Iravan (Aravan) is a minor character from the Hindu epic of Mahabharata. The son of Pandava prince Arjuna (one of the main heroes of the Mahabharata) and the Naga princess Ulupi, Iravan is the central god of the Kuttantavar cult and plays a major role in the cult of Draupadi. Both these cults are of South Indian origin, from a region of the country where he is worshipped as a village deity. The Mahabharata portrays Iravan as dying a heroic death in the 18-day Kurukshetra War, the epic's main subject. However, the South Indian cults have a supplementary tradition of honouring Iravan's self-sacrifice to the goddess Kali to ensure her favour and the victory of the Pandavas in the war. The South Indian cults focus on three boons granted to Iravan by the god Krishna in honour of his sacrifice. Iravan is also a patron god of the well-known Indian transgender communities called Ali. In Koovagam, Tamil Nadu, an 18-day festival holds a ceremonial marriage of Iravan to Alis and male villagers and followed then by their "widowhood" after ritual re-enactment of Iravan's sacrifice. Iravan is also known in Indonesia. Independent Javanese traditions present a dramatic marriage of Iravan to Titisari, daughter of Krishna, and a death resulting from a case of mistaken identity.
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1588:
Anglo-Spanish War: The Spanish Armada , with 130 ships and over 30,000 men, set sail from Lisbon for the English Channel in an attempt to invade England. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Armada
1644:
English Civil War: Royalist troops allegedly slaughtered up to 1,600 people during their storm and capture of the Town of Bolton. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolton_Massacre
1892:
Aided by a group of professors from the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University, Preservationist John Muir founded the environmental organization Sierra Club in San Francisco. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir
1936:
English mathematician Alan Turing submitted his paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem" for publication, introducing the Turing machine, a basic abstract symbol-manipulating device that can simulate the logic of any computer algorithm. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
1961:
The British newspaper The Observer published English lawyer Peter Benenson's article The Forgotten Prisoners, starting a letter-writing campaign that grew and became the human rights organization Amnesty International. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_International
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