Today is Tuesday; 27th of the Iranian month of Shahrivar 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 8th of the Islamic month of Muharram 1440 lunar hijri; and September 18, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.
1965 solar years ago, on this day in 53 AD, Roman Emperor Trajan was born in an Italian family in Spain in what was then the city of Italica (now on the outskirts of Seville). In 98, he was declared emperor on the death of his patron, Emperor Nerva. He died in 117 at the age of 64 in Selinus in Cilicia in what is now the southeastern coastal region of Turkey, after a reign of 19 years, while fleeing from the counterattacks of Iran’s Parthian Empire, following his invasion of Mesopotamia (Iraq) and retreat. He pursued an aggressive military policy to expand the Roman Empire, including breaking of 50 years of peace with the Parthian Empire in 110 by attacking Armenia which was a province of the Iranian Empire. After two years, the Iranians liberated Armenia and drove out the Romans. Trajan again invaded Armenia and tried to infiltrate Gilan, and then in 115 he launched a surprise attack on Mesopotamia that saw Roman armies reach for the first time the shores of the Persian Gulf in what is now Kuwait. So elated was Trajan by this unexpected success that in 116 he prematurely sent a laurelled letter to the Senate in Rome, boosting of what he called the conquest of the Parthian Empire. However, as he left the Persian Gulf for Babylon, the Iranians led by Sanatrukes, the nephew of their Emperor, Osroes I, imperiled Roman positions in both Mesopotamia and Armenia, forcing Trajan to withdraw his troops that had penetrated Khuzestan. Although Sanatrukes was killed in the battle that the Iranians lost at Seleucia and their capital Ctesiphon (Mada’en near modern Baghdad) was temporarily occupied by the Romans, Trajan's deteriorating health started to fail him. Following the heat stroke he suffered during the unsuccessful Roman attempt to capture the fortress city of Hatra on the Tigris near Mosul in what was then the Iranian province of Khavaran, and coupled with the renewed uprising of the people of Mesopotamia, Trajan was forced to retreat. His claim of being the conqueror of Parthian Empire turned out to be hollow as he succumbed to his worsening health.
1379 lunar years ago, on this day in 61 AH, following the Omayyad forces’ cutting of all access to the River Euphrates the day before in Karbala and exhaustion of water stored in the encampment of Imam Husain (AS) through the valiant efforts of his brother Hazrat Abbas (AS) in procuring this precious elixir of life overnight by virtue of a daring raid on the Euphrates, thirst became acute, especially among the children and womenfolk. The Prophet’s grandson ordered the digging of a well some 19 steps from the encampment, and out gushed sweet water from the ground which enabled all to quench their thirst and store some water before the well ran dry. On hearing this news in Kufa, Obaidullah ibn Ziyad, the tyrannical governor of Iraq who was an avowed enemy of the household of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) wrote to the commander of his forces, Omar ibn Sa’d, to make sure that Imam Husain (AS) should not have access to any source of water and should be reduced to acute thirst, until he acknowledges the illegal rule of the libertine Yazid over the Muslim ummah.
1111 lunar years ago, on this day in 329 AH, the prominent Iranian physicist, mathematician, and astronomer, Abu Sahl Wayjan ibn Rustam al-Kouhi was born in Mazandaran. He spent most of his life in Baghdad and was leader of the astronomers working at the observatory built by Buwayhid ruler, Sharaf od-Dowla Daylami. For thirty years he studied the stars and their positions. He devoted his attention to Archimedean and Apollonian problems leading to improved equations.
490 solar years ago, on this day in 1528 AD, the Iranian historian, Ghiyas od-Din Mohammad Khwandamir, arrived from his hometown Herat in Khorasan at the court of India’s First Mughal Emperor, Zaheer od-Din Mohammad Babar, in Agra. He was the maternal grandson of the famous Iranian historian of the Timurid era, Mir-Khwand, and completed volumes 7th and 8th of his grandfather’s monumental universal history "Rawzat as-Safa” (Garden of Purity). Years earlier in his native Herat, Khwandamir had authored his own valuable historical work "Habeeb os-Siyar” in several volumes on the instructions of the famous Timurid minister and scholar Ali-Shir Navaei. He died in India and during the reign of the 2nd Mughal Emperor, Humayun Shah, wrote another valuable Persian work titled "Qanoun-e Humayuni” on rules and observances.
