Saadi Shirazi, Sheikh Mosleh al-Din

Saadi was born in Shiraz around 1200. He died in Shiraz around 1292. He lost his father in early childhood. With the help of his uncle, Saadi completed his early education in Shiraz. Later he was sent to study in Baghdad at the renowned Nezamiyeh College, where he acquired the traditional learning of Islam.
The unsettled conditions following the Mongol invasion of Persia led him to wander abroad through Anatolia, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq. He also refers in his work to travels in India and Central Asia. Saadi is very much like Marco Polo who traveled in the region from 1271 to 1294. There is a difference, however, between the two. While Marco Polo gravitated to the potentates and the good life, Saadi mingled with the ordinary survivors of the Mongol holocaust. He sat in remote teahouses late into the night and exchanged views with merchants, farmers, preachers, wayfarers, thieves, and Sufi mendicants. For twenty years or more, he continued the same schedule of preaching, advising, learning, honing his sermons, and polishing them into gems illuminating the wisdom and foibles of his people.
When he reappeared in his native Shiraz he was an elderly man. Shiraz, under Atabak Abubakr Sa'd ibn Zangy (1231-60) was enjoying an era of relative tranquility. Saadi was not only welcomed to the city but was respected highly by the ruler and enumerated among the greats of the province. In response, Saadi took his nom de plume from the name of the local prince, Sa'd ibn Zangi, and composed some of his most delightful panegyrics as an initial gesture of gratitude in praise of the ruling house and placed them at the beginning of his Bostan. He seems to have spent the rest of his life in Shiraz.
His best known works are the Bostan (The Orchard) and the Golestan (The Rose Garden). The Bostan is entirely in verse (epic metre) and consists of stories aptly illustrating the standard virtues recommended to Muslims (justice, liberality, modesty, contentment) as well as of reflections on the behaviour of dervishes and their ecstatic practices. The Golestan is mainly in prose and contains stories and personal anecdotes. The text is interspersed with a variety of short poems, containing aphorisms, advice, and humorous reflections. Saadi demonstrates a profound awareness of the absurdity of human existence. The fate of those who depend on the changeable moods of kings is contrasted with the freedom of the dervishes.
For Western students the Bostan and Golestan have a special attraction; but Saadi is also remembered as a great panegyrist and lyricist, the author of a number of masterly general odes portraying human experience, and also of particular odes such as the lament on the fall of Baghdad after the Mongol invasion in 1258. His lyrics are to be found in Ghazaliyat ("Lyrics") and his odes in Qasa'id ("Odes"). He is also known for a number of works in Arabic. The peculiar blend of human kindness and cynicism, humour, and resignation displayed in Saadi's works, together with a tendency to avoid the hard dilemma, make him, to many, the most typical and lovable writer in the world of Iranian culture.
Saadi distinguished between the spiritual and the practical or mundane aspects of life. In his Bostan, for example, spiritual Saadi uses the mundane world as a spring board to propel himself beyond the earthly realms. The images in Bostan are delicate in nature and soothing. In the Golestan, on the other hand, mundane Saadi lowers the spiritual to touch the heart of his fellow wayfarers. Here the images are graphic and, thanks to Saadi's dexterity, remain concrete in the reader's mind. Realistically, too, there is a ring of truth in the division. The Shaykh preaching in the Khaniqah experiences a totally different world than the merchant passing through a town. The unique thing about Saadi is that he embodies both the Sufi Shaykh and the traveling merchant. They are, as he himself puts it, two almond kernels in the same shell.
Saadi's prose style, described as "simple but impossible to imitate" flows quite naturally and effortlessly. Its simplicity, however, is grounded in a semantic web consisting of synonymy, homophony, and oxymoron buttressed by internal rhythm and external rhyme. Iranian authors over the years have failed to imitate its style in their own language, how can foreigners translate it into their own language, no matter what language?
The world honors Saadi today by gracing the entrance to the Hall of Nations in New York with this call for breaking all barriers:
Of one Essence is the human race,
Thusly has Creation put the Base;
One Limb impacted is sufficient,
For all Others to feel the Mace.

