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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (Arabic: خالد شيخ محمد; also transliterated as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, and other ways) (b. March 1, 1964 or April 14, 1965) is a Kuwait based terrorist. Until his capture in Pakistan in 2003, he was an important figure in Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization, where he masterminded numerous plans and came to head the group's propaganda operations sometime around 1999. The 9/11 Commission Report calls him "the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks" and states that "By his own account, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel." The Report also calls him a "terrorist entrepreneur" who — though he had engaged in planning terrorist attacks since his first such plot in 1994 — did not join al-Qaeda until late 1998 or early 1999. He also reportedly helped finance his nephew Ramzi Yousef's World Trade Center bombing and conspired with him to create the foiled Operation Bojinka plot (not directly related to al-Qaeda). As an al-Qaeda member he helped in the Bali nightclub bombings, the failed bombing of American Airlines Flight 63, the murder of Daniel Pearl, and other militant attacks. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has used 27 known aliases, including Ashraf Refaat Nabith Henin, Khalid Adbul Wadood, Salem Ali, Abdul Majid, Abdullah al-Fak'asi al-Ghamdior, and Fahd Bin Adballah Bin Khalid. An initialism widely used for his name is KSM. Some American government sources called him the "Forrest Gump of terrorism" or "Forrest Gump of al-Qaeda" because he was involved in so many Islamic militant plans from 1994 up until his capture in March 2003. Since his capture his whereabouts are unknown.

Early life

Mohammed is usually reported to have been born in Kuwait, just like his nephew, Ramzi Yousef (three years KSM's junior). He joined the Muslim Brotherhood at age 16. He attended Chowan College, a small Baptist school in Murfreesboro, North Carolina, for a few years (beginning in 1983) before transferring to the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and completing a degree in mechanical engineering in 1986. The following year he went to Afghanistan and joined the United States CIA sponsored fight against the Soviet Union during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. (Some sources believe he was fighting in Afghanistan before he moved to the United States.) There, he was introduced to Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, the head of the Islamic Union Party. The 9/11 Commission Report notes on page 149 that "Sayyaf was close to Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance." Mohammed became Sayyaf's principal student. He fought the Soviets for three months.

Professional career

After the Afghan jihad, Mohammed worked for an electronics company, working on communications equipment. In 1988, he helped to head an NGO paid for by Sayyaf, which sponsored and aided Afghan fighters against the Soviets. He continued this work until 1992, when he fought with Muslim fighters in Bosnia and supported this effort financially. Next, Mohammed moved to Qatar to work in a government office as a project engineer for the Qatari Ministry of Electricity and Water. He stayed at this job until 1996, all the while supporting terrorism covertly. He took many long vacations to help train and organize terrorists around the world. In 1996 he fled to Pakistan to avoid capture by U.S. authorities.

Terrorist activity

Mohammed became an anti-U.S. terrorist, despite the fact that he had previously lived and studied in the U.S. and enjoyed his stay. By his own account, it was his disagreements with U.S. policy toward Israel that angered him. He had a small role in the World Trade Center bombing of 1993. He learned in 1991 or 1992 that his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, was planning to launch a bombing attack inside the United States. Mohammed gave Yousef advice and assistance over the phone, and kept track of Yousef's progress. On November 3, 1992, he gave a wire transfer of $660 to Yousef's co-conspirator, Mohammed Salameh, to help complete the bombing operation. Because of this, U.S. authorities began to investigate Mohammed after the bombing was carried out. After seeing the respect that Yousef had gained from the attack, Mohammed decided to engage in anti-U.S. activities as well. He travelled to the Philippines in 1994 to work with Yousef on Operation Bojinka, a Manila-based plot to destroy twelve commercial airliners flying routes between the United States and East and Southeast Asia. The 9/11 Commission Report says in [http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch5.htm Chapter 5] that "this marked the first time KSM took part in the actual planning of a terrorist operation." In December, 1994, Ramzi Yousef had engaged in a test of a bomb on Philippine Airlines Flight 434 using only about 10 percent of the explosives that were to be used in each of the bombs to be planted on United States airliners. The test resulted in the death of a Japanese national on board a flight from the Philippines to Japan. Mohammed conspired with Ramzi Yousef on the plot until it was discovered on January 6, 1995. Yousef was captured February 7 of that same year. Mohammed had also developed a failed plot to assassinate the U.S. president during Bill Clinton's November 1994 trip to Manila. By the time the Bojinka plot was discovered, Mohammed was already safely in Qatar, back at his job as a project engineer at the country's Ministry of Electricity and Water. He traveled in 1995 to Sudan, Yemen, Malaysia, and Brazil to visit elements of the worldwide jihadist community, although no evidence connects him to overt terrorist activities in any of those locations. On his trip to Sudan he attempted but failed to meet with Osama Bin Laden, who was at the time living there with the aid of Sudanese political leader Hassan al Turabi. After a request to arrest KSM came to the Qatari government from the United States in January 1996, Mohammed fled to Afghanistan, where he renewed his relationship with Rasul Sayyaf and formed a working relationship with the newly migrated Osama bin Laden later that year. "According to KSM, this was the first time he had seen Bin Laden since 1989. Although they had fought together [in Afghanistan] in 1987, Bin Laden and KSM did not yet enjoy an especially close working relationship." Just as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was reestablishing himself in Afghanistan, Bin Laden and his colleagues were also transplanting their operations to the same country. Abu Hafs al-Masri/Mohammed Atef, Bin Laden's chief of operations, arranged a meeting between Bin Laden and KSM in Tora Bora sometime in mid-1996, in which KSM outlined a plan that would eventually become the quadruple hijackings of 2001. Bin Laden urged KSM to become a full-fledged member of Al Qaeda, but he continued to refuse such a commitment until around early 1999, after the bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam convinced him that Bin Laden was truly committed to attacking the United States. Mohammed wished to retain some degree of autonomy as a mujahid. His continuing relationship with Abdul Rasul Sayyaf--an opponent of the Taliban--had to be kept hidden from Bin Laden and the rest of Al Qaeda, as full disclosure would have been problematic. The 9/11 Commission Report notes on page 149 that KSM moved his family from Iran to Karachi in Pakistan in 1997. That same year, he attempted without success to join mujahid leader Ibn al Khattab in Chechnya, another area of special interest to KSM. He was apparently unable to travel to Chechnya, and so he instead went back to Afghanistan, where over time he became more and more imbedded in Al Qaeda until his eventual acceptance of Bin Laden's invitation to move to Kandahar and join the organization as a full-fledged member (although he claims that he still refused to swear a formal oath of loyalty to Bin Laden). Eventually, he became leader of Al Qaeda's media committee. He also worked on unfulfilled plans for attacks in Israel and Southeast Asia. In 1996, he was secretly indicted by the Southern District of the state of New York for his alleged involvement in Operation Bojinka. Mohammed's cousin, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, was one of the major financers of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Mohammed is also a suspect in the Tunisian synagogue bombing.

