Today is Wednesday; 18th of the Iranian month of Farvardin 1395 solar hijri; corresponding to 27th of the Islamic month of Jamadi as-Sani 1437 lunar hijri; and April 6, 2016, of the Christian  Gregorian Calendar.
1321 lunar years ago, on this day in 116 AH, Ali, the son of Imam Mohammad Baqer (AS) – the 5th Infallible Heir of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA) – was martyred in Ardahal near Kashan in central Iran, along with a hundred of his faithful followers in an uneven fight with forces of the usurper Omayyad regime. He had come to Iran from Medina three years earlier on the invitation of followers of the Ahl al-Bayt on was peacefully promoting the genuine teachings of his ancestor the Prophet when the enemies launched an unprovoked attack upon him. His sprawling shrine in Mashhad-e Ardahal is a site of pilgrimage for people from all over Iran and other parts of the world, who every year on the second Friday of the Iranian month of Mehr, flock in great numbers to commemorate his martyrdom as per the solar hijri calendar.
1046 lunar years ago, on this day in 391 AH, the poet and eulogist of the Prophet and the Ahl al-Bayt, Siraj Wahhaj Hussain bin Ahmad, popularly known as Ibn Hajjaj, passed away. As per his will he was laid to rest in Kazemain at the feet of the holy shrine of Imam Musa Kazem (AS), the 7th Infallible Successor of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). The renowned poet and scholar Seyyed Razi, who has earned immortality for compiling the book "Nahj al-Balagha”, which is a collection of sermons, letters and aphorism of the Prophet’s First Infallible Successor, Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS), composed a moving elegy at Ibn Hajjaj’s funeral. Among the panegyrics of Ibn Hajjaj is the famous eulogy in praise of Imam Ali (AS), which begins with the verse "Ya Sahebat al-Qubbat al-Bayza fi’n-Najaf" (O Possessor of the White Dome in Najaf).
989 lunar years ago, on this day in 448 AH, the statesman, warrior and literary figure, Majd od-Din Osama ibn Murshid ibn Ali ibn Munqidh al-Kinani, titled Moayyed od-Dowlah, was born in Shaizar near Hama in Syria. His life coincided with the rise and fall of several Muslim dynasties, as well as the invasion by the First Crusade and setting up of the illegal crusader states by the European invaders. He was a nephew of the emir of Shaizar and was a courtier to the Zengids and Ayyubids in Damascus, serving the famous Noor od-Din Zengi, and later Salah od-Din Ayyubi, over a period of almost fifty years. He also served the Fatemid court in Cairo. He often meddled in the politics and was exiled from both Damascus and Cairo. He wrote many poetry anthologies, such as the "Kitab al-Asa" (Book of the Staff), "Lubab al-Adab" (Kernels of Literature), and "al-Manazil wa'd-Diyar" (Dwellings and Abodes). For modern readers, however, he is most well-known for his "Kitab al-I'bar", which contains lengthy descriptions of the crusaders, whom he visited on many occasions, and some of whom he considered friends, although he generally saw them as European barbarians. It is sometimes assumed that Osama was a Shi'a Muslim, because he often writes about and praises Imam Ali (AS). His family cooperated with the Fatemids and other Shi'ia Muslim dynasties, and he himself served the Fatemids in Egypt. Researchers are divided, and some think that he had a "secret sympathy" with the Shi'a Muslims, while others believe he was probably Sunni with Shi'a tendencies. Still others think that his family members were Twelver Shi'as. He died in Damascus at the age of 96, a year after the liberation of Bayt ol-Moqaddas from the crusaders after 88 years of occupation.
766 solar years ago, on this day in 1250 AD, the Ayyubid rulers of Egypt defeated the Seventh Crusade launched on Muslim lands by European powers, and captured King Louis IX of France in the Battle of Fareskur. The Christian invaders suffered a resounding defeat as some thirty thousand French and other European soldiers fell on the battlefield while thousands of others were taken prisoners, along with King Louis IX who was captured in the nearby village of Moniat Abdullah (now Meniat an-Nasr), while trying to escape. He was chained and confined in the house of Ibrahim Ibn Loqman, under the care of the eunuch, Sobih, while the king's brothers, Charles d'Anjou and Alphonse de Poitiers, were made prisoners at the same time, and carried to the same house with other French nobles. A camp was set up outside the town to shelter the rest of the prisoners. Louis IX was ransomed for 400,000 dinars. After pledging not to return to Egypt, he surrendered Damietta and left with his brothers and 12,000 war prisoners whom the Egyptian Muslims agreed to release. The Battle became a source of inspiration for Muslim writers and poets. One poem ended with the following verses:
"If they (the Franks) decide to return to take revenge or to commit a wicked deed, tell them:
The house of Ibn Loqman is intact, the chains still there as well as the eunuch Sobih".