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Giacomo Leopardi Born On 30 July 1798

Born: 29-Jun-1798
Birthplace: Recanati, Italy
Died: 14-Jun-1837
Location of death: Naples, Italy
Cause of death: unspecified
Remains: Buried, Parco Virgiliano, Naples, Italy
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Poet, Scholar
Nationality: Italy
Executive summary: Despairing Italian classical poet
Giacomo Leopardi, one of the greatest Italian poets of all times, was born in Recanati, a town in the Marches not far from the Adriatic coast. At the age of twelve Giacomo was so erudite that his private ecclesiastical tutor had to admit that his own scholarship was inferior to his pupil's and that consequently there was nothing more he could teach him. Devoured by an insatiable craving for learning, Giacomo then resolved to continue his studies alone, and for the next seven years, completely unsupervised, spent most of the day and part of the night poring over the books of the family palace's twelve-thousand volume library. He mastered Hebrew, Latin, Greek, and modern languages; completed numerous translations from the classics; wrote several philological works, a history of astronomy, and a hymn to Neptune in Greek which he pretended to have discovered in an ancient manuscript.
By the time he was nineteen years old he had amassed an amazing store of knowledge, but he had also compromised his health: he began suffering from nervous disorders, his eyesight weakened, he became a hunchback. Sadly he realized that he had allowed his youth to pass, that henceforth his life could be only unhappy, and that above all, being so frail and unattractive, he would probably never be loved by a woman. He felt it would require great courage "to love a virteous man whose only beauty is his soul". These pessimistic thoughts and premonitions pervade all of Leopardi's major works.
In much of his poetry, Leopardi almost cruelly stresses his belief that joy is nothing but the momentary subsidence of pain and that only in death can man find lasting happiness. However from time to time, there appear balancing statements such as the wonderful last line of "L'infinito" -"E il naufragar m'e dolce in questo mare" (And to shipwreck is sweet for me in this sea) - that uncover a completely different aspect of Leopardi: not the optimist, to be sure, but the enraptured admirer of nature's beauty, and the believer in the power of imagination.
"L'infinito" represents one of the summits not only of Leopardi's poetry but of all poetry. Rarely has a poet been able to compress within one hundred words such depth of meaning with such simplicity of language and harmony of sounds. Leopardi called "L'infinito" an "idyll", a definition that perfectly fits the charm and suggestive power of this superb poem, which, to quote Renato Poggioli, "makes familiar and almost dear to the heart of man the alien metaphysical vision of a universe ruled by laws other than those of life and death."

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International Atomic Energy Agency (29 July 1957)

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. The IAEA was established as an autonomous organization on 29 July 1957. Though established independently of the United Nations through its own international treaty, the IAEA Statute, the IAEA reports to both the UN General Assembly and Security Council.
The IAEA has its headquarters in Vienna, Austria. The IAEA has two "Regional Safeguards Offices" which are located in Toronto, Canada, and in Tokyo, Japan. The IAEA also has two liaison offices which are located in New York City, United States, and in Geneva, Switzerland. In addition, the IAEA has three laboratories located in Vienna and Seibersdorf, Austria, and in Monaco.
The IAEA serves as an intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear technology and nuclear power worldwide. The programs of the IAEA encourage the development of the peaceful applications of nuclear technology, provide international safeguards against misuse of nuclear technology and nuclear materials, and promote nuclear safety (including radiation protection) and nuclear security standards and their implementation.
The IAEA and its former Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded on October 7, 2005. The IAEA's current Director General is Yukiya Amano.

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Treatment of Prisoners and Enemies in Islam

