoicing and reverence as they had seen the Prophet openly showering his love and affection for him. They also remembered the Prophet’s oft-repeated words of praise for his two grandsons, including the famous hadith, “Hasan and Husain are the Two Leaders of the Youth of Paradise.” They gathered around him, and in view of the approaching Hajj pilgrimage that brought more and more people from far-off places, such gatherings swelled as Muslims swarmed around him to clarify their doubts in matters of religion, science, commerce, rights, obligations, morals, ethics, etc. This alarmed the tyrant Yazid in Damascus, and he sent assassins in the garb of pilgrims. To avoid any bloodshed in the most inviolable place, the Imam left for Iraq four months later on Zilhijja 8, especially in view of the fact that he had received thousands of letters from the people of Kufa.

1011 solar years ago, on this day in 1006 AD, at a time when Christian Europe was immersed in the dark ages, Islamic astronomers in Buwaiyhid-ruled Iraq and Fatemid-ruled Egypt recorded a supernova, giving descriptions of how light varied and was visible for almost a year. The speed of the still-expanding shockwave was measured nearly a millennium later. This is history's brightest "new star" ever recorded, at first seen to be brighter than the planet Venus. It occurred in our Milky Way galaxy, appearing in the southern constellation Lupus, near the star Beta Lupi. It was also recorded by Chinese astronomers as is evident from their books.

987 solar years ago, on this day in 1030 AD, Sultan Mahmoud Ghaznavi, the ruler of an emirate in what is now Afghanistan which he enlarged into an empire by conquering Khorasan, Eastern Iran, and parts of Central Asia and Northwest India including today’s Pakistan, died at the age of 60 in his birthplace Ghazni, after a rule of 33 years. He was the son of Sebuktagin, the Turkic slave and successor as governor of Eastern Khorasan of Alptigin, who himself was a Turkic slave and general of the Bukhara-based Persian Samanid Dynasty of Central Asia and Northeastern Iran. He led 17 expeditions into India, as far as Gujarat and what is now Uttar Pradesh, bringing in vast booty to finance his principal campaigns against the Shi’a Muslim Buwaiyhid Dynasty of Iran-Iraq and against the Khwarezmshahis and Samanids in Central Asia. Mahmoud, who massacred the Ismaili Shi’ites of Multan, killed more Muslims during his military campaigns than the Hindus of India, most of whose territories, except for Punjab, he left intact under their own control, contenting himself with annual tribute, and even circulating coins with Islamic emblems in Sanskrit script. During his raids in Iran, Mahmoud brought whole libraries from Rayy and Isfahan to Ghazni. He even demanded that the Khwarezmshahi court send its men of learning to Ghazni his capital, such as the famous scientists, Abu Rayhan Berouni and Abu Ali ibn Sina – although the latter declined and fled into the interior of the Buwaiyhid Empire. The notable poet Abu’l-Qassem Ferdowsi presented his masterpiece the “Shahnamah” to Mahmoud, who failed to appreciate his genius. Sultan Mahmoud, who received the title Yameen od-Dowla from the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, was a paradoxical person. In Afghanistan, Pakistan and among the Indian Muslims, he is celebrated as a hero, while others revile him. He was a great patron of arts, architecture, Persian literature and Iranian culture. He appointed Iranians to high offices as ministers, viziers and generals. In addition, he preferred and promoted Persian language instead of his native Turkic, and adopted the “Shir-va-Khorshid” or the Lion and Sun flag which was a symbol of pre-Islamic Iran

460 solar years ago, on this day in 1557 AD, Lautaro, the heroic leader of the Mapuche Amerindians of Chile, who resisted and defeated the Spanish occupiers in several battles, was treacherously killed by Spanish forces at the Battle of Mataquito.

240 solar years ago, on this day in 1777 AD, the famous German astronomer and mathematician, Carl Friedrich Gauss, was born. He transformed the science of mathematics since the great inventions by Islamic mathematicians of mostly Iranian origin, and for his contributions to theory in magnetism and electricity, a unit of magnetic field has been named “the Gauss”. He devised the method of least squares in statistics, and his Gaussian error curve remains well-known. He anticipated the SI system in his proposal that physical units should be based on a few absolute units such as length, mass and time. In astronomy, he invented the heliotrope for trigonometric determination of the Earth's shape. With Wilhelm Weber, he developed an electromagnetic telegraph and two magnetometers. In religion, he rejected the Christian Bible as forgery, saying his beliefs were based on search for truth. He believed in the immortality of the soul and its permanence after death, with belief in the Eternal, Righteous, Omniscient and Omnipotent God that make his beliefs near to the Islamic concept of the One and Only Creator.