Private life

While he was in the Philippines in late 1994 and early 1995, he said that he was a Saudi or a Qatari plywood exporter named Abdul Majid. He had parties with alcohol and spent lavish times with Manila women. He often went to go-go bars and karaoke clubs and held meetings at expensive hotels. He made large tips. He is widely reported to have buzzed a tower with a rented helicopter to impress a female dentist who was one of his girlfriends. He called her on a cell phone while buzzing the tower, telling her to wave. At the time, Mohammed was staying at a lavish apartment across the street from a person that would become the President of the Philippines. He would often take trips to places such as Brazil to promote Konsojaya, a Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia based company that was secretly funding militant Muslims, including Yousef and Mohammed, in Southeast Asia. According to Philippine police, a waitress at the Manila Bay Club on Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City named Arminda Costudio was introduced to Mohammed, who was using the name Salem Ali and claiming that he was a Qatari businessman. Costudio said that he was always with Ramzi Yousef, and her description was identical to Abdul Hakim Murad's description. Both people described that he had "excess meat" on his middle finger. Neither knew him under his true name. Costudio met him again twice at the Shangri-La Hotel in Makati City in mid-1994. Each time, he wore a white tuxedo and paid for dinner with a wad of cash. He gave out candies to group members. Costudio became the girlfriend of Wali Khan Amin Shah while he was in Metro Manila. Mohammed had a girlfriend, Rose Masquera, who worked at a Quezon City bar. Mohammed went on scuba trips to Puerto Galera with Yousef. The trips may have been a cover to train Abu Sayyaf militants.

Attempts at capture

On September 11, 2002, members of Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) variously claimed to have killed or captured Mohammed during a raid in Karachi which resulted in the capture of Ramzi Binalshibh. Some people have reported that Mohammed escaped, but that his family was captured. On March 1, 2003, the ISI reported that they had captured him in a raid in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. The raid was variously reported to be all-Pakistani, in the presence of the United States FBI, or a joint raid with the FBI. Following the report of the capture, some Pakistani officials say he was immediately transferred to US custody, while others said he remained in Pakistani custody. The raid took place at the home of Ahmed Abdul Qudoos, who was also reportedly arrested as an al-Qaida agent. Qudoos' family told media that Mohammed was not in the house, that Qudoos was disabled and had never been associated with al-Qaeda, and that the police conducting the raids did not ask for Mohammed. Other newspaper accounts said that former Taliban officials in Pakistan said that Mohammed was not captured and was still at large. Mohammed has also been widely described as living a lavish lifestyle, even while he was on the run from the law. He travelled all over the world using false passports, and was very close to being captured by U.S. authorities on numerous occasions. He was close to former Jemaah Islamiyah leader Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali. On October 12, 2004, Human Rights Watch reported that 11 suspects, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, had "disappeared" to a semisecret prison in Jordan, and might have been tortured there under the direction of the CIA ([http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/oct/18ghost.htm], [http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/us1004/7.htm], [http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/11/TortureQandA.htm]). Jordanian and American officials have denied those allegations. ([http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3742428.stm], [http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/03/gonzales-insists-us-did-not-send.php]). He has allegedly been subjected to the waterboarding interrogation technique[http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20051219&s=sullivan121905].

External links


- [http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/index.html The Final 9/11 Commission Report]. The Report focuses on KSM at the beginning of Chapter 5.
- [http://web.archive.org/web/20040407165524/ Information on KSM] from the FBI (archive.org)
- [http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/crime/terrorists/mohammed-shaikh-khalid/ A biography] from Rotten.com
- [http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/south/03/02/mohammed.biog/ Khalid Shaikh Mohammed: life of terror] - an article from CNN
- [http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-levitt030503.asp An article] from the National Review
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2812181.stm Top al-Qaeda suspect in US hands] - news report from the BBC
- [http://%20www.cooperativeresearch.net/essay.jsp?article=essayksmcapture Is There More to the Capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed Than Meets the Eye?], Center for Cooperative Research Mohammed, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Khalid Shaikh

Arabic language

The Arabic language (; , less formally, ) is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. It is spoken throughout the Arab world and is widely studied and known throughout the Islamic world. Arabic has been a literary language since at least the 6th century and is the liturgical language of Islam.

Literary and Modern Standard Arabic

The term "Arabic" may refer either to literary Arabic, which no Arab speaks as a mother tongue, or Modern Standard Arabic or to the many spoken varieties of Arabic commonly called "colloquial Arabic." Arabs consider literary Arabic as the standard language and tend to view everything else as mere dialects. Literary Arabic, (Literally: "the most eloquent Arabic language" — ) refers both to the language of present-day media across North Africa and the Middle East and to the more archaic language of the Qur'an. (The expression media here includes most television and radio, and all written matter, including all books, newspapers, magazines, documents of every kind, and reading primers for small children.) "Colloquial" or "dialectal" Arabic refers to the many national or regional dialects/languages derived from Classical Arabic, spoken daily across North Africa and the Middle East, which constitute the everyday spoken language. These sometimes differ enough to be mutually incomprehensible. These dialects are not typically written, although a certain amount of literature (particularly plays and poetry) exists in many of them. They are often used to varying degrees in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows. Literary Arabic or classical Arabic, is the official language of all Arab countries and is the only form of Arabic taught in schools at all stages. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of Diglossia -the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of whatever nationality can be assumed to speak both their local dialect and their school-taught literary Arabic (to an equal or lesser degree). This diglossic situation facilitates code switching in which a speaker switches back and forth unaware between the two varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. In instances in which Arabs of different nationalities engage in conversation only to find their dialects mutually unintelligible (e.g. a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), both should be able to code switch into Literary Arabic for the sake of communication. Since the written Arabic of today differs from the written Arabic of the Qur'anic era, it has become customary in western scholarship and among non-Arab scholars of Arabic to refer to the language of the Qur'an as Classical Arabic and the modern language of the media and of formal speeches as Modern Standard Arabic. Arabs, on the other hand, often use the term to refer to both forms, thus placing greater emphasis on the similarities between the two. The difference between Arabic of the Qur'anic era and today's Classical Arabic is only in the degree of eloquance. The vocabulary, the syntatic and grammatical rules are the same. Quite a few English words are ultimately derived from Arabic, often through other European languages, especially Spanish, among them every-day vocabulary like sugar (sukkar), cotton (qutn) or magazine (). More recognizable are words like algorithm, algebra, alchemy, alcohol, azimuth, nadir, and zenith (see List of English words of Arabic origin). The Maltese language spoken on the Mediterranean island of Malta is the only surviving European language to derive primarily from Arabic (a North African dialect), though it contains a large number of Italian and English borrowings.

