Today is Armenian national hero Soghomon Tehlirian`s birthday.

May 23 is a day to commemorate Soghomon Tehlerian, an Armenian national hero who became famed for assassinating the chief perpetrator of the Genocide, Talaat Pasha, in 1921.

Tehlirian was born in Bagaritch, Western Armenia in 1896. After completing his preliminary education in his hometown, he pursued further studies at the Central College of Yerznka.
In 1913, Tehlirian moved to Serbia, but following the breakout of World War I, he departed to Armenia to join a voluntary detachment led by the legendary hero, Zoravar Andranik (Andranik Ozanyan). A survivor of the Armenian Genocide, Tehlirian was deeply moved by the big tragedy.

In 1921, Tehlirian joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaksutyun’s Operation Nemesis, a covert plan aimed at assassinating the architects of the 21st century’s first heinous crime against humanity. He gunned down Talaat Pasha in the Charlottenburg District of Berlin, Germany on March 15, 1921 as an act of vengeance for Talaat's role in orchestrating the Genocide. Tehlirian was tried and subsequently acquitted by a German court.

The trial of Tehlirian was a rather sensationalized event at the time, with the hero being defended by three attorneys.. It examined not only Tehlirian’s actions but also his conviction that Talaat Pasha was the main author of the Armenian deportation and mass killings. The defense attorneys made no attempt to deny the fact that Tehlirian had killed a man, and instead focused on the influence of the Armenian Genocide on Tehlirian's mental state. It took the jury slightly over an hour to render a verdict of "not guilty" on grounds of temporary insanity.

Later in the year, one of the streets in the district was named after Tehlirian. On June 2, 1921, the German court declared the the hero invincible.