Tabas (طبس) or Tabas-e-Golshan (meaning city with a lot of flowers in a desert) is a desert city and a large oasis in the Iranian province of Yazd (and formerly in the south of the Khorasan province). It was near Tabas that the United States rescue operation called Operation Eagle Claw failed, because of an air crash. Oasis in the Libyan part of the Sahara In geography, an oasis is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source. ... Yazd is one of the 30 provinces of Iran. ... Khorasan (also spelled Khurasan and Khorassan; خراسان in Persian) is an area, located in eastern and northeastern Iran. ... The wreckage of a Sea Stallion helicopter at the Desert One base in Iran Operation Eagle Claw (or Operation Evening Light) was a United States military operation to rescue the 53 hostages from the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran on April 24, 1980. ...

Tabas was also stricken by a destructive earthquake on September 16, 1978 that left around 25000 dead. The earthquake was measured between 7.5 and 7.9 on the scale of Richter. The 1978 Tabas earthquake took place on September 16 and was one of largest earthquakes to hit Iran. ... September 16 is the 259th day of the year (260th in leap years). ... 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1978 calendar). ... The Richter magnitude test scale (or more correctly local magnitude ML scale) assigns a single number to quantify the size of an earthquake. ...

Tabas is also a family name. It's believed that the original name was Tabachnik of Eastern European descent. A family name, or surname, is the part of a persons name that indicates to what family he or she belongs. ... Eastern Europe is, by convention, a region defined geographically as that part of Europe covering the eastern part of the continent. ...