Arabic and Islam

It is sometimes difficult to translate Islamic concepts, and concepts specific to Arab culture, without using the original Arabic terminology. The Qur'an is expressed in Arabic and traditionally Muslims deem it impossible to translate in a way that would adequately reflect its exact meaning—indeed, until recently, some schools of thought maintained that it should not be translated at all. A list of Islamic terms in Arabic covers those terms which are too specific to translate in one phrase. While Arabic is strongly associated with Islam (and is the language of salah), it is also spoken by Arab Christians, Oriental (Sephardic) Jews, and smaller sects such as Iraqi Mandaeans. Even so, a majority of the world's Muslims do not actually speak Arabic, but only know some fixed phrases of Arabic, such as those used in Islamic prayer. However, to counteract this, there is great encouragement for non-Arabic-speaking Muslims to learn the language.

Dialects

See Varieties of Arabic for a fuller overview. "Colloquial Arabic" is a collective term for the spoken languages or dialects of people throughout the Arab world, which, as mentioned, differ radically from the literary language. The main dialectal division is between the Maghreb dialects and those of the Middle East, followed by that between sedentary dialects and the much more conservative Bedouin dialects. Maltese, though descended from Arabic, is considered a separate language. Speakers of some of these dialects are unable to converse with speakers of another dialect of Arabic; in particular, while Middle Easterners can generally understand one another, they often have trouble understanding Maghrebis (although the converse is not true, due to the popularity of Middle Eastern—especially Egyptian—films and other media). One factor in the differentiation of the dialects is influence from the languages previously spoken in the areas, which have typically provided a significant number of new words, and have sometimes also influenced pronunciation or word order; however, a much more significant factor for most dialects is, as among Romance languages, retention (or change of meaning) of different classical forms. Thus Iraqi aku, Levantine fiih, and North African kayen all mean "there is", and all come from Arabic (yakuun, fiihi, kaa'in respectively), but now sound very different. The major groups are:
- Egyptian Arabic (Egypt) Considered the most widely understood and used "second dialect"
- Maghreb Arabic (Algerian Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Tunisian Arabic and western Libyan)
- Levantine Arabic (Western Syrian, Lebanese, Palestinian, and western Jordanian, Cypriot Maronite Arabic)
- Iraqi Arabic or Gulf Arabic (Iraqi, Eastern Syrian, Kuwaiti, Saudi Arabian, Persian Gulf coast from Iraq to Oman including much of Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, and minorities on the other side) Other varieties include:
- (in Mauritania and Western Sahara)
- Andalusi Arabic (extinct, but important role in literary history)
- Maltese
- Sudanese Arabic (with a dialect continuum into Chad)
- Hijazi Arabic (West Cost of Saudi Arabia, Northern Saudi Arabia, eastern Jordan, Western Iraq)
- Najdi Arabic (Najd region of central Saudi Arabia)
- Yemeni Arabic (Yemen to southern Saudi Arabia)

Phonology

The consonant phonemes below reflect the pronunciation of Standard Arabic, which has only three vowels, in short and long variants, namely and . Naturally, considerable allophony occurs.

Consonants

Standard Arabic has 28 consonants: See Arabic alphabet for explanations on the IPA phonetic symbols found in this chart. # is pronounced as by some speakers. This is especially characteristic of the Egyptian and southern Yemeni dialects. In many parts of North Africa and in the Levant, it is pronounced as . # is pronounced only in , the name of God, i.e. Allah. # is usually a phonetic approximant. # In many varieties (if not most), are actually epiglottal (despite what is reported in many earlier works).

Emphatic Consonants

The consonants traditionally known as "emphatic" are either velarised or pharyngealised . In some transcription systems, emphasis is shown by capitalizing the letter e.g. is written ‹D›; in others the letter is underlined or has a dot below it e.g. ‹ḍ›.

Long Consonants

Vowels and consonants can be (phonologically) short or long. Long (geminate) consonants are normally written doubled in Latin transcription (i.e. bb, dd, etc.), reflecting the presence of the Arabic diacritic mark shaddah, which marks lengthened consonants. Such consonants are held twice as long as short consonants. This consonant lengthening is phonemically contrastive: e.g. qabala "he received" and qabbala "he kissed".

Syllable Shape

Arabic has two kinds of syllable: open syllables (CV) and (CVV) - and closed syllables (CVC), (CVVC) and (CVCC). Every syllable begins with a consonant - or else a consonant is borrowed from a previous word through elision – especially in the case of the definite article THE, al (used when starting an utterance) or _l (when following a word), e.g. baytu –l mudiir “house (of) the director”, which becomes bay-tul-mu-diir when divided syllabically. By itself, definite mudiir would be pronounced .

Word Stress

Although word stress is not phonemically contrastive in Standard Arabic, it does bear a strong relationship to vowel length and syllable shape, and correct word stress aids intelligibility. In general, "heavy" syllables attract stress (i.e. syllables of longer duration - a closed syllable or a syllable with a long vowel). In a word with a syllable with one long vowel, the long vowel attracts the stress (e.g. ki-'taab and ‘kaa-tib). In a word with two long vowels, the second long vowel attracts stress (e.g.ma-kaa-'tiib). In a word with a "heavy" syllable where two consonants occur together or the same consonant is doubled, the (last) heavy syllable attracts stress (e.g. ya-ma-’niyy, ka-'tabt, ka-‘tab-na, ma-‘jal-lah, ‘mad-ra-sah, yur-‘sil-na). This last rule trumps the first two: ja-zaa-i-‘riyy. Otherwise, word stress typically falls on the first syllable: ‘ya-man, ‘ka-ta-bat, etc. The Cairo (Egyptian Arabic) dialect, however, has some idiosyncrasies in that a heavy syllable may not carry stress more than two syllables from the end of a word, so that mad-‘ra-sah carries the stress on the second-to-last syllable, as does qaa-‘hi-rah.

Dialectical Phonologies

In some dialects, there may be more or fewer phonemes than those listed in the chart above. For example, non-Arabic is used in the Maghreb dialects as well in the written language mostly for foreign names. Semitic became extremely early on in Arabic before it was written down; a few modern Arabic dialects, such as Iraqi (influenced by Persian) distinguish between and . Interdental fricatives ( and ) are rendered as stops and in some dialects (principally Levantine and Egyptian) and as and in "learned" words from the Standard language. Early in the expansion of Arabic, the separate emphatic phonemes and coallesced into a single phoneme, becoming one or the other. Predictably, dialects without interdental fricatives use exclusively, while those with such fricatives use . Again, in "learned" words from the Standard language, is rendered as in dialects without interdental fricatives. Another key distinguishing mark of Arabic dialects is how they render Standard (a voiceless uvular stop): it retains its original pronunciation in widely scattered regions such as Yemen and Morocco (and among the Druze), while it is rendered in Gulf Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Upper Egypt and less urban parts of the Levant (e.g. Jordan) and as a glottal stop in many prestige dialects, such as those spoken in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus. Thus, Arabs instantly give away their geographical (and class) origin by their pronunciation of a word such as qamar "moon": , or .