225 solar years ago, on this day in 1792 AD, John Montagu, British politician, inventor, explorer, and 4^th Earl of Sandwich in Kent for whom the snack “Sandwich” is named, and which he invented in 1762, died at the age of 75. It is said that while working at his desk for long hours, he used to tell his servants to bring him meat between two slices of bread. Captain Cook named the Sandwich Islands (in Hawaii) in his honour. As First Lord of Admiralty (1771-82) during the American Revolution, he was held responsible for the British navy's disastrous unpreparedness for war.

214 solar years ago, on this day in 1803 AD, the United States of America, as part of its expansionist policy, paid $15 million to France to take control of 2.14 million km of disputed land, which Spain had earlier seized from the native Amerindians and named it New Spain. The dubious deal, known as the Louisiana Purchase, more than doubled the size of the US. It encompasses the present-day states of Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska; parts of Minnesota west of the Mississippi River; most of North Dakota; nearly all of South Dakota; northeastern New Mexico; northern Texas; the portions of Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado east of the Continental Divide; and Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including the city of New Orleans. Parts of this area were still claimed by Spain at the time of the purchase.

187 lunar years ago, on this day in 1251 AH, the Iranian Gnostic and poet, Mirza Mohammad Hussain Isfahani, popular as Safi Ali Shah was born in Isfahan. He followed the Ne’matollahi Sufi Order. He visited India at the age of 27 on the invitation of the self-styled Imam of the Ismaili sect, Aqa Ali Shah Mahallati, and after performing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, settled in Tehran, where he established a hospice and a printing press. Safi Ali Shah composed a versified interpretation of the holy Qur’an. He has to his credit four versified works and three books on prose. He passed away at the age of 65 and was buried in his hospice.

181 solar years ago, on this day in 1834 AD, John Lubbock, British banker, politician, naturalist and archaeologist who coined the terms “Neolithic” and “Paleolithic”, was born. He undertook archaeological work identifying prehistoric cultures. As a naturalist, he studied insect vision and colour sense. He published several books on natural history and primitive man.

146 solar years ago, on this day in 1871 AD, the Camp Grant Massacre of Amerindians occurred in Arizona. Despite the fact that the Pinal and Aravaipa Apaches had surrendered to the US forces, the unmanly massacre of mostly women and children took place while most of the Apache men were hunting in the mountains. A total of 144 Aravaipas and Pinals were killed, mutilated, and nearly all of them scalped in a shocking manner by the supposedly civilized Americans, while 29 children were captured and sold into slavery in Mexico.

121 solar years ago, on this day in 1896 AD, with the assassination of the 4^th Qajarid King, Naser od-Din Shah, a bleak 50-year era of Iran’s history came to its end and the stage was set for the Constitutional Revolution. He was shot dead by the freedom-seeker, Mirza Reza Kirmani, a follower of the famous pan-Islamic campaigner, Seyyed Jamal od-Din Asadabadi, at the shrine of Seyyed Abdul-Azim al-Hasani (AS) in Rayy, south of Tehran. Naser od-Din Shah’s long rule is marred by bitter incidents such as murder of the highly competent Prime Minister, Mirza Mohammad Taqi Khan Amir Kabir; the Russo-British struggle for control of Iran, and the scandalous tobacco concession to a British company that had to be annulled because of the historic fatwa issued by Ayatollah Mirza Hassan Shirazi.

120 solar years ago, on this day in 1897 AD, British scientist, Joseph John Thomson, first announced the existence of electrons (as they are now named). He told his audience that earlier in the year he had made a surprising discovery. He had found a particle of matter a thousand times smaller than the atom. He called it a corpuscle, meaning "small body." Although Thomson was director of the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, the scientists present found the news hard to believe. They thought the atom was the smallest and indivisible part of matter that could exist. Nevertheless, the electron was the first elementary particle to be discovered.

119 lunar years ago, on this day in 1319 AH, the scholar, Ayatollah Seyyed Hussein Khademi, was born. He was a product of the Najaf Seminary and attained Ijtehad. He was also politically active and stood up against the repressive policies of the British-installed Reza Khan Pahlavi, who brutally suppressed Islamic culture and values. Ayatollah Khademi participated in the campaign for nationalization of Iran’s oil industry. With the start of the struggles of The Father of Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), for establishment of the sacred Islamic system in Iran, he stepped up his political activities that culminated in the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

72 solar years ago, on this day in 1945 AD, Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, committed suicide in a bunker in the German capital, Berlin, when the Allied forces converged from all sides for the final assault upon him to end World War 2. Born in Austria in 1889, he joined the German army in World War I, and after the war, resentful of the humiliating defeat, founded the Nazi Party by blending his socialist and radical nationalistic views. He was imprisoned for eight months in 1923 for attempts to stage a coup, during which he wrote his book “Mein Kemp” (My Struggle), to introduce his political beliefs. Shortly after release he became German chancellor and a year later the German president. Thereafter, through the dreaded Gestapo, he suppressed his opponents and heavily militarized Germany as part of his plan to avenge the defeat in World War 1. In 1939 he started World War 2 with the goal of conquering all of Europe and if possible the world, by forging alliances with Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. After initial victories all over Europe, the German Nazi forces were pushed back and finally defeated in 1945.

