Word: persian
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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While Dubai's origins are largely a mystery, what is now a Rhode Island--size principality on the Persian Gulf was just a pearl-fishing village when its current rulers, the Maktoum family, took over in 1883. Along with those of other Arab emirates, its fortunes changed abruptly in 1966 with the discovery of oil. But compared with its neighbors, Dubai had limited reserves, prompting its rulers to turn to other industries to fuel their bold economic aspirations. Starting in the 1980s, at the prompting of Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, then the crown prince, Dubai fashioned itself into...
Classes have been frequently closed, and running battles - mostly nonviolent scrambles - have occurred on campus grounds. Even the famous July 1999 student protests, known in Iran by their initial date in the Persian calendar - the 18th of Tir - did not last this long...
...feel sorry for the five British yachtsmen who set sail from the tiny Middle East state of Bahrain last week. First, a dodgy propeller apparently stalled their vessel's progress toward the nearby emirate of Dubai. Worse still, seemingly adrift in the Persian Gulf, their 60-ft. boat appears to have inadvertently coasted into the territorial waters of Iran. Duly halted by Iranian naval vessels on Nov. 25, the men - seasoned sailors who had planned to take part in a yacht race from Dubai the following day - were swiftly whisked into the uncertain fate of Iranian custody at a moment...
...Cambyses' army must have taken a different route from Thebes into the desert than the one explored by earlier generations of archaeologists. Geological surveys they conducted over a new stretch of terrain further afield from the old caravan track revealed dried-up wells and pieces of earthenware pottery from Persian water pots. The army may have taken this alternative path through the desert in order to surprise the defenders of the Amon temple, but were stopped short by the unforgiving Saharan khamsin wind, which triggered sandstorms that scattered and eventually destroyed the attacking troops. The Castiglionis' team also heard bedouin...
...life a cautionary tale that has not always been remembered by subsequent generations. Like Napoleon's march into Russia, Cambyses' doomed campaign serves as perhaps the ultimate act of hubris, of a power-hungry monarch who refuses to accept the limits to his ambitions. While these 50,000 Persian warriors disappeared in the desert, Cambyses didn't fare much better. At the time, he was marching on a kingdom in Ethiopia, but provisions ran out beneath a scorching sun and his troops were forced to pick lots having divided into groups of 10. According to Herodotus, the unfortunate...