Grammar

See Arabic grammar

Alphabet

Arabic alphabet

Main article: Arabic alphabet The Arabic alphabet derives from the Aramaic script (which variety - Nabataean or Syriac - is a matter of scholarly dispute), to which it bears a loose resemblance like that of Coptic or Cyrillic script to Greek script. Traditionally, there were several differences between the Western (Maghrebi) and Eastern version of the alphabet—in particular, the fa and qaf had a dot underneath and a single dot above respectively in the Maghreb, and the order of the letters was slightly different (at least when they were used as numerals). However, the old Maghrebi variant has been abandoned except for calligraphic purposes in the Maghreb itself, and remains in use mainly in the Quranic schools (zaouias) of West Africa. Arabic, like other Semitic languages, is written from right to left.

Calligraphy

See Arabic calligraphy for a fuller overview. After the definitive fixing of the Arabic script around 786, by Khalil ibn Ahmad al Farahidi, many styles were developed, both for the writing down of the Qur'an and other books, and for inscriptions on monuments as decoration.
Kufic font
Arabic calligraphy has not fallen out of use as in the Western world, and is still considered by Arabs as a major art form; calligraphers are held in great esteem. Being cursive by nature, unlike the Latin alphabet, Arabic script is used to write down a verse of the Qur'an, a Hadith, or simply a proverb, in a spectacular composition. The composition is often abstract, but sometimes the writing is shaped into an actual form such as that of an animal. Two of the current masters of the genre are Hassan Massoudy and [http://arabworld.nitle.org/gallery.php?module_id=7 Khaled Al Saa’i].

Arabic using the Latin alphabet

See Arabic transliteration and Arabic Chat Alphabet for more information. There are a number of different standards of Arabic transliteration: methods of accurately and efficently representing Arabic with the Latin alphabet. The more scientific standards allow the reader to recreate the exact word using the Arabic alphabet. However, these systems are heavily reliant on diacritical marks, which may be difficult to pronounce at first sight. Other, less scientific, systems often use digraphs (like sh and kh), which are usually more simple to read, but sacrifice the definiteness of the scientific systems. During the last few decades and especially since the 1990s, Western-invented text communication technologies have become prevalent in the Arab world, such as personal computers, the World Wide Web, email, Bulletin board systems, IRC, instant messaging and mobile phone text messaging. Most of these technologies originally had the ability to communicate using the Latin alphabet only, and some of them still do not have the Arabic alphabet as an optional feature. As a result, Arabic speaking users communicated in these technologies by transliterating the Arabic text using the Latin script. To handle those Arabic letters that do not have an approximate equivalent in the Latin script, numerals and other characters were appropriated. E.g., the Latin numeral "3" is used to represent the Arabic letter "ع" ("ayn"). There is no universal name for this type of transliteration, but some have named it Arabic Chat Alphabet.

See also


- Learn Standard Arabic WikiBook
- Arabist
- Arabic alphabet
- Arabic calligraphy
- Semitic languages
- Arabic literature
- The Maltese language is closely related to Arabic
- altahmam -- One of the ten non-English words that were voted hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company
- Common phrases in various languages
- Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic

External links


- [http://arabic-media.com/ Arabic-Media] on-line access to Arabic newspapers, radio, and television
- [http://st-takla.org/Learn_Languages/01_Learn_Arabic-ta3leem-3araby/Learn-Arabic_00-index_El-Fehres.html Learn Arabic language online with audio pronunciation] from [http://St-Takla.org St. Takla Egyptian Church]
- [http://www.nicoweb.com/sirpus/learn%20arabic%20course%20mp3.htm Arabic Writing and Reading with MP3]. Arabic Writing and Reading Course Online with MP3 audio.
- [http://pince31.free.fr/lang/arabic/liens.htm Links to learn Arabic language with online course]
- [http://www.madinaharabic.com Arabic language learning course with audio]
- [http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=4&article_id=6173 "Antonyms in Arabic are a strange phenomenon" by Tamim al-Barghouti]
- [http://arabworld.nitle.org/texts.php?module_id=1&reading_id=17 "The Development of Classical Arabic" by Kees Versteegh]
- [http://arabworld.nitle.org/audiovisual.php?module_id=1&selected_feed=118 Wellesley College Professor of Arabic on the forms and dialects of the language]
- [http://www.uga.edu/islam/arabic_windows.html Multilingual Computing in Arabic with Windows, major word processors, web browsers, Arabic keyboards, and Arabic transliteration fonts]
- [http://www.gomideast.com/arabic/index.htm gomideast - Learning to Speak Arabic phrases]
- [http://language-directory.50webs.com/languages/arabic.htm List of online Arabic-related resources] Web references and examples:
- [http://transliteration.org/quran/Pronunciation/Letters/TashP.htm Arabic language pronunciation applet] with audio samples
- [http://www.sunna.info/teaching/ Learn Arabic]
- [http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1289272 E2 article]
- [http://www.sprachprofi.de.vu/english/ar.htm Sprachprofi]
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Arabic-english/ Arabic - English Dictionary]: from [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org Webster's Online Dictionary] - the Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=arb SIL's Ethnologue]
- [http://www.nitle.org/arabworld/texts.php?module_id=1&reading_id=113 Dialects of Arabic]
- [http://www.muftah-alhuruf.com Muftah-Alhuruf.com]: Write and send Arabic emails without having an Arabic keyboard or operating system. Arabic languages samples:
- [http://www.language-museum.com/a/arabic.php Arabic]
- [http://www.language-museum.com/a/arabic-chadian-spoken.php Arabic Chadian Spoken]
- [http://www.language-museum.com/a/arabic-judeo-iraqi.php Arabic Judeo Iraqi]
- [http://www.language-museum.com/a/arabic-north-levantine-spoken.php Arabic North Levantine Spoken]
- [http://arabworld.nitle.org/texts.php?module_id=1&reading_id=17 "The Development of Classical Arabic" by Kees Versteegh]
- Category:Arab ko:아랍어 ms:Bahasa Arab ja:アラビア語 simple:Arabic language th:ภาษาอาหรับ

Transliteration

Transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another. Transliteration attempts to be lossless, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words. To achieve this objective transliteration may define complex conventions for dealing with letters in a source script which do not correspond with letters in a goal script. Romaji is an example of a transliterating method. This is opposed to transcription, which maps the sounds of one language to the script of another language. Still, most transliterations map the letters of the source script to letters pronounced similarly in the goal script, for some specific pair of source and goal language. One instance of transliteration is the use of an English computer keyboard to type in a language that uses a different alphabet, such as in Russian. While the first usage of the word implies seeking the best way to render foreign words into a particular language, the typing transliteration is a purely pragmatic process of inputting text in a particular language. Transliteration from English letters is particularly important for users who are only familiar with the English keyboard layout, and hence could not type quickly in a different alphabet even if their software would actually support a keyboard layout for another language. Some programs, such as the Russian language word processor Hieroglyph provide typing by transliteration as an important feature. The rest of the article concerns itself with the first meaning of the word, that is rendering foreign words into a different alphabet. If the relations between letters and sounds are similar in both languages, a transliteration may be (almost) the same as a transcription. In practice, there are also some mixed transliteration/transcription systems, that transliterate a part of the original script and transcribe the rest. Greeklish is an example of such a mixture. In a broader sense, the word transliteration is used to include both transliteration in the narrow sense and transcription. Anglicizing is a transcription method. Romanization encompasses several transliteration and transcription methods.

