Today is Thursday; 13th of the Iranian month of Dey 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 26th of the Islamic month of Rabi as-Sani 1440 lunar hijri; and January 3, 2019, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.

2125 solar years ago, on this day in 106 BC, Marcus Cicero, Roman orator, statesman and author, was born. He was elected Consul in 63. He chose to support Pompey over Julius Caesar and was murdered by Mark Antony in 43 at the age of 63 years. One of his sayings is: "What is more unwise than to mistake uncertainty for certainty, falsehood for truth?"

975 lunar years ago, on this day in 465 AH, the Iranian Muslim mathematician, physician, and philosopher, Ain az-Zamaan Abu’l-Hassan ibn Ali al-Qattani al-Marvazi, was born in the Khorasani city of Marv (presently in Turkmenistan). Living in a city with a rich Islamic cultural milieu, he grew up to become an expert in many scientific fields. Like other erudite and encyclopedic savants of the Islamic Middle Ages, he wrote books in most areas of knowledge including astronomy, medicine, prosody, engineering, and literature. A student of Lawkari, who in turn was a student of Bahmanyar, the most distinguished disciple of the famous polymath Abu Ali Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Qattan al‐Marvazi belongs to the third generation of scholars who fully benefited from the Avicennian tradition. He passed away in 548 AH at the age of 83 in his hometown. His writings have not survived except for a book on astronomy written in Persian and entitled “Kayhan-Shenakht” (Knowledge of the Cosmos). The book, however, is not confined to cosmology, but covers a wider range of subjects such as the configuration of the Earth, geographical factors, works dealing with the determination of the calendar and issues related to the passage of time. On purely cosmological issues, it discusses celestial movements, eccentrics and epicycles, apogees, planetary sectors, the ecliptic, the fixed stars, lunar and solar eclipses, the meridian, the azimuth, the size of the earth, and astrology.

922 lunar years ago, on this day in 518 AH, prominent Ismaili missionary of Iran, Hassan Sabbah, died in his stronghold Alamut at the age of 89. Born in Qom in a Shi’a Muslim family, he studied in Rayy and at the age of 17 after coming under the influence of missionaries of the Fatemid caliphate of Egypt (sent by Caliph al-Mustansir’s Chief Missionary [Bab al-Abwab], the Iranian Hibatullah Mu'ayyad fi'd-Din Shirazi), he deviated from the right path. He travelled to Cairo, where he stayed for three years to become a full-fledged missionary. Hassan Sabbah had to return to Iran after being imprisoned and expelled for supporting Nizar, the elder son of Mustansir, as the next Imam rather than Ahmad Musta’l the younger son – resulting in the split of the Ismaili creed into Nizari and Musta’li sects. Several years later, following Nizar’s death in prison, his son Hadi came to Alamut which Hassan Sabbah had taken control of in 483 AH as an inaccessible fort in the Alborz Mountain range, and was hailed as the 20^th Ismaili Imam – dynastic rule that ended in 654 AH when the fortress fell to the Mongol invader Hulagu Khan. In a major departure from tradition, Hassan Sabbah declared Persian to be the language of holy literature for Nizaris, a decision that resulted in all the Nizari Ismaili literature from Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Central Asia to be transcribed in Persian for several centuries. From this point on his community and its branches spread throughout Iran and Syria and came to be called Hashshashin or Assassins. The present self-styled Imam of the Nizaris (known as Khojas), is the Europe-based Karim Agha Khan. The famous Venetian traveler Marco Polo, who visited Iran several years after the Mongol conqueror had captured Alamut and liquidated the Ismailis, calls Hassan Sabbah as Old Man of the Mountain, and describes him as a charlatan who devised plots to convert young men to his sect. Xishiji, a Chinese manuscript completed in 1263 AD, re-tells the story similar to Polo's.

518 solar years ago, on this day in 1501 AD, Amir Ali Shir Navai, the acclaimed Central Asian politician, mystic, linguist, painter, and poet, passed away at the age of 63 in Herat and his body was taken to Mashhad for burial in the porch he had built at the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS), the 8th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). Born in the Khorasani capital, Herat, which is currently in western Afghanistan, he is considered the Father of Chagatai Turkic literature, and was a prolific author. He also wrote and composed poems in Persian under the penname Fani, and has excellent compilations in this language as well to his credit. He studied in Mashhad, Herat and Samarqand, and when his childhood friend, Sultan Husayn Bayqarah became the principal Timurid ruler of Khorasan, he joined his service and for almost 40 years devoted his efforts to cultural developments including fine arts and the building of public utility works like schools, mosques, caravanserais and hospitals. In Mashhad, he carried out extensions in the holy shrine of Imam Reza (AS). He is regarded as a national hero in the modern republic of Uzbekistan and is famous all over the Turkic-speaking world.

242 solar years ago, on this day in 1777 AD, American General George Washington defeated British General Charles Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton in a victory that inspired people of the thirteen New England colonies with confidence to defeat the king’s forces. Cornwallis later earned lasting notoriety for his imperialist policies against the people of India and the violation of the treaty to impose the war on Fath Ali Khan Tipu Sultan of Mysore to kill the king and annex the Muslim kingdom.