696 solar years ago, on this day in 1320 AD, Scotland declared its independence in the Declaration of Arbroath. In a letter to the Pope they said: "As long as only one hundred of us remain alive we will never on any conditions be brought under English rule.”
563 solar years ago, on this day in 1453 AD the Ottoman Sultan Mohammad II began his siege of Constantinople, the capital of Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire) which fell on May 29 to the Muslims and was renamed Islambol. It is known as Istanbul today and is Turkey's largest city.
496 solar years ago, on this day in 1520 AD, Italian painter, Raphael Sanzio, who painted the "The Sistine Madonna” in the Vatican, died on his 37th birthday. His works include "The Veiled Lady" and a set of cartoons that were woven into 10 tapestries as "Acts of the Apostles".  
487 lunar years ago, on this day in 950 AH, the Ottoman Turks concluded a treaty with France to run the French Mediterranean port of Toulon. The Ottoman flag was hoisted in Toulon as almost all the French left the port. The Ottomans introduced the Azan for the five-times-daily prayers in this port, and turned the cathedral into a mosque during their 8-month stay. In this period under the command of the famous Turkish admiral, Khair od-Din Pasha (known as Barbarossa or Redbeard to the Europeans), the Ottoman navy, equipped with 30,000 troops raided the Spanish and Italian coasts and defeated the combined attacks by Spanish-Italian navies. The Ottomans left after King Francis I of France paid a sum of 800,000 in the currency of those days and released all Turks and Arabs who were forced to work on French galleys. Khair od-Din Pasha died two years later, but Toulon was again used as a safe harbour for several months, some three years later by another Ottoman admiral, Turgut Raees.
436 solar years ago, on this day in 1580 AD, Portugal was annexed by its Iberian rival Spain, mainly because of Portuguese colonial gains in South America and sub-Saharan Africa. Most of Portugal’s colonies were seized by Spain and its subsidiary, Holland. In 1640, the Portuguese people staged an uprising to drive out the Spanish and regain independence. It is worth noting that for several centuries both Spain and Portugal formed part of the Islamic world, until their seizure by European Christians, who converted mosques into churches, and forced almost entire populations to become Christians, leave the country, or be killed.
304 solar years ago, on this day in 1712 AD, the New York Slave Revolt began near Broadway, when black people from Africa forced into slavery in North America, rose against the oppression by the whites. The Anglo-Saxons brutally crushed the uprising captured, jailed and tortured some hundred black persons and executed 21 of them after a kangaroo trial.
130 solar years ago, on this day in 1886 AD, Osman Ali Khan, Asef Jah VII, the Last Muslim ruler of the Deccan in southern India was born in Hyderabad. He became king in 1911 and transformed the realm into a centre of learning. He ruled for 37 years, until his surrender to the Indian forces in September 1948 following a three-pronged attack to end the last independent Muslim state in India. A patron of learning, beside building libraries, hospitals, universities, and religious centres, he was an accomplished poet in Persian, Urdu, and Turkish. He died in 1967.
120 solar years ago, on this day in 1896 AD, in Athens, the opening of the first modern Olympic Games was celebrated, 1,503 years after the ancient pagan Greek games were banned in 393 AD, by Roman Emperor Theodosius I. Earlier in 380, Theodosius I, along with co-emperors Gratian and Valentinian II, had issued the infamous Edict of Thessalonica, forcing all Roman citizens to convert to the Trinitarian form of Christianity, or else be branded as heretics, subject to punishment. This weird concept of ‘godfather’, ‘godson’ and the ‘holy ghost’ – an invention of Paul the Hellenized Jew who was a staunch opponent of Prophet Jesus (AS) during his mission on earth and after him feigned to be his follower – was designed to suit the polytheist beliefs of European pagans, in opposition to the monotheist message of the Virgin-born Messiah.
117 lunar years ago, on this day in 1320 AH, the prominent Iranian Islamic scholar, Mirza Hussein Noori Tabarsi, popularly known as Muhaddith Noori, passed away at the age of 66 in holy Najaf and was laid to rest, as per his will on the right side of the entrance to the Mausoleum of Imam Ali (AS). Born in the town of Noor in Mazandaran Province in a religious family, he studied in Iraq under leading scholars including Ayatollah Shaikh Morteza Ansari Dezfuli. He was an authority on Islamic sciences, including hadith, exegesis of the Holy Qur’an, theology, and biography of ulema. He groomed numerous students, including Shaikh Abbas Qomi, the author of the famous prayer and supplication manual, "Mafatih al-Jinaan" (Keys of Paradise). A prolific writer, Muhaddith Noori wrote many books including "Najm as-Saqeb" on the Imam of the Age, Imam Mahdi (may God hasten his reappearance). Among his works is the voluminous book "Mustadrak al-Wasa'el”, in which he has collected 123,000 hadith of the Infallible Imams on the line of Shaikh Hur al Ameli’s "Wasa'el ash-Shi'a".
