Last April 24 was Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.  Millions of Armenians around the world remembered how the Islamic Ottoman Empire killed — often cruelly and out of religious hatred — some 1.5 million of their ancestors during World War I.  Ironically, most people, including most Armenians, are unaware that the first genocide of Christian Armenians at the hands of Muslim Turks did not occur in the twentieth century.  Rather, it began in 1019 — exactly one thousand years ago this year — when Turks first began to pour into and transform a then much larger Armenia into what it is today, the eastern portion of modern-day Turkey. Thus, in 1019, "the first appearance of the bloodthirsty beasts ... the savage nation of infidels called Turks entered Armenia ... and mercilessly slaughtered the Christian faithful with the sword," writes Matthew of Edessa (d. 1144), a chief source for this period.  Three decades...(Read Full Article)