Upon capture, the prisoners must be guarded and not ill-treated. Islamic law holds that the prisoners must be fed and clothed, either by the Islamic government or by the individual who has custody of the prisoner. This position is supported by the verse [Quran 76:8] of the Quran. The prisoners must be fed in a dignified manner, and must not be forced to beg for their subsistence.[Muhammad's early followers also considered it a principle to not separate prisoners from their relatives.
After the fighting is over, prisoners are to be released, with some prospect of survival, or ransomed. The freeing or ransoming of prisoners by Muslims themselves is highly recommended as a charitable act. The Qur'an also urges kindness to captives and recommends, their liberation by purchase or manumission. The freeing of captives is recommended both for the expiation of sins and as an act of simple benevolence.
Women and children
Muslim scholars hold that women and children prisoners of war cannot be killed under any circumstances, regardless of their faith,[18] but that they may be enslaved, freed or ransomed. Women who are neither freed nor ransomed by their people were to be kept in bondage and referred to as ma malakat aymanukum (slaves).
Men
There has been disagreement whether adult male prisoners of war may be executed. One traditional opinion holds that executing prisoners of war is strictly forbidden; this is the most-widely accepted view, and one upheld by the Hanafi madhab.
However, the opinion of the Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali and Jafari madhabs is that adult male prisoners of war may be executed. Conventionally, execution was conditional on the reasonable belief that male prisoners would pose a genuine and immediate threat to the Muslim community if allowed to live. The decision for an execution is to be made by the Muslim leader. This opinion was also upheld by the Muslim judge, Sa'id bin Jubair (665-714 AD) and 'Abu Yusuf Ya'qub a classical jurist from the Hanafi school of jurispudence.[3] El Fadl argues the reason Muslim jurists adopted this position was largely because it was consistent with the war practices of the Middle Ages.
Most contemporary Muslim scholars prohibit altogether the killing of prisoners and hold that this was the policy practiced by Prophet Muhammad. The 20th century Muslim scholar, Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi states that no prisoner should be "put to the sword" in accordance with a saying of Muhammad.
Yusuf Ali, another 20th century Muslim scholar, while commenting on verse [Quran 9:6], writes,
Even those the enemies of Islam, actively fighting against Islam, there may be individuals who may be in a position to require protection. Full asylum is to be given to them, and opportunities provided for hearing the Word of Allah...If they do not see their way to accept Islam, they will require double protection: (1) from the Islamic forces openly fighting against their people, and (2) from their own people, as they detached themselves from them. Both kinds of protection should be ensured for them, and they should be safely escorted to a place where they can be safe.
Maududi further states that Islam forbids torturing, especially by fire, and quotes Muhamad as saying, "Punishment by fire does not behoove anyone except the Master of the Fire [God].

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Islamic Republic of Great Iran 21 (Road To Persia)

Some historians believe that Hamedan’s construction dates back to 3000 B.C. The city is divided into six main avenues with the Central Square, which was designed by a German engineer in 1982 A.D. This square is considered as the main part of the city.
In Hamedan you can experience very very cold winters because the city is 3580 m above sea level. According to a 1992 survey, Hamedan hosts a population of 374541.
Well, we are not going to make you wait anymore and jump right into the wonderful attractions of Hamedan, this Iranian tourist destination.
The very first place everyone advises you to visit in Hamedan, is Alisadr lake-cave which is situated 120 KM to the north west of Hamedan near a village by the same name, Ali Sadr.
As a matter of fact it is one of the strangest natural features in Iran. It is an endless network of caves full of clean water.
The Alisadr lake-cave was discovered in the 70s and annually thousands of local and foreign tourists visit the site on boat because there is no other way you can walk into. In some sections, the caves are more than 100 meters wide.
The mausoleum of Ibn Sina, known to the Westerners, as Avecinna was built in Hamedan in 1952. Avecinna was born near Bokhara in the year 980AH and died at the age of 57 in Hamedan. He is one of Iran’s most famous philosophers and scientists. His Canon, the first systematic piece of medical science was taught in Europe until the 18th century.
The grave of Avecinna has been placed in the center of a 12 foundation tower and next to it is the grave of Sheikh Abou Saeid Dakhdook, Avecinna’s friend and host.
On the gigantic rocks of Alvand Mountain, the two Achaemenid kings namely Daruis I and Xerxes have described their conquests in an inscription carved in the stone, asking for help from Ahuramazda. The generations that followed could not read the alphabets of the ancient Persia, so they thought the inscription was a guide to a treasury and called it Ganj Nameh, meaningtreasury guide.
Similar to the majority of inscriptions by the Achaemenid kings, this inscription includes greetings to Ahuramazda and the fathers and forefathers of the Persian kings.
Another tourist attraction of Hamedan is Gonbad-e-Alavian or Alavian Dome. Gonbad-e-Alavian was built in the 12th century A.D when Hamedan was a Seljuk capital.
The site is believed to be the mausoleum of the powerful Alavian family who ruled Hamedan after the Seljuks. The interior walls of the main chamber are covered with natural adornments such as twining vines, leaves and flowers.
Actually this green decoration contrasts sharply with the harshness of the deep tomb where several of the Alavian leaders have been buried.
In the South of Hamedan and in a vicinity by the name of Baba Taher is located the tomb of famous Iranian poet, Baba Taher Oryan. The tomb is an ancient one with an octagonal structure and is surrounded with a mesh-like railing. Babab Taher has composed verses in the Lori dialect.
And great Islamic reformer of the East, Seyed Jamal-e-din Asadabadi’s memorial construction has been built in Asad Abad in Hamedan province. He was born in the year 1254 AH and poisoned to death in Turkey in 1314 AH.
Hamedan Province is a strategic mid-western Iranian province that’s just 6 hours driving from Tehran and neighbors Kermanshah, Lorestan and Central provinces of Iran.