110 lunar years ago, on this day in 1327 AH, the 6th Qajarid king of Iran, Mohammad Ali Shah, following the defeat of his army by popular constitutionalist forces, sought asylum in the Russian embassy. On the afternoon of the same day, the constitutionalists held a meeting to formally depose and replace him with his 11-year old son, Ahmad Shah. Over a month-and-a-half earlier on Rabi as-Sani 6, Mohammad Ali Shah was forced by the constitutionalists to revive the Majlis (parliament), which he had dissolved two years earlier, shortly after succeeding his father, Mozaffar od-Din Shah, to the Peacock Throne. A repressive and inefficient ruler, he had previously bombarded the parliament building with the help of the British and Russian forces. On being disposed, he fled to Russian-ruled Odessa (in present day Ukraine), from where he plotted his return to power. Two years later he landed at Astarabad on the Caspian Sea coast of northern Iran, but his forces were defeated. He again fled to Russia, then to Istanbul and later to San Remo, Italy, where he died on 5th April 1925, the same year the 131-year rule of the Qajarid Dynasty ended when the British formally declared their agent, Reza Khan Pahlavi as the new king, while Ahmad Shah was on an extended, almost 2-year long visit, to Europe. Every shah of Iran since Mohammad Ali Shah has died in exile.
86 solar years ago, on this day in 1930 AD, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the leader of India's independent struggle, raised a lump of mud and salt in Gujarat, in protest to the British ban on Indians producing salt, and declared, "With this, I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire." He said he adopted his non-violent struggle by studying the life of Imam Husain (AS), the Martyr of Karbala and the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).
71 solar years ago, on this day in 1945 AD during World War 2, the attack of Japanese suicide pilots, known as Kamikazes, began on US warships, following Japan’s retreat from southeast Asia. Although the Japanese warplanes inflicted heavy damages on American warships, the US forced Japan into surrendering by criminally dropping atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, resulting in the massacre of hundreds of thousands of civilians.
52 solar years ago, on this day in 1964 AD, following mass protests throughout Iran, the Father of Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini (RA) was freed from detention by the British-installed and US-backed Pahlavi regime. He was detained by the regime, following his historic speech on the eve of June 4, 1963 against the anti-Islamic and anti-national policies of the Shah.
31 solar years ago, on this day in 1985 AD, Sudanese president, Ja’far Numayri, was overthrown after a 16-year rule by General Abdur-Rahman Swar adh-Dhahab. Numayri, who himself had seized power through military coup in 1969, moved towards implementation of Islamic law in the 1970s after initially pursuing socialist and Pan-Arabist policies.
22 solar years ago, on this day in 1994 AD, the Rwandan Genocide began when an aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down. The gory battle between the two major tribes of Hutu and Tutsi led to the massacre of more than 800,000 people in three months, while more than two million people became homeless. The dispute was fanned by West European colonial powers.
16 solar years ago, on this day in 2000 AD, Tunisian politician Habib Bourqiba, who in 1957 a year after the country’s independence from France overthrew the Hussainid monarchy to become president, and ruled with an iron fist for the next three decades, died under house arrest, 13 years after his overthrow by his own protégé, Zain al-Abedin bin Ali. Though born in a Muslim family he was anti-Islamic.
5 solar years ago, on this day in 2011 AD, noted Pakistani scholar of Urdu, Persian, Sindhi and Arabic, Nabi Baksh Khan Baloch, passed away at the age of 94. He wrote many books on Sindh's History and 42 volumes on Sindhi Folklore. In addition, he compiled Sindhi dictionary in five volumes. He wrote books prolifically in Sindhi, Urdu, English and Persian. These include the editing of the ancient text of "Chach-Namah” and its translation into English, "Baqiyaat az Kalhora” in Persian, "Beglar-Namah” of the Persian poet Idraaki Beglari, and "Takmilat-ut-Takmilah”, which is an addendum to the Persian books of Qania's "Maqalat -ush-Shu’ara” and Mohammad Ibrahim Khalil’s "Takmila”.
4 solar years ago, on this day in 2012 AD, thousands of protesters in the Persian Gulf island of Bahrain demanded release of ailing jailed human rights activist, Abdul-Hadi al-Khwajah, but the repressive Aal-e Khalifa minority regime, using force dispersed the peaceful rally and imprisoned the activist’s daughter, Zainab.
(Courtesy: IRIB English Radio – http://parstoday.com/en)