237 solar years ago, on this day in 1782 AD, the Sylhet District in what is now northeast Bangladesh was taken over by the British as part of their expansion policy. It was previously called Jalalabad in memory of Shah Jalal Naqshbandi, a Sufi saint of Iranian origin, who was born in Konya in what is now Turkey in the time of the famous Persian mystic and poet, Mowlana Jalal od-Din Roumi Balkhi. In 1303 AD, with his arrival in Sylhet along with 360 disciples, Islam began to spread and the local Hindus, Buddhists and pagans of the area, embraced the truth of Islam. At the same time Muslim rule was established by Sikandar Ghazi and the region was included in the dominion of the Delhi-based Tughlaq Turkic Dynasty of India. His shrine is the main center of pilgrimage in Sylhet till this day, along with that of Seyyed Zaker Shah Zaidi al-Fatemi, a descendent of Martyr Zaid, the son of Prophet Mohammad’s (SAWA) 4th Infallible Heir, Imam Zain al-Abedin (AS). Today, almost 90 percent of the people of Sylhet are Muslims.

151 solar years ago, on this day in 1868 AD, Emperor Meiji ascended the throne of Japan and assumed power. The Meiji Restoration re-established the authority of Japan's emperor and heralded the fall of the military rulers known as shoguns. The feudal clan system was abolished and industrialism was started.

144 solar years ago, on this day in 1875 AD, the French literary figure and linguist, Pierre Larousse, passed away at the age of 58. After years of study, he compiled the Larousse Lexicon.

108 solar years ago, on this day in 1911 AD, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake destroyed the city of Almaty in Russian Turkestan, which is now the Republic of Kazakhstan.

77 lunar years ago, on this day in 1363 AH, the prominent Iranian theologian, Aqa Najafi Qochani, passed away in his hometown Qochan in northeastern Iran. He was a product of the famous Islamic seminary of holy Najaf in Iraq, where he reached the status of Ijtehad. On his return to Iran, he actively participated in the Constitutional Movement. He has widely elaborated on this era in his book: “Siahat-e Sharq”. He wrote many books, including “Siahat-e Gharb”.

61 solar years ago, on this day in 1958 AD, the British created the politically short-lived West Indies Federation in Caribbean Sea which included Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad, Tobago and the Windward and Leeward Islands. Because of numerous problems, it was dissolved by the British in 1963, with nine provinces becoming independent sovereign states. Despite the collapse of the Federation, the West Indies (with addition of Guyana) continues to field a joint cricket team for international competition.

58 solar years ago, on this day in 1961 AD, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba after Fidel Castro announced he was a communist. The US has refused to relinquish its occupation of Guantanamo Bay base where it has set up a subhuman prison that holds nationals of several countries, who are denied any legal access and are brutally tortured.

39 solar years ago, on this day in 1980 AD, the first gathering of the world’s liberation movements opened in Tehran. The main goals of this gathering was to familiarize the international community with the wide-scale dimensions of the Islamic Revolution; to introduce the world’s liberation movements; and to set the stage for further unity of these movements against the injustices of Global Arrogance.

26 solar years ago, on this day in 1993 AD, the treaty for reduction of atomic weapons was signed by Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, and the US president, George Bush Sr., with the two countries pledging to reduce their nuclear arsenal by two thirds. The US agreed to the treaty because following the collapse of Soviet Union, Moscow had started to cooperate with the West and was not considered as a major threat to Washington. Nonetheless, instead of dismantling its nuclear arms, the US stockpiled them, and Russia, in protest to Washington’s refusal to deliver on its vows stopped dismantling its nuclear warfare. Meanwhile, in April 2010, the US and Russian presidents signed a new START, according to which the number of nuclear warheads of each side is reduced to 1550.

15 solar years ago, on this day in 2004 AD, in a miraculous event, rescuers in Iran pulled a 97-year old woman named Shahrbanou Mazandarani from the rubble in the city of Bam, 9 days after the devastating earthquake that killed about 40,000.

7 solar years ago, on this day in 2012 AD, the Source of Emulation, Grand Ayatollah Mojtaba Shahidi Kalhori Tehrani, passed away at the age of 75. Born in Tehran in an academic family, at the age of 18 he entered the seminary in holy Qom and studied under prominent Ulema such as the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA), Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hussain Boroujerdi, and the famous exegete of the holy Qur’an, Allamah Seyyed Mohammad Hussain Tabatabai. At the young age of 25, he attained the status of ijtehad. As a close associate of the Late Imam, he played an important role in collection of his mentor’s theological works. He taught ethics and theology in Tehran for 40 years, grooming numerous students. Among his works, mention can be made of “Akhlaaq-e Ilahi”, and “Solouk-e Ashurai”.

4 solar years ago, on this day in 2015 AD, Saudi supported Boko Haram Takfiri terrorists razed the entire town of Baga in northeast Nigeria, starting the 2015 Baga massacre and slaughtering as many as 2,000 men, women and children.

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