102nd anniversary of the birth of the National Leader Heydar Aliyev

Today is the National Leader of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev’s birthday.
Heydar Alirza oglu Aliyev was born on 10 May, 1923 in Nakhchivan city, Azerbaijan. After graduating from the Nakhchivan Pedagogical College in 1939, he studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Azerbaijan Industrial Institute. 
In 1944, he was sent to work in the state security bodies. From this period, Heydar Aliyev, who worked in the system of security bodies, worked as Deputy Chairman of the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijan SSR from 1964, and as Chairman from 1967, rising to the rank of Major General.
Heydar Aliyev was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee at the July 1969 plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan and became the head of the republic. In December, 1982, Heydar Aliyev was elected a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and became one of the leaders of the USSR. 
Heydar Aliyev resigned from his positions in October 1987 as a sign of protest against the political line pursued by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and personally by General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.
On 20 January, 1990, Heydar Aliyev made a statement at the Azerbaijani representation in Moscow the next day regarding the bloody tragedy committed by Soviet troops in Baku, demanding the punishment of the organizers and executors of the crime committed against the Azerbaijani people. 
Heydar Aliyev, who returned to Azerbaijan in July 1990, first lived in Baku and then in Nakhchivan, and in the same year was elected a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan. He was the Chairman of the Supreme Assembly of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in 1991-1993. 
Heydar Aliyev was elected Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan on 15 June, 1993, and on 24 July, by the decision of the Milli Majlis, he began to exercise the powers of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
On 3 October, 1993, Heydar Aliyev was elected President of the Republic of Azerbaijan as a result of a nationwide vote. He was re-elected President of the Republic of Azerbaijan on 11 October, 1998, collecting 76.1 percent of the vote in the elections held in conditions of high public activity. 
The National Leader of Azerbaijan, President Heydar Aliyev died on 12 December, 2003 at the Cleveland Clinic (USA), where he was being treated, and was buried on 15 December in the Alley of Honor in Baku.