Today is Monday; 2nd of the Iranian month of Farvardin 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 11th of the Islamic month of Jamadi as-Sani 1437 lunar hijri; and March 21, 2016, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

1039 lunar years ago, on this day in 398 AH, the acclaimed Iranian literary figure, author, and poet, Ahmad ibn Hussain, Badi oz-Zamaan Fazel-e Hamedani, passed away in Khorasan in the northeastern Iranian city of Herat, at the age of 40. Born in the western Iranian city of Hamedan, he was highly talented in both Arabic and Persian prose and poetry. At the age of 21 he went to Gorgan, northern Iran, where he remained for two years; then journeying through Khorasan and Sistan, he finally settled in Herat under the protection of the vizier of Sultan Mahmoud Ghaznavi. He is best known for his work titled “Maqamaat” – a collection of 52 episodic stories of a rogue. Among his works is an excellent Diwan of poems.

790 lunar years ago, on this day in 647 AH, the renowned hadith scholar, Hassan ibn Dawoud Hilli, was born in Hillah in Iraq. He was a student of such great scholars as Seyyed Jamal od-Din Ahmad bin Musa Ibn Tawous, and Shaikh Najm od-Din Muhaqqiq Hilli (maternal uncle of the famous Allamah Hilli). He is the author of a famous book on Rijal or biographical evaluation of hadith narrators. He was the first person to arrange the names along with the names of fathers and grandfathers. He included in his book all the information available in other books of Rijal, although at times he seems to have erred in tracing genealogical tables, but not in his objections to the mistakes of earlier authors. Ibn Dawoud Hilli has many other works to his credit relating to jurisprudence, both in prose and poetry.

783 lunar years ago, on this day in 654 AH, the historian and Arabic literary figure, Kamal od-Din Ahmad ibn Hamdan ibn Mubarak, passed away in Aleppo, Syria. Born in Mosul in Iraq, he spent fifty years collecting material about poets and authors, resulting in compilation of the valuable book “Oqoud al-Jamaan”.

474 solar years ago, on this day in 1542 AD, Naseer od-Din Humayun Shah, with financial and military aid provided by Shah Tahmasb Safavi of Iran, reached Qandahar and after liberating it handed it over to the Iranian army as promised during his refuge in Qazvin following his loss of India to the Pashto adventurer, Sher Shah Suri. After the death of Sher Shah, he wrested control of India with Iranian help to re-establish the Mughal Empire founded by his father, Zaheer od-Din Babar – a protégé of Shah Ismail I, the founder of the Safavid Empire of Iran.

460 solar years ago, on this day in 1556 AD, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake in Oxford after two years of imprisonment on charges of treason and heresy on the orders of Queen Mary I, who was a Catholic opposed to the separation of the Anglican Church from Rome. As a pioneer of English Reformation he had helped build the case for annulment of the marriage of Henry VIII to Mary’s mother, Catherine of Aragon, which was one of the causes of the separation of the English Church from Rome. During Cranmer's tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, he was responsible for establishing the first doctrinal and liturgical structures of the Church of England. He succeeded in publishing the first officially authorised vernacular service, the “Exhortation” and the “Litany”. His legacy lives on within the Church of England through the “Book of Common Prayer” and the “Thirty-Nine Articles”. The Anglican Communion commemorates Cranmer as a Reformation Martyr on 21 March every year.

288 lunar years ago, on this day in 1149 AH, as per the Second Treaty of Istanbul between the Ottoman Turkish Empire and the Safavid Persian Empire, the 6-year war came to its end, with Iraq and the Caucasus restored to Iranian control. The military commander, Nader Qoli, who was dissatisfied by the loss of territory to the Ottomans by Shah Tahmasp II as per the clauses of a treaty signed 4 years earlier, revived the might of Iran with his victories, deposed Abbas III to end the Safavid Dynasty, crowned himself as Nader Shah, and forced the Ottomans to hand over to Iran both Tiblisi the capital of Georgia, and Yerevan the capital of Armenia, as per the terms of the new treaty.

248 solar years ago, on this day in 1768 AD, French mathematician and Egyptologist, Joseph Fourier, who exerted strong influence on mathematical physics through his “Théorie analytique de la chaleur” (The Analytical Theory of Heat), was born. He introduced an infinite mathematical series to solve conduction equations. This analysis technique allows the function of any variable to be expanded into a series of sines of multiples of the variable, which is now known as the “Fourier Series”. His equations which spawned many new areas of study in mathematics and physics, including the branch of optics named after him, have subsequently been applied other natural phenomena such as tides, weather and sunspots.

222 solar years ago, on this day in 1794 AD, with the end of the 44-year rule of the Zand Dynasty a day before, following the defeat of Lotf Ali Khan in Kerman, the brutal victor, Agha Mohammad Khan proclaimed himself the Shah of the new Qajarid Dynasty that lasted till its overthrow in 1925 by the British agent, Reza Khan Pahlavi. Through a tactics of terror and treachery, Agha Mohammad Khan went on to take control of all the provinces of the erstwhile Safavid Empire including Khorasan and the Caucasus, before being assassinated in Qarabagh on the Azarbaijan-Armenia borders after a reign of only three years and two months, and was succeeded by his nephew Fath Ali Shah.