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Friday Prayer in Tehran On 27 July 1979 by Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleghani

(1911 - September 9, 1979)he was an Iranian theologian, Muslim reformer and a senior Shia cleric of Iran. He was born in the town of Taleqan in the Alborz mountains. He was considered a moderate and supporter og People's Mujahedin of Iran in his views: he declared the headscarf as not being a mandatory part of hijab, among other opinions.
Taleghani died in 1979 after the revolution of Iran. He was the first Imam for Friday Prayer in Tehran after the fall of Iran's interim government.
Taleghani and Iran's eventual Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini were clerical and ideological contemporaries within Iran's Shia resistance movement during the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

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Stop Genocide in Myanmar (Protest in Islamic Republic of Iran)

The genocide in Myanmar (formerly Burma) continues where thousands of Muslims are being slain. The government of Myanmar is part of the heinous crime. Majority of the Human rights groups are not addressing the issue actively. Media as usual is a silent spectator. Shame on international media!

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Iranian Constitutional Referendum Held On 28 July 1989

A constitutional referendum was held in Iran on 28 July 1989, alongside presidential elections. Approved by 97.6% of voters, It was the first and so far the only time the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran has been amended. It made several changes to articles 5, 107, 109, 111, and added article 176. It eliminated the need for the Supreme Leader (rahbar) of the country to be a marja or chosen by popular acclaim, it eliminated of the post of prime minister, and it created a Supreme National Security Council.
BackGround
On 24 April 1989 while on his deathbed, Khomeini appointed a 25-man Constitutional Reform Council (also known as the Assembly for Revising the Constitution). The council named Ali Khamenei as Khomeini's successor as Supreme Leader of Iran and drew up several amendments to the original constitution. Since the senior mujtahid or Marja of Iran had given only lukewarm support to Khomeini's principle of rule by Islamic jurist, and Khamenei was not a marja, the original prerequisite that the rahbar (leader) be "a paramount faqih" (i.e. one of these marja) was dropped from the constitution.
Some changes to the constitution introduced by the Reform Council include:
changing the name of the Majlis-e Melli to the Majlis-e Islami.
increasing the size of the Assembly of Experts to 86 members
giving the Assembly of Experts the authority to convene at least once a year and to determine whether the Supreme Leader was `mentally and physically capable of carrying out his arduous duties.`
transforming the Expediency Council into a permanent body with members appointed by the Supreme Leader as well as representatives from the three branches of government, the armed forces, the intelligence service, and the Guardian Council.
The amendments were approved by Iranian voters and became law on 28 July 1989.

Members of the council

This is a list of members of Constitutional Amendment Council of Iran, appointed by Ayatollah Khomeini, who reviewed and amended the Constitution of Iran in 1989:
Abbas Ali Amid-Zanjani
Ebrahim Amini
Ahmad Azari-Ghomi
Asadollah Bayat
Mohammad Emami-Kashani
Hassan Habibi
Najafgholi Habibi
Hossein Hashemian
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
Ahmad Jannati
Mehdi Karroubi
Ali Khamenei (deputy chairman)
Hadi Khamenei
Abolghasem Khaz'ali
Mohammad Reza Mahdavi-Kani
Ali Meshkini (chairman)
Mehdi Mohammadi-Gilani
Mohammad Daneshzadeh Mo'men
Mir-hossein Mousavi
Abdolkarim Mousavi Ardebili
Mohammad Mousavi-Khoiniha
Abdollah Noori
Hassan Taheri-Khorramabadi
Mohammad Reza Tavassoli
Mohammad Yazdi
Result

Choice	Votes	%
For	16,025,459	97.6
Against	398,867	2.4
Invalid/blank votes	32,445	-
Total	16,456,771	100

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Stop Killing Bumrese Muslims

Where is Asma Jhangeer ???show her few pictures if she could have courage some where to condemn in media because human right is not always a women all human inclusive kids.
No words to explain my feeling….. muslim ummah is still sleeping …….where are human rights orgnisations…… if one christian is short dead , all the western press shouting and barking but they say nothing on this bulk murder………..i think i have not listen any voice from any muslim country government on this curilty….. where is oic and rabta aalam islami orgnization,,,,,,,,,,, for the Sake of God every muslim should do some to stop this murders of muslim,,,,,,,, it is not case of only Jamait Islami……… pls help beyond the politics…………….God help muslim and their governments to stop this murders….. where is Muhammad Bin Qasim…… to teach lesson to Burmaa government………..tears and tears and prayers……. I shall do help what i could do… through JI who is only highlighting this issue…. may God help and success this jamait…….

