This Day in History (May 24)

Date: 23 May 2018 - 20:20

News ID: ۵۳۳۰۴

Today is Thursday; 3rd of the Iranian month of Khordad 1397 solar hijri; corresponding to 8th of the Islamic month of Ramadhan 1439 lunar hijri; and May 24, 2018, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.
1008 lunar years ago, on this day in 431 AH, Mohammad Ibn Mikaeel Ibn Seljuq, known as Toghril Beg, won the Battle of Dandanaqan, and seized Khorasan from the Ghaznavid Empire, thereby heralding the rise of the Seljuq Turks of Central Asia as a new power in Iran, and eventually Anatolia (Turkey), Syria, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf coastline of the Arabian Peninsula. Highly Persianized in culture and language, the Seljuqs who ruled for over a century-and-a-half, played an important role in the development of the Turko-Persian tradition, even exporting Persian culture to Anatolia.
984 lunar years ago, on this day in 455 AH, the Seljuqid ruler, Mohammad ibn Mikaeel ibn Seljuq, popular as Toghril Beg, died at the age of 75 in Rayy, south of Tehran, where his grave in a conical mausoleum still stands. He established the vast Seljuqid Empire, by seizing Khorasan from the Ghaznavids and subsequently occupying Baghdad on the secret invitation of the scheming Abbasid caliph, al-Qa’em-Billah, to end the 110-year rule of the Iranian Buwaihid Dynasty of Iraq-Iran. To legitimize his rule and expand his empire, he forced the figurehead Abbasid caliph to give him his daughter in marriage, and to sign decrees for wars against the Byzantine Christian Empire in Anatolia and the Syrian territories of the Fatemid Ismaili Shi’ite Muslim caliphate of Egypt-Syria-Hijaz-North Africa. Born in Central Asia in what is now Kazakhstan to the chief of the Oghuz, he strove to unite the Turkic tribes of the vast Eurasian Steppes into a confederacy. Along with his elder brother, Chaghri Beg, he rose to prominence in the service of the Khaqan of the Qara-Khanid Dynasty of Bukhara that had displaced the Iranian Samanid Dynasty in Central Asia. He turned against the Qara-Khanids and in 1040 defeated the Ghaznavids of Khorasan-Afghanistan at the Battle of Dandanqanan. His hordes gradually swept across the Iranian Plateau before marching into Anatolia and Iraq. In 1058, he lost Baghdad to the Fatemids but recaptured it two years later. On his death in Rayy at the age of 73 the childless Toghril was succeeded after a brief struggle between the two sons of his deceased brother, Chaghri, by his surviving nephew Alp Arsalan – perhaps the greatest ruler of the Seljuq Dynasty. The Seljuqs who ruled for over a century-and-a-half, became Persianized and played a vital role in the development and spread of the Persian language and culture in Anatolia, where a branch of them ruled until 1307 as the Seljuq Sultanate of Roum.
764 lunar years ago, on this day in 675 AH, Najm od-Din Ali Dabiraan Qazvini al-Katebi, the prominent Iranian astronomer, philosopher, logician, theologian and chemist, passed away. He was part of the scientific team assembled by his teacher, Iranian-Islamic genius Khwaja Nasir od-Din Tousi, at the famous observatory of Maragha, and wrote numerous books on various topics, including "Jame’ ad-Daqa’eq”. His work on logic, titled "ar-Risala ash-Shamsiyya”, was commonly used as the first major text on logic in madrasahs, until the twentieth century and is perhaps the most studied logic textbook of all time. His logic was largely inspired by the formal Avicennian system of temporal modal logic of the famous Iranian-Islamic polymath Abu Ali Ibn Sina, but is more elaborate and departs from it in several ways. While Ibn Sina considered ten modalities and examined six of them, Katebi considers many more modalized propositions and examines thirteen which he considers 'customary to investigate'.  Great scholars such as Allamah Hilli and Qotb od- Din Mahmoud Shirazi studied in his presence.
667 solar years ago, on this day in 1351 AD, Abu’l-Hassan Ali ibn Othman, the sultan of the Marinid dynasty of Morocco who liberated Gibraltar from the Christian Castilian occupation, died in exile in Fez in the High Atlas Mountains at the age of 54 after a reign of 17 years. In North Africa he extended his rule over Tlemcen and Ifriqiya, which together covered the north of what is now Algeria and Tunisia. Under him the Marinid realms in the Maghreb briefly covered an area that rivaled that of the preceding al-Muwahhidin or Almohad Empire. He was forced to return from Spain due to a revolt of Arab tribes, but was shipwrecked, and lost many of his supporters. His son Abu Inan Faris seized power in Fez.
475 solar years ago, on this day in 1543 AD, the Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus, died at the age of 70. After learning of scientific facts from the Latin translation of Arabic books written by Islamic scholars, he was the first European to boldly speak of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
392 solar years ago, on this day in 1626 AD, the native Amerindians of Manhattan Island, were hoodwinked and deceived by Peter Minuit, the Director of German origin of the Dutch colony of New Netherland or what is now New York State, to sell their land for a hotchpotch of European trinkets worth only a paltry amount of 60 guilders or 23 dollars. The original inhabitants of the area were unfamiliar with the European notions and definitions of ownership rights. For the Indians, water, air and land could not be traded. Such exchanges would also be difficult in practical terms because many native groups migrated between their summer and winter quarters. It can be concluded that the Amerindians went home with totally different interpretations of the so-called sales agreement that was nothing but deceit on the part of the white invaders from Europe to deprive them of their ancestral lands.
