Today is Sunday; 15th of the Iranian month of Mehr 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 27th of the Islamic month of Muharram 1440 lunar hijri; and October 7, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

447 solar years ago, on this day in 1571 AD, the decisive Battle of Lepanto took place on the northern edge of the Gulf of Corinth, off the western coast of the Turkish province of Yunanistan (now known as Greece), when a fleet of southern European Catholic maritime states, backed by the Church in Rome, managed to defeat the Ottoman navy in five hours of fighting. According to historians classifying strategic battles, a Turkish victory could have led to Western Europe being overrun by the Muslims, as was the fate of the Byzantine Empire a little more than a century earlier. Lepanto was the last major naval battle in the Mediterranean fought entirely between galleys. The Christian powers calling themselves the Holy League were made up of Spain, Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, the Kingdom of Naples, the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Savoy, the Papacy of Rome, the Knights Hospitallers, and special forces from Germany, all under the command of Don John of Austria. The death during battle, of the Turkish admiral (Kapudan-e Darya), Ali Pasha, and the mounting of his severed head on the mast of the Christian fleet broke the morale of the Ottoman navy, which retreated, conceding victory to the Christian powers.

281 solar years ago, on this day in 1737 AD, 40 foot waves sank 20,000 small craft and killed 300,000 people in Bengal, India.

255 solar years ago, on this day in 1763 AD, King George III of Britain issued a parliamentary degree closing aboriginal lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlements. Some 15 years later the revolt of the colonists in what were then the 13 New England states, annulled the British king’s decree, and led to the genocide of the Amerindians by the White settlers from Europe who now spread in all directions to the detriment of the so-called Red Indians.

222 solar years ago, on this day in 1796 AD, Scottish mathematician and philosopher, Thomas Reid, died at the age of 86. He was the founder of the School of Common Sense and believed that common sense should be at the foundation of all philosophical inquiry. He advocated direct realism, or common sense realism, and argued strongly against the Theory of Ideas advocated by John Locke, and Rene Descartes.

212 solar years ago, on this day in 1806 AD, Englishman Ralph Wedgwood secured the first patent for carbon paper, which he described as an “apparatus for producing duplicates of writings.” In his process, thin paper was saturated with printer's ink, and then dried between sheets of blotting paper. His idea for the carbon paper was a byproduct of his invention of a machine to help blind people write, and the “black paper” was really just a substitute for ink. In its original form, Wedgwood's “Stylographic Writer” employed a metal stylus instead of a quill for writing, with the carbon paper placed between two sheets of paper in order to transfer a copy onto the bottom sheet.

158 solar years ago, on this 1860 AD, during the 2nd Opium War against China, British troops on the outskirts of Beijing began to plunder the beautiful gardens of Yuanmingyuan (the garden of perfection and light), and the imperial summer palace built by the Qing emperor Qianlong in 1709. Lord Elgin’s cavalry soon set fire and let the gardens burn for 3 days and nights.

134 lunar years ago, on this day in 1306 AH, the renowned scholar, Ayatollah Mullah Ali Kani, passed away in Tehran. He mastered Arabic literature and learned Islamic sciences, especially theology at the seminary of holy Najaf in Iraq, under the celebrated Ayatollah Shaikh Morteza Ansari. On attaining Ijtehad – or independent reasoning on the basis of the Holy Qur'an and the Hadith on modern issues – he returned to Iran, and took an active role in the struggle against the despotism of Qajarid kings. He wrote several books.

111 solar years ago, on this day in 1907 AD, Iran’s first parliament (Majlis) was set up after due ratification by Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar, following triumph of the Constitutional Revolution. The constitution was drafted a year earlier and signed by the previous king, Muzaffar od-Din Shah Qajar. It was the result of the struggle of all sections of the Iranian people for their civil liberties and birthrights, led by the ulema and intellectuals. Ayatollah Shaikh Fazollah Noori inserted a clause in the constitution stating that the laws should be supervised by a panel of five leading ulema to ensure that they are not against the Shari’a. This section of the Supplementary Fundamental Laws of October 7, 1907 began by stating: “The powers of the realm are all derived from the people; and the Fundamental Law regulates the employment of those powers.”  Article 1 and 2 of the laws approved this day, established Islam as the official religion of Iran, and specified that all laws of the nation must be approved by a committee of ulema. Later, these two articles were ignored by the ungodly Pahlavis, which resulted in anger and uprising of the ulema and masses, and finally overthrow of the British-installed regime and its replacement by the popular Islamic Republic System based on a new and more comprehensive constitution.