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Must Watch!! Burma Muslims Massacre 2012

More than 20 thousand Muslims have been killed as yet, and still the Muslim world continues to sleep !
|| O Allah ! You are the one whose help is sought !
And from you relief is sought !
And in You we put our trust !
And there is no power and no strength except through You !
O Allah ! O Remover of calamities !
O Reliever of agonies !
O the one who responds to the desperate one when he calls upon Him !
O the one who removes evil !
O Allah ! We ask you for our brothers in Arakan and Burma,
to give them victory, relieve them and help them.
O Allah ! Be a helper for them, at a time when helpers are scarce !
O Allah ! O our Lord !
O the one who hears the crying of the children !
And the wailing of the women !
And sees the sick, injured and the killed !
O Allah ! We ask you to give them victory !
O Allah ! Make their affairs easy !
O Allah ! Relieve their worries !
O Allah ! Fail their enemies !
You are the Hearing, the Answering, O Lord of the Worlds ! ||

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Simon Bolivar Born On 24 July 1783

Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) was the greatest leader of Latin America's independence movement from Spain. A superb general and a charismatic politician, he not only drove the Spanish from northern South America but also was instrumental in the early formative years of the republics that sprang up once the Spanish had gone. His later years are marked by the collapse of his grand dream of a united South America. He is remembered as "The Liberator," the man who liberated his home from Spanish rule.
Born: 24 July 1783
Birthplace: Caracas, Venezuela
Best Known As: el Libertador of 19th century South America
Venezuelan-born Simón Bolívar liberated much of South America from Spanish rule in the 19th century and became one of Latin America's greatest heroes. Born to a privileged family, he was orphaned as a child and raised by tutors, among them Simon Rodriguez, who emphasized the Enlightenment and, especially, works by Jean Jacques Rousseau. Bolívar travelled to Europe (1799-1802 and 1804), where he witnessed the coronation of Napoleon and gradually became drawn to the idea of revolution. He joined the Venezuelan revolution in 1810 and gained military victories and independence (1813), but in the civil war that followed his forces were defeated by a royalist army (1815). After exile in Jamaica, he returned to lead rebel forces based in Orinoco.
In 1819 he defeated the Spanish and established the republic of Greater Colombia, a federation that included present-day Venezuela, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador. Further victories in Peru, at Junin and Ayacucho (1824) spelled the end of Spanish rule and Bolívar was the most powerful man on the continent. His vision of a united South America was never realized; various separatist movements and resentment toward his dictatorial methods prevented political stability and Bolívar resigned as president of Greater Colombia in 1830, just months before dying from tuberculosis. Bolivia is named for Bolívar.
Simon Bolivar was one of South America's greatest generals. His victories over the Spaniards won independence for Bolivia, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. He is called El Liberator (The Liberator) and the "George Washington of South America." Bolivar was born in July 24, 1783, at Caracas, Venezuela. His parents died when he was a child and he inherited a fortune. As a young man, he traveled in Europe.
As he returned to Venezuela, Bolivar joined the group of patriots that seized Caracas in 1810 and proclaimed independence from Spain. He went to Great Britain in search of aid, but could get only a promise of British neutrality. When he returned to Venezuela, and took command of a patriot army, he recaptured Caracas in 1813 from the Spaniards. The Spaniards forced Bolivar to retreat from Venezuela to New Granada (now Colombia), also at war with Spain. He took command of a Colombian force and captured Bogota in 1814. The patriots, however, lacked men and supplies, and new defeats led Bolivar to flee to Jamaica. In Haiti he gathered a force that landed in Venezuela in 1816, and took Angostra (now Ciudad Bolivar). He also became dictator there.
Bolivar marched into New Granada in 1819. He defeated the Spaniards in Boyar in 1819, liberating the territory of Colombia. He then returned to Angostura and led the congress that organized the original republic of Colombia (now Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela). Bolivar became its first president on December 17, 1819.
Bolivar crushed the Spanish army at Carabobo in Venezuela on June 24, 1821. Next, he marched into Educador and added that territory to the new Colombian republic. After a meeting in 1822 with another great liberator, Bolivar became dictator of Peru. His army won a victory over the Spaniards at Auacucho in 1824, which needed Spanish power in South America. Upper Peru became a separate state, named Bolivia in Bolivar's honor, in 1825. The constitution, which he drew up for Bolivia, is one of his most important political pronouncements.

