This Day in History

Date: 11 November 2020 - 21:46

News ID: ۸۴۷۳۶

(November 12)

Today is Thursday; 22nd of the Iranian month of Aban 1399 solar hijri; corresponding to 26th of the Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal 1442 lunar hijri; and November 12, 2020, of the Christian Gregorian Calendar.
1035 lunar years ago, on this day in 407 AH, the able prime minister of the Buwaihid dynasty of Iran and Iraq, Abu Ghaleb Mohammad ibn Ali Waseti, titled Fakhr ol-Molk, was martyred in Ahwaz. He was the Minister of Emir Baha od-Dowla Daylami, and was a very virtuous and pious person, known for his charity and devotion to the genuine teachings of Prophet Mohammad (SAWA). He started the practice of distributing among the needy people the ‘Halva’ or a sweet dish on the auspicious eve of 15th Sha’ban which also marks the birth anniversary of the Lord of the Age, the Prophet’s 12th and Last Infallible Successor, Imam Mahdi (may God hasten his reappearance to establish the global government of peace, prosperity and justice). Fakhr ol-Molk built the walls in Karbala around the holy shrine of Imam Hussain (AS). After Ibn-e Abi Amid and Saheb bin Abbad, he was the third most prominent vizier of the Buwaihid or Daylamite dynasty of Iran and Iraq that ruled for over a hundred years.
291 solar years ago, on this day in 1729 AD, French navigator and scientist, Louis Antoine de Bougainville was born in Paris.
282 lunar years ago, on this day in 1160 AH, the great scholar Seyyed Ali Tabatabaie was born in holy Kazemain in Iraq. He wrote several books including commentaries on the "Mafatih” of Faiz Kashani, and the "Mukhtasir an-Nafe’” of Muhaqqiq Awwal. His famous work was "Riyadh al-Masa’el”, and for this reason, he is also known as "Saheb-e Riyadh”.
254 solar years ago, on this day in 1766 AD, British colonialists led by Colonel Calliaud, imposed a treaty on Nizam Ali Khan Asaf Jah II of Haiderabad-Deccan, to occupy the districts of Elur, Chikakol, Guntur, Rajahmundry, and Muzaffarnagar on the Bay of Bengal coast, thus depriving India’s premier Muslim kingdom of access to international waters.
180 solar years ago, on this day in 1840 AD, the acclaimed sculptor, Auguste Rodin, was born in Paris. In the following years, he created beautiful masterpieces, gaining fame as a major sculptor. He died in 1917.
127 solar years ago, on this day in 1893 AD, the treaty of the Durand Line delineating the border between present day Pakistan and Afghanistan was signed by Sir Mortimer Durand, a British diplomat in British India, and the Afghan Amir Abdur-Rahman Khan.
124 solar years ago, on this day in 1896 AD, Indian ornithologist, Saleem Moiz od-Din Abdul Ali, popularly called the "Birdman of India,” for his conservation of India’s biological diversity, was born in Bombay in a family of Ismaili Shi’ite Muslims. The title of his autobiography "The Fall of a Sparrow” recalls the first sparrow that drew his interest as a boy. He died in 1987 at the age of 91.
123 solar years ago, on this day in 1897 AD, the Iranian poet, Ali Esfandiari, known by his penname of Nima Youshij, was born in the village of Yoush in Mazandaran Province, northern Iran. He later took up residence in Tehran, and learned French and Arabic. Upon the encouragement of one of his lecturers, he started composing modern poetry. He passed away in 1959 at the age of 62.
112 solar years ago, on this day in 1908 AD, Bulgaria, which was separated from the Ottoman Turkish Empire by the Russians and Europeans, thirty years earlier in 1878, was declared fully independent after over five centuries of Muslim rule.
108 solar years ago, on this day in 1912 AD, Ayatollah Shaikh Abdullah Mazandarani, passed away at the age of 72.
105 solar years ago, on this day in 1915 AD, the Iranian national parliament was dissolved before completing its 3rd round, upon the orders of the last Qajarid king, Ahmad Shah.
102 solar years ago, on this day in 1918 AD, Austria was declared a republic, following the defeat and collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I.
64 solar years ago, on this day in 1956 AD, Zionist troops committed a massacre at the Palestinian refugee camp in the city of Rafah, in the Gaza Strip. The slaughter continued for several days even after announcement of ceasefire in the war Israel had imposed on Egypt in league with Britain and France. Some 110 Palestinian women, men, and children were martyred and almost 1,000 others injured.
64 solar years ago, on this day in 1956 AD, the largest iceberg on record was sighted by the USS Glacier, a Navy icebreaker, about 150 miles west of Scott Island in the Southern Hemisphere. It had broken from the Ross Ice Shelf in the Antarctic. Its size was about the size of Belgium – that is, 335 km long and 96 km wide. This record iceberg was many times larger than any seen in the Northern Hemisphere, where the largest iceberg on record was encountered near Baffin Island in 1882.
55 solar years ago, on this day in 1965 AD, the acclaimed Iranian literary figure, author, and researcher, Professor Sa’eed Nafisi, passed away at the age of 71. Following completion of high school, he went to France to learn law and political science. On return to Iran he lectured at the country’s universities. He was a permanent member of Iran’s Cultural House. He has left behind more than 180 compilations and translations and authored "The Politico-Social History of Contemporary Iran”. Sa’eed Nafisi also compiled the "French-to-Persian Comprehensive Dictionary”.
54 solar years ago, on this day in 1966 AD, famous Iraqi eulogy-elegy reciter, Basim Karbalai was born in the holy city of Karbala, where he where he lived until the age of 14, actively participating in mourning processions for Imam Husain (AS), before moving to Isfahan because of Saddam’s repressive rule.
51 solar years ago, on this day in 1969 AD, Iskander Mirza, Pakistan’s 1st President died in London at the age of 70. In 1958 he was deposed in a bloodless coup by General Ayub Khan, who was his own appointee as martial law enforcer 20 days earlier. Iskander Mirza belonged to the ruling family of Iranian origin of Murshidabad in Bengal. His body was brought to Iran and buried in the mausoleum of Seyyed Abdul-Azim al-Hassani in Rayy, near Tehran.
51 solar years ago, on this day in 1969 AD, during the Vietnam War, independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh exposed the My Lai Massacre, over a year and a half after it was carried out. Of the 22 cowardly US soldiers involved in sadistic savagery at My Lai village on 16th March 1968, only Lt. William Calley was charged with six specifications of premeditated murder for the cold-blooded killing of 109 Vietnamese men, women and children, including infants. Some of the bodies were later found to be mutilated and many women raped prior to the killings.
50 solar years ago, on this day in 1970 AD, the Bhola cyclone, the deadliest tropical cyclone in history, made a landfall on the coast of East Pakistan or what is now Bangladesh, claiming the lives of at least half-a-million people, primarily as a result of the storm surge that flooded much of the low-lying islands of the Ganges Delta.
24 solar years ago, on this day in 1996 AD, A Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747 and a Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane collided in mid-air near New Delhi, killing 349 people, in the deadliest mid-air collision to date.
26 solar years ago, on this day in 1994 AD, the prominent authority on ancient Iranian languages, Dr. Mehrdad Bahar, passed away.
24 solar years ago, on this day in 1996 AD, Ayatollah Seyyed Morteza Pasandideh, passed away at the age of 100. Son of the scholar Seyyed Mostafa al-Hindi of Khomein, he was the elder brother of the Father of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Ruhollah Khomeini (RA).