Example to illustrate the difference between transliteration and transcription

In Modern Greek, the letters <η> <ι> <υ> and the letter combinations <ει> <oι> <υι> are all pronounced (in IPA notation). A transcription consequently renders them all as <i>, but a transliteration still distinguishes them, for example by transliterating to <ē> <i> <y> and <ei> <oi> <yi>. (As the old Greek pronunciation of <η> was , this proposal uses the character appropriate for an Old Greek transliteration or transcription <ē>, an <e> with a macron.) On the other hand, <ευ> is sometimes pronounced and sometimes , depending on the following sound. A transcription distinguishes them, but this is no requirement for a transliteration.

Uses of transliteration

Transliterations in the narrow sense are used in situations where the original script is not available to write down a word in that script, while still high precision is required. For example, traditional or cheap typesetting with a small character set; editions of old texts in scripts not used any more (such as Linear B); some library catalogues (see [http://www.ifla.org/VII/s13/pubs/isbdg0.htm#0.6 www.ifla.org/VII/s13/pubs/isbdg0.htm]). For example, the Greek language is written in the 24-letter Greek alphabet, which overlaps with, but differs from, the 26-letter version of the Roman alphabet in which English is written. Etymologies in English dictionaries often identify Greek words as ancestors of words used in English. Consequently, most such dictionaries transliterate the Greek words into Roman letters. Transliteration in the broader sense is a necessary process when using words or concepts expressed in a language with a script other than one's own. The idea of transliteration is complicated by the genuine use in multiple languages of different common nouns for the same person, place or thing. Thus, "Muhammad" is in common use now in English and "Mohammed" is less popular, though there are excellent reasons for each transcription (and similarly for "Muslim" and "Moslem"). "Muslim" and "Mohammedan" are not interchangeable, as "Mohammedan" has come to be viewed as a religious slur, and the typical French usage "Musulman" is considered offensively colonialist in English language contexts. However, "Musulmaan" is the way to say "Muslim" in other languages, such as Urdu, Hindi and Russian. Transliteration is also used for simple encryption.

Issues in transliterating particular languages

Some languages and scripts present particular difficulties to transcribers. These are discussed on separate pages.
- Ancient Near East
  - Transliterating cuneiform languages
  - Transliteration of ancient Egyptian (see also Egyptian hieroglyphs)
  - hieroglyphic Luwian
- Avestan
- Brahmic family
  - Devanagari: see IAST, Harvard-Kyoto, ITRANS
  - Pali
  - Tocharian
- Chinese language
  - Pinyin
  - Wade-Giles
  - Bopomofo
- Greek language
  - Transliteration of Greek to the Latin Alphabet
  - Greek alphabet
  - List of Greek words with English derivatives
  - Linear B
  - Greeklish
- Japanese language
  - Romaji Transliterating Japanese to Latin script
  - Transcribing English to Japanese
  - Cyrillization of Japanese
- Korean Language
  - McCune-Reischauer
- Semitic languages
  - Ugaritic alphabet
  - Hebrew alphabet
    - Romanization of Hebrew
  - Arabic alphabet
    - Arabic transliteration
    - Arabic Chat Alphabet
- Slavic languages written in the Cyrillic or Glagolitic alphabets
  - Transliteration of Russian into English
  - Volapuk encoding
  - Romanization of Ukrainian
- Thai language
  - Royal Thai General System of Transcription

See also


- Romanization

Transliteration sites


- [http://www.latkey.com/translit Transliteration .NET service] - a free online translit service for MS Internet Explorer and MS Office for Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Hindi, and other languages.
- [http://transliteration.eki.ee Eesti Keele Instituut] - Collection of Transliteration Tables for many Non-Roman Scripts.
- [http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/ United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN)] - Working Group on Romanization Systems.
- [http://www.sil.org/ SIL International] - Provides free fonts for transliteration and IPA
- [http://www.mashke.org/Conv/ Automatic Cyrillic Converter]
- [http://www.lcweb.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html Library of Congress: Romanization]
- [http://www.library.arizona.edu/users/brewerm/sil/lib/transhist.html Transliteration history] - history of the transliteration of Slavic languages into Latin alphabets.
- [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stone-catend/trind.htm Transliteration of Indic Scripts] - How to use ISO 15919
- [http://girish.co.in/projects/dev/trans4.html Online Devanagari Transliteration] - Transliteratation service for transliterating from Devanagari to 8 Indian Scripts.
- [http://lost1.net/?page=hebrew Al's Hebrew Transliterator] - converts phonetic Hebrew (using Latin alphabet) into Hebrew & HTML unicode.
- [http://icu.sourceforge.net/userguide/Transform.html ICU User Guide: Transforms] - Transliteration services in International Components for Unicode
- [http://www.genomantra.biz/unitrans/ Online Devanagari Transliteration, transcodes ITrans to Unicode] - Online demo and Open Source code available for download. Uses a simple table based algorithm. Category:Linguistics

March 1

March 1 is the 60th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (61st in leap years). There are 305 days remaining.