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Close Argument (Kindness in Islam)

Nasiruddin was the slave of a king, and very fond of hunting. One day he came across a very pretty baby deer and picked it up and rode away. The mother deer saw Nasiruddin take her baby and followed him anxiously. Nasiruddin, pleased with the baby dear, was thinking about presenting it to his children to play with. After a time, he chanced to look back and saw the mother deer following him, her expression full of grief. He noticed too that she did not seem to care about her own safety. Moved to pity, Nasiruddin set the baby deer free. The mother deer nuzzled and licked her baby fondly and the two deer leapt happily away into the forest. But many times the mother deer looked back at Nasiruddin, as if to express her thanks.
That night Nasiruddin dreamt that the revered Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) was addressing him: ‘Nasiruddin, your name has been entered in the list of Allah, and you will one day have a kingdom. But remember that when you are king you will also have many responsibilities. Just as you have shown mercy to the deer today, you should be merciful to all Allah’s creatures. You should not forget your people by falling into a life of luxury.’
This dream came true and Nasiruddin did become king, Amir Nasiruddin Subaktagin, father of Sultan Muhammad.
The moral of the story is that if we wish Allah to be merciful to us, we must be eager to show mercy to all the living creatures of the earth.
When a flower blooms, its colour and scent first touch the garden near it, and then spread. In the same way, a Muslim’s acts of human kindness should first touch those nearest to him, his family and his neighbours.

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The Battle of the Pyramids 23 July 1798 (Fall of Mamluks in Egypt)

In July of 1798, having landed in Egypt, Napoleon was marching from Alexandria toward Cairo having invaded and captured the former. He met two forces of the ruling Mamluks about nine miles from the Pyramids of Giza, and only four miles from Cairo. The Mamluk forces were commanded by Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey and had a powerful and highly developed cavalry.
Napoleon realized that the only Egyptian troops of any worth on the battlefield were the cavalry. He had little cavalry of his own and was outnumbered by a factor of two or three to one. He was therefore forced to go on the defensive, and organized his army into hollow "squares" with artillery, cavalry, and baggage at the center of each square, and so dispersed sustained charges of Mamluk cavalry with supporting artillery fire. He then stormed the Egyptian camp in the village of Embebeh, routing the disorganized Egyptian infantry and scattering their army.
The battle won Cairo and Lower Egypt for France. When news of the defeat of their legendary cavalry reached Cairo, the Mamluk army dispersed to Syria to reorganize there. The battle also signaled the final chapter of seven hundred years of Mamluk rule in Egypt. Despite this auspicious beginning, Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson's victory in the Battle of the Nile ten days later ended Bonaparte's hopes for a glorious conquest of the Middle East. Britain saw Egypt as vital to her own interests further east, and would not tolerate a French imperial presence there; that would damage English trade in the region and threaten their hold on India and safe passage to and from that colony.

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Gustav Ludwig Hertz Born On22 July 1887