464 solar years ago, on this day in 1554 AD, Haydar Ali Mirza, who declared himself the 3rd Shah of the Safavid Empire of Iran, was born. In 1576, immediately after the death of his father Shah Tahmasp I, who ruled for a record 54 years, he ascended the throne in Qazvin, but was soon killed because of dissension among the powerful Qizilbash clans. Although he had the support of the Ustalju and Shaykhavand clans, as well as the Georgians (his mother was a Georgian lady), the Rumlu, Afshar, and the Qajar clans favored his imprisoned brother Ismail Mirza, who twenty years earlier had been incarcerated in the Qahqaheh fortress for plotting to seize the throne from his father. Ismail was brought out and declared the Shah. It was a fatal mistake for which his supporters paid dearly, since Ismail II, known in Iranian history as "murtad” or the apostate, indulged in fratricide and killing of the Qizilbash chiefs, until he was killed himself after only 15-months as ruler and replaced by his ailing brother Khodabandah –  the father of Shah Abbas the Great. Haydar’s tutor was the great scholar, Mir Mohammad Momin Astarabadi who sensing the gravity of the situation left Iran for the holy cities of Iraq and thence to the Deccan in southern India, where he became Prime Minister of the Qotb-Shahi Dynasty of Iranian origin of Golkandah and helped found the city of Haiderabad.
308 solar years ago, on this day in 1709 AD, the creator of the first dictionary of the English language, Samuel Johnson, was born in England. He made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. After nine years of efforts, his work titled "A Dictionary of the English Language” was published in 1755. It had a far-reaching effect on modern English, and until the completion of the "Oxford English Dictionary”150 years later, Johnson's was viewed as the pre-eminent English dictionary.
279 solar years ago, on this day in 1739 AD, the Ottoman and the Austrian Empires signed a peace treaty according to which Belgrade was returned to the Turks after 22 years of occupation. Turkish Muslims who had first liberated Belgrade in 1521 had built it as an Islamic city, complete with baths, public fountains, libraries, mosques, and bazaars. The city was occupied by the Serbs in 1807 and became capital of Serbia in 1841. The Christians have erased much of the Islamic features of Belgrade.  
259 solar years ago, on this day in 1759 AD, Quebec in Canada, surrendered to the British after a battle which saw the deaths of both James Wolfe and Louis Montcalm, the British and French commanders. The people of Quebec still speak French and resent the domination of the English speakers. Separatist tendencies are rife in this Canadian province.
235 solar years ago, on this day in 1783 AD, Swiss mathematician and physicist Leonhard Euler died at the age of 76. He made important discoveries in fields as diverse as infinitesimal calculus and graph theory. He also introduced much of the modern mathematical terminology and notation. He is also renowned for his work in mechanics, fluid dynamics, optics, astronomy, and music theory. Euler is considered to be the preeminent mathematician of the 18th century and one of the greatest mathematicians to have ever lived. At age 28, he blinded one eye by staring at the sun while working to invent a new way of measuring time. He spent most of his adult life in St. Petersburg, Russia, and in Berlin, then the capital of Prussia.
208 solar years ago, on this day in 1810 AD, the first Government Junta took power in Chile. Though supposed to rule only in the absence of the king, it was in fact the first step towards independence from Spain, and is commemorated as such. Spain conquered and colonized Chile in the mid-16th century, replacing Inca rule in northern and central Chile, but failing to conquer the independent Mapuche that inhabited south-central Chile. After declaring its independence from Spain in 1818, Chile emerged in the 1830s as a relatively stable authoritarian republic. In the 19th century, it saw significant economic and territorial growth, ending Mapuche resistance in the 1880s and gaining its current northern territory in the War of the Pacific (1879–83) after defeating Peru and Bolivia. In the 1960s and 1970s the country experienced severe left-right political polarization and turmoil. This development culminated with the 1973 Chilean coup d'état that overthrew Salvador Allende's democratically-elected government and instituted a 16-year-long right-wing military dictatorship that left thousands of people dead or missing. The regime, headed by Augusto Pinochet, ended in 1990 after it lost a referendum in 1988 and was succeeded by a center-left coalition which ruled through four presidencies until 2010. Chile is today one of South America's most stable and prosperous nations.
87 solar years ago, on this day in 1931 AD, Manchuria in northeast China was occupied by the Japanese army, which installed the puppet Manchukuo regime. Following its defeat in World War 2, Japan was forced to evacuate the more than a million square km of Chinese territory it had occupied.
57 solar years ago, on this day in 1961 AD, UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjِld of Sweden died in a plane crash while attempting to negotiate peace in the war-torn Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the age of 56. He served two terms as the UN Chief and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
37 solar years ago, on this day in 1981 AD, the city of Susangerd and its surrounding areas in southwestern Iran, were liberated by Iran’s Muslim combatants from Ba’thist occupation. Some 750 Ba’thist occupation soldiers were either killed or injured, while 40 tanks and personnel carriers of the enemy were destroyed. Several tanks and personnel carriers and a large amount of ammunition and communication equipment were captured by the Iranian soldiers.
36 solar years ago, on this day in 1982 AD, Lebanon’s Phalangist Christian militia mercilessly slaughtered at least 600 Palestinians in southern Lebanon during the civil war, as part of the US-Israeli plan to weaken and terrorize Muslims.
(Courtesy: IRIB English Radio – http://parstoday.com/en)