215 solar years ago, on this day in 1801 AD, the Battle of Alexandria was fought between British and French forces near the ruins of Nicopolis in Egypt on the narrow spit of land between the Mediterranean Sea and Lake Abuqir. The British marched upon Alexandria and besieged it. The French surrendered in September.

159 solar years ago, on this day in 1857 AD, a devastating earthquake in Tokyo, Japan, killed over 100,000 people.

145 solar years ago, on this day in 1871 AD, Otto von Bismarck was made “Chancellor” of the German Empire, which came into existence as a result of his engineering of a series of wars to unify German states (excluding Austria) under the leadership of Prussia, whose ruler, King Wilhelm I appointed him “Minister President”. On becoming chancellor he skillfully used balance of power diplomacy to preserve German hegemony in a Europe which, despite many disputes and war scares, remained at peace. He provoked three short, decisive wars against Denmark, Austria and France, aligning the smaller German states behind Prussia in defeating archenemy France. His diplomacy of “realpolitik” and powerful rule at home gained him the nickname the “Iron Chancellor”. German unification and its rapid economic growth was the result of his foreign policy.

81 solar years ago, on this day in 1935 AD, Iran formally asked the international community not to use anymore the Greek-European term “Persia” for the country and to call it the by its native name “Iran” in all documents.

79 solar years ago, on this day in 1937 AD, Ponce Massacre: Nineteen people in Ponce, Puerto Rico, were gunned down by a police squad acting under orders of US-appointed Governor, Blanton C. Winship.

53 solar years ago, on this day in 1963 AD, the Pahlavi regime desecrated the sanctity of the Faiziyyeh Islamic Seminary in the holy city of Qom, since it was one of the important bases of the Iranian people's Islamic movement. In this barbaric attack, a large number of ulema and students were battered, beaten, and thrown down from rooftops. Several of them attained martyrdom. This incident was a prelude to the historic uprising of June 5, 1963, and finally the victory of the Islamic Revolution in February 1979.

56 solar years ago, on this day in 1960 AD, the apartheid regime of South Africa massacred in Sharpeville a group of unarmed peaceful black demonstrators, killing over 70 and wounding some 200 others. The uproar among South Africa's black population was immediate, and the following week saw demonstrations, protest marches, strikes, and riots around the country. More than 18,000 people, including prominent anti-apartheid activists known as members of the Congress Alliance were detained. On the 5th anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre, UNESCO designated March 21 as “International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination”. Since 1994, March 21 has been commemorated as Human Rights Day in South Africa. Sharpeville was the site chosen by President Nelson Mandela for signing into law of the Constitution of South Africa on 10 December 1996.

48 solar years ago, on this day in 1968 AD, the Battle of Karameh in Jordan occurred between Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the illegal Zionist entity, called Israel, which attacked a Palestinian camp. In this battle, at least 1230 Zionist troops were killed and dozens of their tanks and armored vehicles were destroyed or seized by the Palestinian guerrillas.

34 solar years ago, on this day in 1982 AD, the heroic "Fath ol-Mobin" operations were launched by the Iranian Muslim combatants to drive out Saddam's invading army. These operations led to liberation of parts of southwestern Iran from Ba'thist occupation, and ended the military threats against the Iranian cities of Dezful, Andimeshk, Shoush, and hundreds of villages. Over 25,000 invading Ba'thist troops were killed and wounded and 15,000 others taken captive, while a large number of enemy equipment was destroyed or seized.

26 solar years ago, on this day in 1990 AD, Namibia gained independence from South Africa. Namibia, in southwestern Africa was occupied in the 19th century by Germany, which plundered the wealth of this country. After World War I, Britain seized Namibia and handed it to the apartheid regime of South Africa. With the formation of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) in 1960, the freedom struggle started in 1976, SWAPO gained the right to vote at the United Nations. Nonetheless, the South African regime, with the support of Western regimes continued its domination over Namibia until the year 1990, in which the struggles of Namibian people bore fruit and the country gained its independence. Namibia covers an area of 824268 sq km and shares borders with Angola, Zambia, Botswana, and South Africa.

17 solar years ago, in 1999 AD, a balloon achieved the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight. After 20 days of flight, the experimental Breitling Orbiter 3 balloon, flown by Brian Jones and Bertrand Piccard, touched down in the Egyptian desert. Bertrand is the grandson of the balloon flight pioneer, Auguste Piccard.

3 solar years ago, on this day in 2013 AD, Syria’s top Sunni Muslim cleric, Sheikh Mohammad Sa’eed Ramadhan al-Bouthi, was martyred at the age of 84 by Takfiri terrorists while giving a religious lesson to students at the Iman Mosque in the central Mazraa district of Damascus. The bomb attack killed at least 42 people and wounded more than 84. Al-Bouthi, who was elected the Chief Sheikh or religious authority for the whole of Greater Syria (including Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan), was targeted for preaching Islamic unity and warning of the dangers of US-Zionist plot against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.