Today is Wednesday; 10th of the Iranian month of Mordad 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 18th of the Islamic month of Zil-Qa’dah 1439 lunar hijri; and August 1, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2048 solar years ago, on this day in 30 BC, Roman general Octavian (later Emperor Augustus Caesar), entered Alexandria, Egypt, bringing it under control of the Roman Republic, after defeating his rival Marcus Antonius, who committed suicide. During his long reign of 41 years, his most important diplomatic move was conclusion of a peace treaty with Emperor Farhad IV (Phraates IV) of Iran’s Parthian Empire that ensured peace on Rome’s eastern frontiers, in what are now Palestine, Syria, and Turkey; in addition to return of the Roman Eagle Standards lost by Crassus to the Iranians in the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC, when General Surena crushed the army of Marcus Crassus of Triumvirate that included Pompey and Julius Caesar.

2048 solar years ago, on this day in 30 BC, Roman general and politician, Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) committed suicide in Egypt at the age of 53 on being defeated by his former friend and now rival Octavian (Augustus Caesar). Antony was a confidante and military commander in the conquest of Gaul (France) of the famous Roman dictator, Julius Caesar, on whose assassination in 44 BC, he formed a triumvirate with Marcus Lepidus and Octavian (Caesar’s maternal grandnephew and adopted son) to defeat the assassins – who were supported by the Parthian Empire of Iran. The three divided the Roman domains between themselves, with Antony’s lot being the eastern provinces including Greece, the Levant, and the client kingdom of Ptolemic Egypt, whose promiscuous queen, Cleopatra, he took as his lover – a factor that brought about his downfall and his being branded as a traitor by the Senate in Rome. Without the permission of the Senate, he invaded Iranian possessions in what are now Palestine, Syria, Turkey and Armenia, with an army of about 100,000 Roman and allied troops that were financed by Cleopatra. Although after capturing Jerusalem and surrounding areas in 37 BC, he installed Herod as puppet king of Judaea, replacing the Parthian appointee Antigonus, the campaign proved a disaster. After defeats in battle, the desertion of his Armenian allies and his failure to capture Parthian strongholds, he retreated to Egypt in 36 BC and again in 34 BC, as his army lost more than a quarter of its strength. Soon his ties deteriorated with Octavian, whose sister Octavia he divorced and against whom he faced defeat after defeat until his suicide.

1491 solar years ago, on this day in 527 AD, Justin I became the sole ruler of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire. He strove to become the emperor of the western parts as well by conquering North Africa, Sicily, southern Spain and most of Italy from the Ostrogoths who had seized Rome. From his uncle and predecessor, Anastasius I, he inherited the war with Iran’s Sassanid Empire and in 532, a year after the defeat of Roman forces near Callinicum in what is now Turkey and the subsequent death of Emperor Qobad, he concluded an "Eternal Peace" with the new Iranian emperor, Khosrow I by paying 11,000 pounds of gold. This peace during his long reign of 38 years allowed him to concentrate on campaigns in Europe against Germanic tribes while in his capital Constantinople he ordered the building of a new Christian basilica in Constantinople – the Hagia Sophia, which is Greek for “Holy Wisdom” – as seat of the Greek Orthodox Church. In 540, however, the ‘Eternal Peace’ was broken because of Byzantine intrigues in Armenia which made Khosrow capture Beroea and then Antioch in Syria, resulting in the 22-year war that ended in 562 with conclusion of the “Fifty-Year Peace” and payment of 5,000 pounds of gold, plus 500 pounds of gold more each year to the Iranians by the Romans.

1389 solar years ago, on this day in 629 AD, the Chinese Buddhist monk, Hiuen Tsang (Xuanzang), started his journey to India, via Central Asia for study of religious texts. In 633, he enrolled as student at the Nalanda Monastery in Bihar (some 88 km from modern Patna), where he stayed for over a decade, before returning to China 16 years later in 645, with hundreds of manuscripts on Buddhism, including some of the most important Mahayana texts. During the next 20 years, until his death in 664, he translated seventy-five Sanskrit works into Chinese. Influenced by the Yogacara School, he established the Weishi (Ideation Only) school of Buddhism, which won many followers in Japan as the Hosso School. Before his conversion to Buddhism, he was an adherent of Confucianism.

1116 solar years ago, on this day in 902 AD, Taormina, the last Byzantine stronghold on the island of Sicily off the coast of Italy, surrendered to Muslims led by the Aghlabids, the Abbasid governors of the Province of Ifriqiyya, whose forces had already established themselves in Sicily since 827. The first Muslims to arrive in Sicily were Syrians, way back in 652. In 909 the Aghlabids, who discriminated between Arabs and Berber Muslims, were overthrown by the popular Ismaili Shi'ite revolution that established the Fatemid Dynasty in North Africa. Sicily soon passed into Fatemid hands, and the city of Taormina was renamed "al-Mu'ezziya" in honour of the Fatemid caliph, al-Mu'ez le Dinillah, whose famous Greek Muslim general from Sicily, Jowhar as-Saqali, went on to take control of Egypt from the Ikhshidid Turkic governors of the Abbasid caliphate, and build the city of Cairo as the new capital of the Fatemids. Muslim rule in Sicily lasted until 1078, when the island fell to the Norman invader, Count Roger I, who, however, kept the Arab administration intact and had Muslims among his advisers and court scholars, including the famous geographer, Seyyed Mohammad al-Hassani al-Idrisi. Muslim influence and Arabic language continued in Sicily till the 1240s when the last of the Muslims were deported from the island and mosques turned into churches.

