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Some 300 million people around the world are starting their annual celebration of renewal and harmony with nature in what is to them the biggest cultural holiday of the year, typically involving 13 days of rituals. Nowruz (alternatively spelled Nauruz, Nauryz, Navruz, Nevruz, Nooruz, Norooz, Norouz, or Novruz), also known as Persian New Year (Nowruz means “new day” in Persian), is celebrated across ethnic groups with a common Silk Roads heritage, including Afghanistan, India, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Turkey, as well as their diaspora in other countries. Watch more from TIME Click to Learn More AD pause volume_off...

An extremely rare silver coin that was minted outside the Land of Israel during the Persian Period – within a few centuries of the biblical story of Queen Esther and King Ahasuerus in the 6th–5th centuries BCE – has been discovered by an archaeologist during an Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) excavation in the Judean Hills...Minted in a period when the use of coins had just begun, it joins only half a dozen coins of its type that have been found in excavations in the country.An indication of the gradual process of minting coins instead of weighing silver pieces to make...

When Justinian secured the so-called "Eternal Peace" with the Persians in AD 532 after the Battle of Daras, it is likely that he realized that the peace on his eastern frontier would not actually be perpetual. But he probably thought it would last longer that seven or eight years. In any event, the emperor made the most the respite, gathering his substantial forces from the east which had previously been on station to face down the Persian menace, and readying them for a thrust to the West. His first target was the Vandal Kingdom which had ruled Roman Africa for...

2,500 years ago, the writing of history as we know it didn’t exist. The past was recorded as a list of events, with little explanation for their causes beyond accepting things as the will of the gods. Herodotus wanted a deeper understanding, so he took a new approach: looking at events from both sides to understand the reasons for them. Mark Robinson explains how "history" came into being.Lesson by Mark Robinson, directed by Remus and KikiWhy is Herodotus called "The Father of History"? - Mark Robinson | 5:02TED-Ed | 19M subscribers | 2,285,551 views | December 11, 2017

Carter owes the people of Iran an apology. ... Carter's critics always point to his handling of the Iran hostage crisis as the most glaring flaw in his time in office. During the course of that 444-day nightmare, a student mob held 52 U.S. diplomats and civilians hostage, and no amount of negotiation—or attempted military action—could get them released. Thankfully, that sad chapter finally ended on Jan. 20, 1980, the day President Ronald Reagan took the oath of office at the U.S. Capitol. But Carter's true transgression—the original sin that has complicated and shaped U.S. policy in the Middle East...

...A hideous form of execution, which has not been practiced for twenty years, was revived the other day to strike terror into the hearts of the people. The murder of the Shah was followed by a succession of robberies on the road between Bushire and Isfahan, the nomad tribes going out in large parties and looting villages and caravans, and an Englishman was even stripped naked and beaten with sticks. One hundred thousand pounds was estimated as the value of property that changed hands during one week. Every day individuals came naked into Shiraz, and the roads were strewn with...

You don’t need to be the biggest ancient history buff to know that the Roman army was among the greatest military forces the world has even seen. When it came to conquering territory, they were remarkably efficient. The empire swelled to more than five million square kilometers in size, before ultimately collapsing because its sheer size made it utterly impractical to defend and administer. Along the way, the Romans conquered Greece, Gaul, and so many other regions in between. Needless to say, they fought numerous bloody wars to claim and maintain control over such lands. As successful as they tended...

On this date (or very close to it) in 628, the Persian emperor Khosrau* II was put to death by the order of his son and usurper. Chip off the old block, that boy, since he was taking power the same way as Khosrau himself had done way back in 590. But with the old man’s fall, the Sassanid Empire entered its death spiral: by 651, it would be overwhelmed by the armies of Islam. Little could the younger Khosrau have conceived of his glorious Persian state laid low by these desert zealots! Persia’s last great pre-Muslim empire flourished in...

The Justice Department on Friday charged three Azerbaijani gangsters with plotting to murder a Brooklyn-based Iranian-American author and activist last year. The case stems from the July arrest of Khalid Mehdiyev, who was collared near Masih Alinejad’s home with an assault rifle after the beefy and bearded 24-year-old was filmed ringing Alinejad’s doorbell and lingering on her porch in a leafy part of the New York City borough. The other two men facing charges are 43-year-old Rafat “Rome” Amirov, a resident of Iran who was arrested on Jan. 26 in New York, and 38-year-old Polad “Haci Qaqa” Omarov, who was...

Modern feminism is a stinking sickness which is rotting Western societies from within. But not all the world is contaminated. The courageous women and their husbands standing up around the world against police state excesses of Iran's modern theocracy look different to me. I see them live with true gender equality. They revere the motherhood which feminists hate. They do not demonise men. This gives me hope. God Bless Freedom, the Gift Of Life，and Women For Freedom like Mone and Mas.