90 solar years ago, on this day in 1928 AD, Iranian poet and painter, Sohrab Sepehri, was born in the central city of Kashan. He published his first collection of poems "Marg-e Rang" (Death of Color) in 1951, and soon another collection titled: "Hasht Kitab" (Eight Books). Among his other poetical works mention can be made of "Mosafer" (Traveler). He holds a special status in Iran's contemporary poetry, given his novel and simple language and usage of delicate and new terms in his poems. He passed away in 1980 and was laid to rest in his hometown, Kashan.

78 solar years ago, on this day in 1940 AD, during World War II, Romania was occupied by German Nazi troops, thus paving the way for Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union.

68 solar years ago, on this day in 1950 AD, a year after establishment of the communist system, China seized Tibet, and nine years later crushed the uprising of the Tibetan people, forcing the Dalai Lama or the Buddhist religious-political to seek refuge in India, where he is still based. Tibet covers an area of almost 1.2 million sq km, and is administered as an autonomous region in China. Muslims have been living in Tibet since as early as the 8th or 9th century. In Tibetan cities, there are small communities of Muslims, known as Kachee (Kache), who trace their origin to immigrants from three main regions: Kashmir (Kachee Yul in ancient Tibetan), Ladakh and the Central Asian countries. Islamic influence in Tibet also came from Iran. After 1959 a group of Tibetan Muslims made a case for Indian nationality based on their historic roots to Kashmir and the Indian government declared all Tibetan Muslims Indian citizens later that year. Other Muslim ethnic groups who have long inhabited Tibet include Hui, Salar, Dongxiang and Bonan. There is also a well-established Chinese Muslim community (gya kachee), which traces its ancestry back to the Hui ethnic group of China.

25 solar years ago, on this day in 1993 AD, the jurisprudent Ayatollah Hussain Mohammadi La’eeni, passed away at the age of 69. Born in Behshahr in Mazandaran on the Caspian Sea in northern Iran, after preliminary studies he left for Iraq for higher religious studies and attained the status of Ijtehad during the twelve years he spent at the famous seminary of holy Najaf. His teachers included such celebrated ulema as Ayatollah Seyyed Mahmoud Shahroudi, and Ayatollah Mirza Hashem Amoli. On return to Iran he engaged himself in teaching and was also politically active against the despotism of the British-installed and US-backed Pahlavi regime. Following the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, he was elected to the first Assembly of Experts as representative of the people of Mazandaran.

17 solar years ago, on this day in 2001 AD, the US invaded Afghanistan and occupied it after ousting its agents the Taleban militia by accusing it of collaboration with the al-Qa'eda outfit – also created by the CIA to spread terrorism. The US wrongly accused the Afghan-based groups of being involved in the implosion of New York's 110-storey-high Twin-Towers. The US, which along with its NATO accomplices has killed hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians and destroyed the country, is still in occupation of Afghanistan. Over the past 12 years, the US-NATO troops have killed well over a hundred thousand Afghan civilians and destroyed the country.

3 solar years ago, on this day in 2015 AD, Major-General Hussain Hamedani, one of the senior leaders of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), attained martyrdom in Aleppo at the age of 64, while defending the sanctity of the shrines of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt in Syria. An activist against the British-installed and US-backed Pahlavi regime, following the triumph of the Islamic Revolution and the US plot to cause sedition in Iran, he served as a volunteer in Kurdistan province, and played a key role in helping defeat the communist rebellion. When the US imposed the 8-year was on Iran through Saddam of the repressive Ba’th minority regime of Baghdad, he marched to the warfronts as an IRGC member and ably discharged his duties during several operations, including the liberation of the port city of Khorramshahr. In 2005 Hussain Hamedani became the IRGC Deputy Chief and in 2009 he was made Head of the IRGC’s Rasoulollah Corps. When Syria was invaded by US-Zionist backed Takfiri terrorists infiltrating from Turkey with massive funds from Saudi Arabia, he was sent to Damascus as military advisor in the framework of the Syria-Iran Security Cooperation Accord signed several years earlier. Hussain Hamedani authored at least three books, such as “Moonlight of Khayyen” regarding events of the Islamic Revolution, the communist insurrection in Kurdistan and the Iraqi war. His another book is on the Liberation of Khorramshahr.

AS/SS