Events


- 86 BC - Lucius Cornelius Sulla, at the head of a Roman Republic army, enters in Athens, removing the tyrant Aristion who was supported by troops of Mithridates VI of Pontus.
- 1562 - Over 1,000 Huguenots are massacred by Catholics in Wassy, France marking the start of the French Wars of Religion.
- 1565 - The city of Rio de Janeiro is founded.
- 1628 - Writs are issued in February by Charles I of England that every county in England (not just seaport towns) pay ship tax by this date.
- 1633 - Samuel de Champlain reclaims his role as commander of New France on behalf of Cardinal Richelieu.
- 1642 - Georgeana, Massachusetts (now known as York, Maine) becomes the first incorporated city in America.
- 1692 - The Salem witch trials begin in Salem Village, Massachusetts.
- 1700 - Sweden introduces its own Swedish calendar, in an attempt to reform into the Gregorian calendar, then reverts to the Julian calendar on this date in 1712, and then introduces the Gregorian Calendar on this date in 1753.
- 1781 - The Continental Congress adopts the Articles of Confederation.
- 1790 - The first United States census is authorized.
- 1803 - Ohio is admitted as the 17th U.S. state.
- 1805 - Justice Samuel Chase is acquitted at the end of his impeachment trial by the U.S. Senate.
- 1811 - Leaders of the Mameluke dynasty are killed by Egyptian ruler Muhammad Ali.
- 1815 - Napoleon returns to France from his banishment on Elba.
- 1836 - A Convention of delegates from 57 Texas communities convenes in Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas, to deliberate independence from Mexico.
- 1840 - Adolphe Thiers becomes prime minister of France.
- 1845 - President John Tyler signs a bill authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas.
- 1852 - Archibald William Montgomerie, 13th Earl of Eglinton appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
- 1854 - German pyschologist Friedrich Eduard Beneke disappears; two years later his remains are found in the canal near Charlottenburg.
- 1867 - Nebraska becomes the 37th U.S. state; Lancaster, Nebraska is renamed Lincoln and becomes the state capital.
- 1872 - Yellowstone National Park is established as the world's first national park.
- 1873 - E. Remington and Sons in Ilion, New York, start production of the first practical typewriter.
- 1873 - Henry Comstock discovers the Comstock Lode in Virgina City, Nevada.
- 1886 - Anglo-Chinese School,Singapore was founded by Bishop William Oldham.
- 1896 - Battle of Adowa, an Ethiopian army defeats an outnumbered Italian force, ending the First Italo-Abyssinian War.
- 1896 - Henri Becquerel discovers radioactivity.
- 1912 - Albert Berry makes the first parachute jump from a moving airplane.
- 1914 - The Republic of China joins the Universal Postal Union.
- 1917 - U.S. government releases the plaintext of the Zimmermann Telegram to the public.
- 1918 - German submarine Unterseeboot 19 (U-19) sinks HMS Calgarian off Rathlin Island.
- 1919 - March 1st Movement begins in Korea.
- 1932 - The son of Charles Lindbergh, Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, is kidnapped.
- 1936 - Hoover Dam is completed.
- 1941 - World War II: Bulgaria signs the Tripartite Pact thus joining the Axis powers.
- 1941 - W47NV (now known as WSM-FM) begins operations in Nashville, Tennessee becoming the first FM radio station in the U.S..
- 1946 - The Bank of England is nationalised.
- 1947 - The International Monetary Fund begins financial operations.
- 1949 - Indonesia seizes Yogyakarta from the Dutch.
- 1950 - Cold War: Klaus Fuchs is convicted of spying for the Soviet Union by giving them top secret atomic bomb data.
- 1953 - Joseph Stalin collapses, having suffered a stroke. He dies four days later.
- 1954 - Nuclear testing: The Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb, is detonated on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, resulting in the worst radioactive contamination ever caused by the United States.
- 1954 - Puerto Rican nationalists attack the United States Capitol building, injuring five Representatives. (See U.S. Capitol shooting incident (1954).)
- 1955 - Allen Fieldhouse at the University of Kansas hosts its first college basketball game.
- 1956 - The International Air Transport Association finalizes a draft of the Radiotelephony spelling alphabet for the International Civil Aviation Organization.
- 1958 - Samuel Alphonsus Stritch, is appointed Pro-Perfect of the Propagation of Faith and thus becomes the first American member of the Roman Curia.
- 1961 - President of the United States John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
- 1961 - Uganda becomes self-governing as its first elections held.
- 1962 - American Airlines Flight 1 crashes on take off in New York.
- 1966 - Venera 3 Soviet space probe crashes on Venus becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface.
- 1966 - The Ba'ath Party takes power in Syria.
- 1969 - During a performance at Miami's Dinner Key Auditorium, Jim Morrison of the Doors is arrested for exposing himself during the show.
- 1969 - John Kerry officially leaves active duty in Vietnam.
- 1971 - A bomb explodes in a men's room in the White House: the Weather Underground claims responsibility.
- 1971 - Pakistani President Yahya Khan indefinitely postponed the pending national assembly session, precipitating massive civil disobedience in East Pakistan.
- 1972 - The Thai province of Yasothon is created after being split off from the Ubon Ratchathani province.
- 1974 - Watergate scandal: Seven are indicted for their role in the Watergate break-in and charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice.
- 1975 - Colour television transmissions begin in Australia.
- 1978 - Charlie Chaplin's coffin is stolen from a Swiss cemetery.
- 1980 - Voyager 1 probe confirms that Janus (moon of Saturn) exists.
- 1983 - Swatch introduces their first timepieces.
- 1989 - The United States becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
- 1990 - Steve Jackson Games is raided by the United States Secret Service, prompting the later formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
- 1994 - Seattle grunge band Nirvana play their last show in Munich, Germany.
- 1995 - Polish Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak resigns from parliament and is replaced by ex-communist Józef Oleksy.
- 2000 - The Constitution of Finland is rewritten.
- 2000 - Hans Blix assumes the position of Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC.
- 2002 - U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda begins in eastern Afghanistan.
- 2002 - The Envisat environmental satellite successfully reaches an orbit 800 kilometers (500 miles) above the Earth on its 11th launch, carrying the heaviest payload to date at 8500 kilograms (9.5 tons).
- 2002 - The Peseta is discontinued as official currency of Spain and is replaced with the euro (€).
- 2003 - Management of the United States Customs Service and the United States Secret Service move to the United States Department of Homeland Security.
- 2004 - Terry Nichols is convicted of state murder charges and being an accomplice to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
- 2004 - The TV game show The Price is Right airs its 6,000 episode.
- 2004 - Punycode adopted by the national registrars of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
- 2004 - Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum becomes President of Iraq.

