A country

Iran

3 stories set here.

The Footnote June 27, 2026 · Isfahan

The 1025 CE Persian Medical Textbook That Was the Standard Reference in European Universities From 1180 to Roughly 1650

Ibn Sina's *Canon of Medicine*, compiled at Isfahan around 1025, synthesised Greek, Roman, Persian, and Arabic medical traditions into a five-volume systematic treatise. Translated into Latin in Toledo by Gerard of Cremona around 1180, it became the standard medical-school textbook at Paris, Padua, Montpellier, and Bologna for almost five centuries. The first English translation appeared in 1930.

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The Cabinet June 27, 2026 · US Embassy, Tehran

The 444-Day Iranian Hostage Crisis That Began with the Storming of the US Embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979

Iranian student militants stormed the US Embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979 and took 52 American diplomats hostage. The hostages were held for 444 days, surviving a failed US military rescue at Desert One on 24 April 1980 that killed eight US servicemen. The hostages were released on 20 January 1981 — minutes after Ronald Reagan's inauguration.

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The Footnote June 25, 2026 · Ctesiphon, Sasanian Persia

The Persian Sasanian King Who Gave Refuge to the Last Pagan Philosophers of Athens

When the Emperor Justinian closed the Athenian Academy in 529 AD, the surviving senior pagan philosophers led by Damascius migrated east to the court of the Sasanian Persian king Khusrau I. Khusrau received them with substantial honour, supported their philosophical work for several years, and eventually negotiated their safe return to the Roman Empire in 532.

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