ON THIS DAY- Saad Zaghloul founded the Al Wafd Al Masry party on this day in 1918, which became instrumental in Egypt’s independence movement from Britain. On this in 1935, nationalists and students started protesting against the government in Egypt after an announcement that the 1923 constitution was deemed “inapplicable,” invoking the 1930 constitution, which gave the King the authority to appoint and remove governments. “The demonstrations continued for over the coming days and the government announced that it would close the university several times,” Middle East Monitor recounts. Spacecraft Voyager 1 sent back its first close-up pictures of Saturn on this day in 1980 and Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to orbit another planet when it probed Mars in 1971. St. Augustine was born on this day in 354 in Algeria. Also on this day, in 2015, terrorists staged coordinated attacks in Paris and its environs, the deadliest occurring at the Bataclan theatre and concert hall; in all, at least 130 people were killed and more than 350 were wounded. We were reporting on the IMF’s approval of the financing package this time last year and, in 2014, we were taking note of the student who was arrested for having a copy of George Orwell’s 1984.