Births


- 1445 - Sandro Botticelli, Italian painter (d. 1510)
- 1456 - King Ladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary (d. 1516)
- 1474 - Angela Merici, Italian nun (d. 1540)
- 1547 - Rudolph Goclenius, German philosopher (d. 1628)
- 1597 - Jean-Charles de la Faille, Belgian mathematician (d. 1652)
- 1610 - John Pell, English mathematician (d. 1685)
- 1657 - Samuel Werenfels, Swiss theologian (d. 1740)
- 1683 - Caroline of Ansbach, queen of George II of Great Britain (d. 1737)
- 1760 - François Nicolas Leonard Buzot, French revolutionary (suicide) (d. 1794)
- 1769 - François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers, French general (d. 1796)
- 1807 - Wilford Woodruff, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1898)
- 1810 - Frédéric Chopin, Polish-French composer and pianist (d. 1849)
- 1812 - Augustus Pugin, English-born architect (d. 1852)
- 1821 - Joseph Hubert Reinkens, German Old Catholic bishop (d. 1896)
- 1837 - William Dean Howells, American writer, historian, editor, and politician (d. 1920)
- 1852 - Théophile Delcassé, French statesman (d. 1923)
- 1858 - Georg Simmel, German sociologist and philosopher (d. 1918)
- 1865 - Abe Iso, Japanese politician (d. 1949)
- 1871 - Ben Harney, American composer and ragtime pianist (d. 1938)
- 1876 - Henri de Baillet-Latour, Belgian International Olympic Committee president (d. 1942)
- 1880 - Giles Lytton Strachey British writer (d. 1932)
- 1886 - Oskar Kokoschka, Austrian painter, graphic artist, and poet (d. 1980)
- 1888 - Ewart Astill, English cricketer (d. 1948)
- 1889 - Watsuji Tetsuro, Japanese ethicist and philosopher (d. 1960)
- 1892 - Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Japanese writer (d. 1927)
- 1893 - Mercedes de Acosta, American poet, playwright, costume designer, and socialite (d. 1968)
- 1896 - Dimitri Mitropoulos, Greek conductor, pianist, and composer (d. 1960)
- 1901 - Pietro Spiggia, Italian poet
- 1904 - Glenn Miller, American bandleader (d. 1944)
- 1910 - Archer John Porter Martin, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2002)
- 1910 - David Niven, English actor (d. 1983)
- 1914 - Ralph Ellison, American writer (d. 1994)
- 1917 - Robert Lowell, American poet (d. 1977)
- 1918 - Roger Delgado, British actor (d. 1973)
- 1918 - João Goulart, President of Brazil (d. 1976)
- 1920 - Howard Nemerov, American poet (d. 1991)
- 1921 - Terence Cardinal Cooke, American Catholic archbishop (d. 1983)
- 1921 - Richard Wilbur, American poet
- 1922 - William Gaines, American publisher (d. 1992)
- 1922 - Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1995)
- 1923 - Kuczka Péter, Hungarian writer, poet, and editor (d. 1999)
- 1924 - Deke Slayton, astronaut (d. 1993)
- 1926 - Robert Clary, French actor
- 1926 - Alvin "Pete" Rozelle, commissioner of American football (d. 1996)
- 1927 - Harry Belafonte, American musician and actor
- 1928 - Dr. Seymour Papert, South African mathematician and artificial intelligence researcher
- 1928 - Jacques Rivette, French film director
- 1929 - Georgi Markov, Bulgarian dissident, (d. 1978)
- 1935 - Robert Conrad, American actor
- 1936 - Mikhail Kuzmin, Russian writer (b. 1871)
- 1937 - Jed Allan, American actor
- 1942 - Richard Bowman Myers, U.S. general and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
- 1943 - Gil Amelio, American businessman and venture capitalist
- 1944 - John Breaux, U,S. Senator from Louisiana
- 1944 - Mike D'Abo, British singer (Mannfred Mann)
- 1944 - Roger Daltrey, English musician (The Who)
- 1945 - Dirk Benedict, American film and television actor
- 1946 - Lana Wood, American actress
- 1947 - Alan Thicke, Canadian actor and songwriter
- 1948 - Burning Spear, Jamaican singer and musician
- 1952 - Steven Barnes, American writer
- 1953 - Richard Bruton, Irish politician and economist
- 1954 - Catherine Bach, American actress
- 1954 - Ron Howard, American actor, director, and producer
- 1956 - Timothy Daly, American actor
- 1958 - Bertrand Piccard, Swiss balloonist and psychiatrist
- 1963 - Dan Michaels, musician and record producer
- 1963 - Thomas Anders, German singer (Modern talking)
- 1965 - Stewart Elliott, Canadian jockey
- 1967 - Aron Winter, Dutch soccer player
- 1969 - Javier Bardem, Spanish actor
- 1969 - Dafydd Ieuan, Welsh drummer (Super Furry Animals)
- 1970 - Jason Brock, American writer
- 1971 - Tyler Hamilton, American cyclist
- 1973 - Chris Webber, American basketball player
- 1973 - Ryan Peake, Canadian guitarist (Nickelback)
- 1974 - Mark-Paul Gosselaar, American actor
- 1977 - Rens Blom, Dutch athlete
- 1980 - Djimi Traore, Malian footballer
- 1981 - Adam LaVorgna, American actor

Deaths


- 1131 - King Stephen II of Hungary (b. 1101)
- 1233 - Count Thomas I of Savoy (b. 1178)
- 1244 - Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, son of Llywelyn the Great (b. 1200)
- 1383 - Amadeus VI of Savoy (b. 1334)
- 1510 - Francisco de Almeida, Portuguese soldier and explorer
- 1536 - Bernardo Accolti, Italian poet (b. 1465)
- 1546 - George Wishart, Scottish religious reformer (martyred) (b 1513)
- 1620 - Thomas Campion, English poet and composer (b. 1567)
- 1633 - George Herbert, English poet and orator (b. 1593)
- 1643 - Girolamo Frescobaldi, Italian composer (b. 1583)
- 1661 - Richard Zouch, English jurist (b. 1590)
- 1697 - Francesco Redi, Italian physician (b. 1626)
- 1706 - Heino Heinrich Graf von Flemming, German field marshal and Governor of Berlin (b. 1632)
- 1734 - Roger North, English biographer (b. 1653)
- 1757 - Edward Moore, English writer (b. 1712)
- 1768 - Hermann Samuel Reimarus, German philosopher and writer (b. 1694)
- 1773 - Luigi Vanvitelli, Italian architect (b. 1700)
- 1777 - Georg Christoph Wagenseil, Austrian composer (b. 1715)
- 1792 - Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1747)
- 1841 - Claude Victor-Perrin, duc de Belluno, French marshal (b. 1764)
- 1862 - Peter Barlow, English mathematician (b. 1776)
- 1875 - Tristan Corbière, French poet (b. 1845)
- 1879 - Joachim Heer, Swiss politician (b. 1825)
- 1884 - Isaac Todhunter, English mathematician (b. 1820)
- 1898 - George Bruce Malleson, English officer in India, author (b. 1825)
- 1911 - Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Dutch chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
- 1912 - George Grossmith, English actor and comic writer (b. 1847)
- 1914 - Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 4th Earl of Minto (b. 1845)
- 1920 - John H. Bankhead, U.S. Senator (b. 1842)
- 1920 - Joseph Trumpeldor, Russian Zionist (b. 1880)
- 1922 - Rafael Moreno Aranzadi, Spanish footballer (b. 1892)
- 1932 - Frank Teschemacher, American jazz clarinettist
- 1938 - Gabriele D'Annunzio, Italian writer, war hero, and politician (b. 1863)
- 1940 - Anton Hansen Tammsaare, Estonian author (b. 1878)
- 1943 - Alexandre Yersin, Swiss physician (b. 1863)
- 1952 - Mariano Azuela, Mexican novelist (b. 1873)
- 1966 - Fritz Houtermans, German physicist (b. 1903)
- 1970 - Lucille Hegamin, American singer and entertainer (b. 1894)
- 1974 - Bobby Timmons, American jazz pianist (b. 1935)
- 1979 - Mustafa Barzani, Kurdish politician (b. 1903)
- 1984 - Jackie Coogan, American actor (b. 1914)
- 1988 - Joe Besser, American comedian and actor (b. 1907)
- 1991 - Edwin H. Land, American inventor (b. 1909)
- 1995 - Vladislav Listyev, Russian television journalist (b. 1956)
- 2000 - Dennis Danell, American guitarist (Social Distortion) (b. 1961)
- 2003 - Fidel Sánchez Hernández, President of El Salvador (b. 1917)