66 solar years ago, on this day in 1951 AD, Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq was formally appointed Prime Minister of Iran following his nomination by the elected Majlis (parliament) by a vote of 79 in favour and 12 against. He launched a wide range of social reforms: unemployment compensation was introduced, factory owners were ordered to pay benefits to sick and injured workers, and peasants were freed from forced labor in their landlords' estates. Twenty percent of the money landlords received in rent was placed in a fund to pay for development projects such as public baths, rural housing, and pest control. On May 1, Mosaddeq nationalized AIOC or the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, cancelling its oil concession and expropriating its assets. The Majlis approved the bill to severe British hands from the Iranian oil industry. Britain filed a case against Iran at the International Court of Justice in Hague, but lost it. As a result, the British and the American regimes ganged up together to overthrow Mosaddeq and his cabinet in 1953 by plotting the August 17 coup that restored the fugitive Shah to power, and re-established foreign control over Iran’s oil industry.

47 solar years ago, on this day in 1970 AD, the Iranian poet, author, and painter, Ismail Ashtiani, passed away. After completing his studies at Tehran’s Dar ol-Fonoun Academy, he learned painting under the acclaimed Iranian painter, Kamal ol-Mulk. Later he became a teacher at Dar al-Fonoun and in 1928 its principal. He soon established the academy’s library and introduced new courses such as history of arts and mathematics in the curriculum. He has left behind numerous paintings. Among his literary works, mention can be made of his Diwan of poetry, and European Travelogue. Given his relentless and untiring efforts in teaching, Ismail Ashtiani was awarded an honorary PhD in 1946.

42 solar years ago, on this day in 1975 AD, with the Vietcong capture of Saigon, capital of the pseudo state of South Vietnam, the country once again became united and the decades-long war – begun by the French and continued by the Americans – formally ended, as South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh unconditionally surrendered to the communists. The US, which intervened in Vietnam on the pretext of preventing spread of communism, suffered a humiliating defeat with the loss of over 50,000 American soldiers, despite indulging in brutal war crimes against the people of Vietnam, including mass massacres and use of internationally-banned chemical weapons. Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City in honour of the famed revolutionary leader, who for decades had led the untiring struggles for a united and independent Vietnam – against French colonialism, against the Japanese occupiers, against the designs of Chiang Kai-shek of pre-communist China, against France’s bid to re-impose its rule after World War 2, and finally against the Americans. 

37 solar years ago, on this day in 1980 AD, the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in London was occupied by a group of anti-revolutionaries, five days after the failure of the stealth US commando mission in Tabas. A group of six armed men stormed the Iranian embassy in South Kensington, and took twenty embassy staffers as hostage, along with some six visitors and a police officer, who was on guard. The hostage-takers demanded the release of several terrorists in Iran who were nabbed for their role in bomb blasts in the southern parts of the country. Tehran rejected their demands, and on May 5, the frustrated terrorists martyred two employees when the special British forces mounted a raid and reportedly killed five of the gunmen. Part of the embassy was damaged in the exchange of gunfire.

35 solar years ago, on this day in 1982 AD, the Bayt al-Moqaddas operations were launched by Iran’s Muslim combatants in the southwestern war zone to drive out the Ba’thist occupation forces from Iran’s soil. Twenty-five days later, Iran liberated the whole areas including the port city of Khorramshahr, resulting in the death of 16,000 enemy troops, the capture of 19,000 others, and the downing of scores of warplanes.

Ordibehesht 10: is marked every year as Persian Gulf National Day to highlight the age-old historical term of this strategic waterway that separates the Iranian Plateau from the Arabian Peninsula, and has always been under Iran’s domination. Some 40 percent of the world’s crude oil supplies pass through the Strait of Hormuz that connects the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean. Following the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the Americans, along with their client regimes in the Arab World, have been trying to create a rift between the Muslims of the region by coining the spurious name “Arab Gulf”, which is rejected by scholars, academicians, historians, geographers, and international bodies.

AS/ME