Preparing for any potential war against Iran, the Biden administration has formally elevated Israel in military planning.... ...For the Pentagon, Israel is the most prized military and intelligence partner in the Middle East, with its vast combat experience and advanced technologies. With the end of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and with the brokering of the Abraham Accords by the Trump administration, Washington sees an opportunity to incorporate Israel into a new regional alliance. ... ..."CENTCOM will now work to implement the U.S. Government commitment to a holistic approach to regional security and cooperation with our partners," the Tampa-based command...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to travel to the Middle East this week, a rare trip abroad intended to signal that the protracted and costly war in Ukraine hasn’t diminished Moscow’s place on the world stage. In only his second trip outside Russia since the country invaded Ukraine in February, Mr. Putin is set to travel to Tehran on Tuesday, where he will meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. The visit reflects the importance Mr. Putin places in maintaining the leverage Russia gained from years of military and diplomatic intervention in the Middle East.

"According to a story in Herodotus, the nature of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, and the advantages and inconveniences of each, were as well understood at the time of the neighing of the horse of Darius, as they are at this hour." John Adams: A DEFENCE OF THE CONSTITUTIONS OF GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. [3.80] ... Otanes recommended that the management of public affairs should be entrusted to the whole nation. [democracy] "To me," he said, "it seems advisable, that we should no longer have a single man to rule over us - the rule of one is...

The gravesite of Mordechai and Esther An exchange of letters dating back to the year 1968, on display now in the National Library in honor of the upcoming festival of Purim, shows that representatives of Iranian Jewry sought to purchase the gravesite of Mordechai and Esther in the city of Hamedan, in western Iran, and that the Shah was amenable to their request. The letters, quoted by Israel Hayom, reveal the negotiations between representatives of the Jewish community in Iran and the Shah, who ruled the country until the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The representatives sought to purchase the...

Heydrich - Commander of the Security Lines at SS Among the tens of thousands of books by the National Library in Jerusalem, this week I found a forgotten book that no one has touched in years. He is one of a kind. Name of the book: SS - Combat Organization...", by Heinrich Himmler. The first page of this book is adorned with a rubber stamp, bearing a swastika and the words: "Party, The German National Socialist Workers - Haifa Branch. " Under the stamp, a personal dedication in this language: "Dedicated cordially to the party branch in Haifa - Berlin,...

On 1 December, 1948, the man’s body was found on Somerton Beach in South Australia with the circumstances of his death remaining an open police investigation. The Somerton man was first found by passers-by who noticed him slumped against a seawall. The cause of death remains unknown and many theories have been advanced over his identity, ranging from a jilted lover to a Cold War spy. An initial police investigation and coronial inquest left the matter unresolved, with the case particularly mystifying because of a number of items found with the body. They included a suitcase, items of clothing with...

Throughout the long history of the Roman Empire, it seems as if enough blood was spilt to replace the earth’s oceans. Assassinations, massacres, persecutions, executions, gladiatorial games and wars fill almost every century of the Roman Empire’s lengthy existence. Even with the over-abundance of morbid and macabre killings, the execution of Emperor Valerian (r. 253-260) was so shocking that it remains vividly unique, even when compared to other bloody events that are abundant in Roman history.

The Bagratid Kingdom, also known as Bagratid Armenia, was founded by Ashot I Bagratuni of the Bagratuni dynasty around AD 880 following centuries of Abbasid rule.The kingdom emerged as a buffer state between the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate, absorbing several Armenian principalities and the kingdoms of Taron, Vaspurakan, Kars, Khachen and Syunik.The earliest description of Ani comes from the 5th-6th century Armenian chronicler Ghazar Parpetsi, who gives mention of a hilltop fortress constructed by the Kamsarakan House (one of the Seven Great Houses of Iran closely associated to the Arsacids)...By the start of the 11th century, Ani had...

As the country with the second-largest gas and fourth-largest oil reserves in the world, Iran is a crumbling ruin, the legacy of 42 years of Islamic fundamentalism. The theocratic dictatorship ruling Iran has been a disaster for its 80 million mainly young citizens, the majority of whom have known no other government. Young Iranians are predominantly secular and non-religious, but they are tech-savvy and envious of the freedoms they recognize in the West. Yet they are chained to the diktats of a fascist, clerical regime, led by the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who believes he is God's representative on...

For example, a 17th-century Persian textile contains fibers of silk thread that were individually wrapped with thin strips of metal. And the microstructure of a needle from Cyprus retains the touch of the person who shaped it, in traces of dark corrosion that emerged as the needle was rotated and hammered. In another striking image, a bit of basalt glitters in a ceramic roof tile from Gordion, a site in Turkey that was inhabited from at least 2300 B.C., during the early Bronze Age (the tile dates to the first half of the sixth century B.C.). Basalt, a volcanic rock,...