Holidays and observances


- Korea - Independence Movement Day (Samiljeol; 삼일절)
- Roman Empire - Matronalia in honor of Juno
- Roman Empire - Feriae Marti in honor of Mars
- Roman Empire - New Year
- Roman Empire - The sacred fire of Rome was renewed (See Vesta)
- Saint David's Day (National Holiday of Wales)
- World Day of Prayer
- Bahá'í Faith - Last Day (4 or 5) of Ayyám-i-Há (Intercalary Days) - days in the Bahá'í calendar devoted to service and gift giving.
- Labour day - Western Australia
- Eight Hours Day - Tasmania, Australia
- Martenitsa - a seasonal holiday in Bulgaria
- Martisor - a seasonal holiday in Romania
- Iceland - This day is called the Beer Day, but this day in 1989 beer was allowed again
- Historically, March 1st was considered to be the beginning of the year. The names of some months reflect this. (September = Seventh, October = Eighth, November = Ninth, December = Tenth). (see New Year) If the days of the year were counted from March 1, till the next March 1, each date of the year would have the same number every year, unlike counting from January 1.

Seasons beginning March 1

In Denmark, spring begins on March 1, while in Australia autumn begins on March 1.

Year Beginning March 1

If one begins each year on March 1, then each date will have the same day number in this year, regardless of whether it is a leap year or not (e.g. December 25 is always day 300). Also the months follow a regular 5-month cycle of 153 days, till the end of February. This can be seen by listing the number of days in the months thus: Mar 31 Aug 31 Jan 31 Apr 30 Sep 30 Feb 28/29 May 31 Oct 31 Jun 30 Nov 30 Jul 31 Dec 31 This regularity is sometimes used in calendar calculations.

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/1 BBC: On This Day] ---- February 28 - February 29 - (February 30) - March 2 - February 1 - April 1 -- listing of all days ko:3월 1일 ms:1 Mac ja:3月1日 simple:March 1 th:1 มีนาคม

April 14

April 14 is the 104th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (105th in leap years). There are 261 days remaining.

Events


- 43 BC - Battle of Forum Gallorum. Mark Antony, besieging Julius Caesar's assassin Decimus Junius Brutus in Mutina, defeats the forces of the consul Pansa, who is killed.
- AD 69 - Vitellius, commander of the Rhine armies, defeats Emperor Otho in the Battle of Bedriacum and seizes the throne.
- 1028 - Henry III, son of Conrad, was elected king of the Germans.
- 1205 - Battle of Adrianople between Bulgars and Crusaders.
- 1450 - Battle of Formigny. French attack and nearly annihilate English, ending English domination in northern France.
- 1471 - In England, the Yorkists under Edward IV defeated the Lancastrians under Warwick at the battle of Barnet; the Earl of Warwick was killed and Edward IV resumed the throne.
- 1632 - Battle of Rain, Swedes under Gustavus Adolphus defeat the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War.
- 1775 - The first abolition society in the North America was established. The "Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage" was organized in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.
- 1828 - Noah Webster copyrights the first edition of his dictionary.
- 1849 - Hungary declared itself independent of Austria with Louis Kossuth as its leader.
- 1860 - The first Pony Express rider reaches Sacramento, California.
- 1861 - At the start of the American Civil War, the battle of Fort Sumter ended after the Confederates under Beuaregard bombarded the fort with 4,000 shells. The first causualty of the Civil War died when his cannon backfired.
- 1864 - Battle at the Düppeler Schanzen: The Prussian Army defeats the Danish and finally separates Schleswig from Danmark, Schleswig becomes a part of Germany.
- 1865 - Abraham Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth; he dies the next day.
- 1890 - The Pan American Union was founded by the First International Conference of American States at their meeting in Washington. Known originally as the International Bureau of American Republics, William Elleroy Curtis became its first director.
- 1894 - Thomas Edison demonstrates the kinetoscope, a device for peep-show viewing using photographs that flip in sequence, a precursor to movies.
- 1910 - President William Howard Taft becomes the first president to throw out the first baseball on opening day.
- 1912 - The British ocean liner RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage, plunging beneath the waves and taking with it over 1,500 lives at about 2:20 a.m. the following morning.
- 1931 - Spanish Cortes deposes King Alfonso XIII and proclaims the 2nd Spanish Republic.
- 1935 - "Black Sunday", the worst dust storm of the Dust Bowl.
- 1935 - Babe Ruth played his first National League game in Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. He was playing for the Boston Braves, not his old team the Red Sox, in this, his last year of pro ball in the major leagues. In this season, Ruth played 28 games, getting 13 hits and six home runs, before retiring.
- 1940 - Royal Marines land in Namsos, Norway, occupying key points, preparatory to a larger force arriving two days later.
- 1944 - Huge explosion rocks the Bombay harbour killing 300 and causing a loss of 20 million pounds at that time. See: Bombay Explosion (1944).
- 1956 - Videotape is first demonstrated at the 1956 NARTB (now NAB) convention in Chicago, Illinois. It was the demonstation of the first practical and commercially successful format called 2" Quadruplex.
- 1962 - Georges Pompidou becomes Prime Minister of France.
- 1964 - A Delta rocket's third-stage motor prematurely ignites in an assembly room at Canaveral, killing 3.
- 1965 - In Cold Blood killers Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, convicted of murdering four members of the Herbert Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, are executed by hanging at the Kansas State Penitentiary For Men in Lansing, Kansas.
- 1969 - At the Academy Awards, a tie between Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand results in the two sharing the Best Actress Oscar; Hepburn also becomes the only actress to win three Best Actress Oscars.
- 1981 - The Space Shuttle Columbia passes its first test flight.
- 1986 - In retaliation for the April 5 bombing of the La Belle Discotheque in West Berlin in which two U.S. servicemen were killed, Ronald Reagan ordered major bombing raids against Tripoli and Benghazi, in Libya, which killed 60 people.
- 1986 - 2.2 lb (1 kg) hailstones fall on the Gopalganj district of Bangladesh, killing 92. These are the heaviest hailstones ever recorded.
- 1988 - USS Samuel B. Roberts strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will. U.S. retaliates against Iran on April 18 with Operation Praying Mantis, the world's largest naval battle since World War II.
- 2003 - Human Genome Project successfully completed with 99% of the human genome sequenced to 99.99% accuracy.
- 2003 - Jean Charest's Parti libéral du Québec defeats Bernard Landry and the Parti Québécois in Quebec's general elections.

Births


- 1336 - Emperor Go-Kogon of Japan (d. 1374)
- 1527 - Abraham Ortelius, Flemish cartographer and geographer (d. 1598)
- 1572 - Adam Tanner, Austrian mathematician and philosopher (d. 1632)
- 1578 - King Philip III of Spain (d. 1621)
- 1629 -