1072 solar years ago, on this day in 946 AD, Ali Ibn Isa Ibn Da’ud al-Jarrah, the famous Iranian vizier of the Abbasid dynasty, died at the age of 87. Descended from a family with long history of service at the Abbasid court, he served as vizier from 913-to-917, 918-to-923, and 927-to-928. His political career, coinciding with the terminal decline of the Abbasid state, was turbulent, marked by a power struggle with his rival Abu’l-Hasan Ali Ibn al-Furat, resulting in frequent periods of exile, when the latter took over as vizier. Al-Jarrah, in contrast to the largesse of Ibn al-Furat, was austere, which earned him many enemies. He was later remembered as the "good vizier" for his administrative talent and honesty.

1000 lunar years ago, on this day in 439 AH, the prominent Iranian Muslim mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet, Ghiyas od-Din Omar Ibn Ibrahim Khayyam, was born in Naishapour, Khorasan, in northeastern Iran. He studied in Balkh, Samarqand and Bukhara, before joining the court of the Seljuq ruler, Malik Shah, as scientific advisor. He set up an observatory in his hometown and led work on compiling astronomical tables. To him goes the credit of reforming the solar hijri calendar on the basis of the Spring Equinox, which is still in use in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and parts of Central Asia, the Caucasus, Iraq, Anatolia, and the Subcontinent. This calendar, known as Jalali, is more perfect than the Gregorian Christian calendar that was imposed on Muslim countries by the colonialists after World War 1. Among Khayyam's works, his book on algebra was until the last century taught as textbook in Iran. In geometry, he reformed the generalities of Euclid and contributed to the theory of parallel lines. His contributions to other fields of science included developing methods for the accurate determination of specific gravity. He is known to the English-speaking world for his “rubaiyyaat” (quatrains) whose English translation was published in 1859 by Edward Fitzgerald, although in the Islamic east he remains the astronomer and mathematician that he was, rather than a poet, since whatever he composed of poetry were casual expressions during his rare leisure hours after strenuous scientific studies and experiments. He died at the age of 85 and was buried in his native Naishapour in the courtyard of the shrine of Imamzadah Mohammad al-Mahruq, a descendant of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).

370 solar years ago, on this day in 1648 AD, the independence of Switzerland was recognized by the Treaty of Westphalia following the end of the 30-Year War in Europe. Landlocked Switzerland covers an area of 41293 sq km and is situated in Central Europe. It shares borders with Germany, Italy, Austria, and Liechtenstein.

354 solar years ago, on this day in 1664 AD, Ottoman forces were defeated in the battle of Saint Gotthard in what is now western Hungary by an army of Austrian and allied forces, resulting in the Peace of Vasvar that lasted for almost 20 years until the Second Siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683.

274 solar years ago, on this day in 1744 AD, French biologist and naturalist, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, was born. He catapulted to fame with his book on plants of France titled “Flore Francaise”. His next book was a scientific lexicon. He conducted research on live invertebrates and fossils, and wrote the book, titled: “Zoological Philosophy: Exposition with Regard to the Natural History of Animals”. He died in 1829.

199 solar years ago, on this day in 1819 AD, Herman Melville, US novelist, short story writer, and poet, was born in New York. His best known work is his whaling novel “Moby-Dick” (1851), in which he drew his own experiences as a sailor.

124 solar years ago, on this day in 1894 AD, the First Sino-Japanese War erupted between Japan and China over Korea.

104 solar years ago, on this day in 1914 AD, with Germany’s declaration of war against Russia, World War I broke out. Three days earlier, Austria had declared war on Serbia following assassination of its crown prince in Sarajevo. Soon the other powers of Europe were dragged in, and the war lasted four years. The Allied Powers triumphed over the German led Axis Powers, resulting in the death of at least nine million people, in addition to five million soldiers missing in action, and twenty-nine million physically disabled. After termination of World War I, the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 imposed harsh conditions on Germany, which was one of the factors for break out of World War II twenty years later.

66 lunar years ago, on this day in 1373 AH, the renowned Islamic scholar and literary figure of Iraq, Ayatollah Mohammad Hussain Kashef al-Gheta, passed away. He was born in a virtuous academic family in the holy city of Najaf. He learned preliminary Islamic sciences at a young age and soon attained high scholarly status by attending the classes of prominent ulema, such as Akhound Khorasani. Ayatollah Kashef al-Gheta groomed many students and wrote several books. He also visited a number of Muslim states to promote Islamic teachings, delivering memorable speeches at the universities and scientific centers of Iran, Egypt, and Palestine. He considered presence of Muslims in political affairs as a must, and played a vital role in the Islamic movement of the Iraqi people against the British, who exiled him to Iran after crushing the 1920 revolution and martyring Ayatollah Mirza Mohammad Taqi Shirazi. Among his books, mention can be made of a diwan of poems and the book “as-Siyasat al-Husainiyyah” on the philosophy behind the epoch-making uprising of the Martyr of Karbala, Imam Husain (AS) – the younger grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA)

58 solar years ago, on this day in 1960 AD, Benin in West Africa declared its independence from French colonial rule that had started in 1892. Called Dahomey by the French, Benin has a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean and covers an area of over 112,000 sq km, sharing borders with Nigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Togo.

58 solar years ago, on this day in 1960 AD, newly built Islamabad was declared capital of Pakistan, replacing nearby Rawalpindi. Following partition of the Subcontinent, the port city of Karachi had initially served as capital.

AS/MG