Bahai Library Online

Chronology of the Bahá'í Faith

World Canada
any   all   exact phrase

Date 1954-11, sorted by events, descending

date event tags firsts
1954 1 Nov
195-
The members of the Algerian National Liberation Front initiated an armed conflict on French targets to start the Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the War of Independence which lasted until 1962 and lead to the independence of Algeria from France. This decolonization war was marked by guerrilla warfare, war crimes, and civil strife. The conflict ended with the signing of the Évian Accords.

The war had a profound human cost, with estimates of Algerian casualties ranging from 400,000 to 1.5 million, alongside 25,600 French soldiers and 6,000 Europeans. The war also saw the perpetration of war crimes, including massacres, rape, torture, the destruction of villages, and the displacement of over 2 million Algerians. Upon independence, approximately 900,000 European-Algerians fled to France. The FLN targeted the Harkis, Algerian Muslims who served with the French army, for retribution, with many facing brutal violence. About 90,000 Harkis found refuge in France, where they and their descendants form a significant community​. [Wikipedia]

Colonialism and imperialism; History (general); Algeria; France
1954 20 Nov
195-
The first person to become a Bahá'í in Tonga, Harry Terepo, born in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, enrolled.
  • He was a teacher, interpreter and guide living in Ohonua on the island of Eua.
  • - First Bahá'ís by country or area; Tonga first Bahá’í in Tonga
    1954 27 Nov
    195-
    Shoghi Effendi described the significance of the world administrative centre of the Faith and the 'structures, which will serve as the administrative seats of such divinely appointed institutions as the Guardianship, the Hands of the Cause, and the Universal House of Justice' to be ranged along a 'far-flung arc'. [MBW74] Guardianship; - Hands of the Cause; Universal House of Justice, Seat of (Haifa); - Bahá'í World Centre buildings, monuments and gardens; - Bahá'í World Centre; * Shoghi Effendi (chronology); - Bahá'í World Centre; Mount Carmel; Haifa, Israel; Arc (World Centre)
    1954 27 Nov
    195-
    Shoghi Effendi announced the commencement of "the excavation for the foundations of the International Archives heralding the rise of the first edifice destine to inaugurate the establishment of the seat of the World Baha'i Administrative order in the Holy Land". [MBW75] - Bahá'í World Centre; International Archives Building (Haifa)
    1954 Nov
    195-
    A plot of land of slightly less than half an acre (1,300 metres) owned by Farah Sprague (Farahangiz Khanum), a Covenant-breaker, was purchased (after expropriation by the Finance Minister of the state of Israel on the recommendation of the mayor of Haifa), overcoming the final obstacle to beginning the construction of the International Bahá'í Archives. This concluded a thirty-year struggle in the acquisition of land on the Arc for the Guardian. [LI210-211; DH169; MBW73–4; CBN No 60 January 1955 p1]
  • He said, in a letter dated the 27th of November 1955...

      "The truculence, greed and obstinacy, of this breaker of the Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh, demonstrated by her persistent refusal to sell and by the exorbitant price subsequently demanded, raised, during more than thirty years, an almost insurmountable obstacle to the acquisition of an area, which, however circumscribed, occupies a central position amidst the extensive Baha'i domains in the heart of God's holy Mountain, is situated in the vicinity of the Báb's Sepulchre, overlooks the Tomb of the Greatest Holy Leaf, and adjoins the resting-places of the Brother and the Mother of Abdu'l-Bahá, and which, through deliberate neglect, has. been allowed to become an eyesore to all those who throng the embellished precincts of a Mausoleum rightly regarded as the second holiest Shrine in the Bahá'í world.
      The ownership of this plot will now enable us to locate the site, excavate the foundations, and erect the structure, of the International Bahá'í Archives, designed by the Hand of the Cause, Mason Remey, President of the International Bahá'í Council, which will serve as the permanent and befitting repository for the priceless and numerous relics associated with the Twin Founders of the Faith, with the Perfect Exemplar of its teachings and with its heroes, saints and martyrs, and the building of which constitutes one of the foremost objectives of the Ten-Year Plan. [CBN No 60 January 1955 p1]
  • Farah Sprague (Farahangiz Khanum); Covenant-breaking; Purchases and exchanges; Mount Carmel; - Bahá'í World Centre buildings, monuments and gardens; Haifa, Israel; International Archives Building (Haifa)
    Home divider Site Map divider Series divider Chronology
    searchAuthor divider Title divider Date divider Tags
    Links divider About divider Contact divider RSS divider New
    smaller font
    larger font