The Azerbaijani people are an ethnic group mainly found in
northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijanis,
commonly referred to as Azeris, live in a wider area from the Caucasus
to the Iranian plateau. The Azeris are typically at least nominally
Muslim and have a mixed cultural heritage of Turkic, Iranian, and
Caucasian elements. Despite living on both sides of an international
border, the Azeris form a single group. However, northerners and
southerners differ due to nearly two centuries of separate social
evolution in Russian/Soviet-influenced Azerbaijan and Iranian
Azarbaijan. The Azerbaijani language unifies Azeris and is mutually
intelligible with Turkmen and Turkish. As a result of this separate
existence, the Azeris are mainly secularists in Azerbaijan and
religious Muslims in Iranian Azarbaijan. Since Azerbaijan's
independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, there has been renewed
interest in religion and cross-border ethnic ties.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijani_people
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1806:
The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved when Francis II, the last Holy
Roman Emperor, was forced to abdicate.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire)
1890:
William Kemmler became the first person to be executed in an electric
chair.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/electric_chair)
1945:
World War II: Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress of the U.S. Army Air
Force, dropped an atomic bomb named Little Boy (pictured) on
Hiroshima, Japan, killing an estimated 80,000 people instantly.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki)
1966:
Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan became emir and ruler of Abu Dhabi.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zayed_bin_Sultan_Al_Nahayan)
1991:
Tim Berners-Lee released files describing his idea for a "World Wide
Web."
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee)
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Wikiquote of the day:
"One of the primary tests of the mood of a society at any given time
is whether its comfortable people tend to identify, psychologically,
with the power and achievements of the very successful or with the
needs and sufferings of the underpriviliged." -- Richard Hofstadter
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Hofstadter)