332 solar years ago, on this day in 1686 AD, German-Dutch physicist and inventor of the thermometer, Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, was born. He lived in Holland most of his life, and in 1714 invented the mercury thermometer by developing the Fahrenheit temperature scale. For the zero of his scale he used the temperature of an equal ice-salt mixture; 30° for the freezing point of water; and 90° for normal body temperature. Later, he adjusted to 32° for the freezing point of water and 212° for the boiling point of water, the interval between the two being divided into 180 parts. He died in 1736 at the age of 50 years.
196 solar years ago, on this day in 1822 AD, Ecuador gained independence from Spanish colonial rule after three centuries, because of the efforts of the famous Venezuelan revolutionary leader, Simon Bolivar. Ecuador covers an area of 283,000 sq km. It is situated northwest of South America and lies on the coastlines of Pacific Ocean. It shares borders with Peru and Columbia.
118 solar years ago, on this day in 1900 AD, during the Second Boer War, Britain annexed to its colony of South Africa the Orange Free State, which was an independent Boer sovereign republic in southern Africa. Its name derives partly from the Orange River, which in turn was named in honour of the Dutch ruling royal family, the House of Orange, by the Dutch settlers under Robert Jacob Gordon. The official language in the Orange Free State was Dutch.
88 solar years ago, on this day in 1930 AD, the name "Pluto" was chosen and announced by Roger Lowell Putnam, trustee of Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, for the newly-discovered ninth planet of the solar system called Planet X by its discoverer Clyde Tombaugh on 13 March the same year.
36 solar years ago, on this day in 1982 AD, the southwestern Iranian city of Khorramshahr was liberated from the yoke of the Ba’thist invaders by Iran's Muslim combatants in the heroic Bayt al-Moqaddas Operations, after a year and 8 months of occupation. It was a decisive victory that completely turned the tide of the imposed war against Saddam, thereby shattering the equations of his backers in the West and the East, including the Arab reactionary regimes of the Persian Gulf, which had bankrolled his aggression on Islamic Iran. This historic event is marked every year as "The Day of Resistance and Victory”.
27 solar years ago, on this day in 1991 AD, the Zionist entity illegally settled 14,400 Ethiopian Jews in occupied Palestine. But, these black Jews are faced with numerous economic and social discriminations in Israel, and merely treated as cheap labour.
26 solar years ago, on this day in 1992 AD, Serbian forces confined over 3,000 Bosnian Muslims and Croats in inhuman conditions at the Keraterm prison camp. Damir Dosen served as a shift commander at the Keraterm prison camp in northwestern Bosnia. Detainees were killed, sexually assaulted and beaten. In 1999 Dragan Kulundzija, a former shift commander at Keraterm, was arrested on charges of killing and torturing prisoners. In 1999 Dosen was arrested for war crimes and flown to Hague for trial.
25 solar years ago, on this day in 1993 AD, Eritrea in Northeastern Africa, gained independence from Ethiopia. Between the two World Wars it was briefly occupied by Italy. Eritrea lies on the coastlines of the Red Sea. It covers an area of almost 117,000 square km, and shares borders with Ethiopia, Sudan, and Djibouti.
18 solar years ago, on this day in the year 2000 AD, Zionist occupation troops were forced to retreat from southern Lebanon and the so-called Southern Lebanese Army made up of Christian mercenaries disintegrated due to the resistance and steadfastness of Lebanese people, led by the legendry anti-terrorist movement, Hezbollah. It was the first defeat of Israel in its confrontation with popular and Islamic forces inspired by the Islamic Revolution of Iran.
13 solar years ago, on this day in 2005 AD, Iranian poet Mohammad Reza Aqasi, passed away at the age of 46. Born in Tehran, he is famous for his "Mathnavi” or Long Ode on the history of the Shi’a Muslims and the Ahl al-Bayt or Blessed Household of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). He also wrote excellent poetry on the heroics of Iran’s Muslim combatants on the battlefields of the 8-year war imposed by the US on the Islamic Republic through Saddam of Iraq’s repressive Ba’th minority regime.
7 solar years ago, on this day in 2011 AD, in India, representatives of eight countries with large wild elephant populations pledged to eradicate poaching of the animals and smuggling of ivory to ensure their survival for future generations. The "Elephant 8 Ministerial Meet" included officials from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, India, Botswana, Congo, Kenya and Tanzania. The elephant which is the largest living quadruped on earth is often the target of poachers for its tusks claimed to have aphrodisiac qualities, besides the prized ivory from which handicrafts are carved. In ancient times, elephants were used as war machines to intimidate and frighten rival armies. Today in many countries, the elephant, beside its use as a beast of burden, is trained as a riding animal on which processions are taken out, including religious, such as the famous Ashura mourning procession on the 10th of Moharram in Hyderabad, India, where the "alam" or banner of Imam Husain (AS) is carried on an elephant, behind which rows upon rows of mourners march, beating their chests in grief for the tragic martyrdom of the grandson of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA).
(Courtesy: IRIB English Radio – http://parstoday.com/en)