Born: 22 July 1887 in Hamburg, Germany
Died: 30 Oct 1975 in Berlin, East Germany
Gustav Hertz's parents were Gustav Hertz and Auguste Arning. Gustav Hertz (senior) was a lawyer who was one of the brothers of Heinrich Hertz, the discoverer of wireless waves, who also has a biography in this archive. Gustav, the subject of this biography, attended the Johanneum Gymnasium in Hamburg as his famous uncle had done about thirty years earlier. He graduated from the Johanneum in 1906 and entered the University of Göttingen to study physics.
As was the custom with German students at this time, Hertz did not complete his studies at a single university, but moved around to sample the best of a number of institutions. After Göttingen, Hertz moved to Munich where he studied at the university before moving to the University of Berlin in 1909 to study for his doctorate. In 1911 he was awarded his doctorate for his thesis Über das ultrarote Absorptionsspektrum der Kohlensäure in seiner Abhängigkeit von Druck und Partialdruck which he had written with Heinrich Rubens and Max Planck as advisors. In his thesis he studied the infrared absorption of carbon dioxide in relation to pressure and partial pressure.
In 1913 Hertz was appointed as an Assistant in Physics at the University of Berlin. At Berlin he worked with James Franck. Franck was five years older than Hertz and had been awarded his doctorate by the University of Berlin in 1909. The two began their joint research project in 1913 and continued it until the outbreak of World War I in July-August 1914. Both Hertz and Franck were mobilised when war broke out and their research collaboration necessarily stopped. However the work they had done led to their being jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1925. Their work confirmed experimentally quantum theory as proposed by Bohr by showing that when an electron strikes an atom of mercury vapour, it must possess a certain minimum energy before that energy is absorbed by the atom. Moreover even if the electron had more than this minimum energy, it was only the exact minimum energy which was absorbed.
The war proved unfortunate for Hertz who was severely wounded in action in 1915. After he recovered he was appointed as a Privatdozent at the University of Berlin in 1917. While holding this post he married Ellen Dihlmann in 1919. They had two sons, Carl Hellmuth Hertz, born on 15 October 1920, and Johannes Hertz who both became physicists. Hertz left Berlin in 1920 and worked for five years in the physics laboratory of the Philips Incandescent Lamp Factory at Eindhoven. In 1925 he was appointed Professor of Physics and Director of the Physics Institute at the University of Halle. After being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1925, Hertz gave his Nobel lecture on The results of the electron-impact tests in the light of Bohr's theory of atoms on 11 December 1926. In that lecture he gave the background to his highly significant experimental results:-
The significance of investigations on the ionization of atoms by electron impact is due to the fact that they have provided a direct experimental proof of the basic assumptions of Bohr's theory of atoms. ... The fact that atoms are capable of exchanging energy with electromagnetic radiation, led the classical physicists to conclude that atoms must contain moving electrical charges. The oscillations of these charges produce the emission of light radiation, while light absorption was ascribed to forced oscillations of these charges owing to the electrical field of the light waves. On the basis of Lorentz's theory of the normal Zeeman effect, of the magnetic splitting of the spectral lines, it was concluded that these moving charges must be the electrons to which we are acquainted in cathode rays. If only one or several spectral lines were associated with each type of atom, then it might be assumed that the atom contained, for each spectral line, an electron of corresponding characteristic frequency. In reality, however, the number of spectral lines emitted by each atom is infinitely large. The spectral lines are certainly not randomly distributed, on the contrary there exists a certain relationship between their frequencies, but this relationship is such that it is impossible on the basic of classical physics to explain it in terms of the characteristic frequencies of a system of electrons. Here Bohr stepped in with his atomic theory. He applied Planck's quantum theory to the problem of atomic structure and light emission, and thereby greatly extended this theory.
In 1928 he was appointed Director of Physics Institute, Charlottenburg Technological University, Berlin. His main task now was less involved with research and more on the administrative side as he worked to rebuild the the Physics Institute. He did, however, continued at undertake research and, in 1932, he made another significant breakthrough when he devised a method of separating the isotopes of neon. He had a grandfather was was Jewish and so when the Nazi Party came to power in 1933 his position became difficult. On 7 April 1933 the Nazis passed a law which, under clause three, ordered the retirement of civil servants who were not of Aryan descent, with exemptions for participants in World War I and pre-war officials. Hertz qualified under the exemptions, but this was not honoured over the following period. Hertz resigned his positions at the Technological University of Berlin in 1935 and returned to industry being appointed Director of the Siemens physics laboratory. In 1941 Hertz's wife Ellen died. He married again two years later to Charlotte Jollasse.
When the war ended in 1945 Hertz went to the Soviet Union where he worked as the head of a research laboratory. Returning to East Germany in 1954, he was appointed Professor and Director of the Physics Institute at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig. He held this position until he retired in 1961. After he retired he continued to live for a while in Leipzig, but then moved to Berlin where he spent the last years of his life.
Hertz received many honours in addition to the 1925 Nobel Prize in Physics. As with the Nobel Prize, he received the Max Planck Medal of the German Physical Society in 1951 jointly with James Franck. In addition he was elected to the Göttingen Academy of Sciences, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Czech Academy of Sciences, and the USSR Academy of Sciences.

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