Thread by @JohnGhazvinian

It’s poinsettia season and time to talk about the special place this plant has in the history of US-Iran relations.... (a thread)... 1/

The flower is named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, a South Carolina gentleman who, in 1807, earned the distinction of being the first US citizen to ever visit Iran.... 2/

Well, technically, it wasn’t what we would today call “Iran”. Poinsett crossed the border from Russia into the area around Baku, in modern-day Azerbaijan, which at the time was part of the Persian Empire.... 3/

There, in a small village called Quba, he met the local khan (traditional chief) who peppered him with questions about America... 4/

According to Poinsett, the khan knew something about England and France, but “of America, the nation beyond the great waters, he had merely heard and believed in its existence with the [scanty] faith with which he listened to an Arabian or Persian tale...” .... 4/

America, in other words, was like a fantasy-land, a place that existed only in fairy tales. In fact, to Iranians of the time, there wasn’t even such a place as “America”. The phrase they used was “Yengi Donya” or “new world”... 5/

But this doesn’t mean they weren’t interested. Poinsett spent hour after hour answering the khan’s questions about America. And every word he said was quickly written down by the local scribe. But... there was one question he kept getting stuck on.... 6/

“Who is your king?” the khan kept asking. Again and again, Poinsett tried to explain the American Revolution and the new US system of representative government. But it was no use. Eventually, he gave up and told the khan what he wanted to hear.... 7/

Poinsett left bemused, noting that “somewhere in the annals of [Quba], the name of Thomas Jefferson is inscribed as the Shah of America”... 8/

Oh yeah, so why is the flower named after him? I have no idea, and you won’t find the answer to that in my new book. But you might find answers to so many other questions you never knew you had about the history of US-Iran relations
@aaknopf @OneworldNews
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