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This month’s anniversaries

1 Dec 1973 death of David Ben Gurion, first prime minister of Israel (1948–1953, 1955–1963)
2 Dec 1971 establishment of the United Arab Emirates
3 Dec 1967 Christiaan Neethling Barnard, South African cardiac surgeon, performed the world’s first successful heart transplant
4 Dec 1131 death of Omar Khayyam, born Ghiyath ad-Din Abu'l-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrahim Khayyam Nishapuri, Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer
7 Dec 903 birth of ‘Abd ar-Rahman bin Omar Sufi (Azophi), Persian astronomer
7 Dec 1895 birth of Milton Augustus Strieby Margai, first prime minister of Sierra Leone (1961–1964)
7 Dec 1993 death of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, first president of Côte d’Ivoire (1960–1993)
9 Dec 1291 death of Abu Muhammad Muslih al-Din bin Abdallah Shirazi, better known as Saadi, Persian poet
9 Dec 1961 independence of Tanganyika (from the United Kingdom)
10 Dec 1198 death of Abu’s-Walid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Andalusian Islamic philosopher, theologian and physician
10 Dec 1963 independence of Zanzibar (from the United Kingdom)
12 Dec 1952 death of Bedřich Hrozný, Czech Assyriologist, founder of Hittitology, decipherer of Hittite language, nicknamed „Czech Champollion“
12 Dec 1963 independence of Kenya (from the United Kingdom)
13 Dec 1048 death of Abu Rayhan Mumammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (Aliboron), Persian polymath, one of the greatest scholars of the medieval Islamic era
15 Dec 1976 death of Grégoire Kayibanda, second (first elected) president of Rwanda (1962–1973)
15 Dec 1985 death of Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, first prime minister of Mauritius (1968–1982)
17 Dec 1273 death of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, Persian poet, theologian and mystic
20 Dec 2001 death of Léopold Sédar Senghor, first president of Senegal (1960–1980)
23 Dec 1524 death of Vasco da Gama, Portuguese navigator and explorer, first European who reached India by sea, circumnavigating Africa
23 Dec 1790 birth of Jean François Champollion, French philologist and orientalist, decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs
24 Dec 1920 birth of Jiří Hanzelka, Czech explorer, inter alia in Africa
24 Dec 1951 independence of Libya (from UN Trusteeship Council mandate administered by the United Kingdom and France)
25 Dec 1868 birth of Ahmed Shawqi, Egyptian poet and dramatist, nicknamed Amir al-Shu‘ara’, The Prince of Poets
25 Dec 1916 birth of Ahmad ben Bella, first president of Algeria (1963–1965)
25 Dec 1918 birth of Muhammad Anwar el Sadat, president of Egypt (1970–1981), recipient of Nobel Peace Prize 1978
25 Dec 1924 birth of Moktar Ould Daddah, first president of Mauritania (1961–1978)
25 Dec 1930 death of Theodor Nöldeke, German Orientalist and Islamologist
25 Dec 1969 birth of Miroslav Bárta, Czech Egyptologist and archaeologist
26 Dec 1890 death of Johann Ludwig Heinrich Julius Schliemann, German businessman and archaeologist, who discovered Troy (1873, in present-day Turkey)
27 Dec 1950 death of Bertram Thomas, first European who crossed Rub‘ al-Khali desert
27 Dec 1978 death of Houari Boumedienne, chairman of Algeria’s Revolutionary Council (1965–1976), second president of Algeria (1976–1978)
28 Dec 1925 birth of Apollo Milton Obote, first prime minister of Uganda (1962–1966), president of Uganda (1966–1971, 1980–1985)
29 Dec 1968 death of Jan Rypka, Czech Iranologist and Turkologist
29 Dec 1988 death of Otakar Klíma, Czech Iranologist
31 Dec 1921 birth of Maurice Nawalagmba Yaméogo, first president of Upper Volta, present-day Burkina Faso (1960–1966)
31 Dec 1937 birth of Avram Hershko, Israeli biochemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2004