1842 – Born in the Kala neighborhood in Berat, Baba Dudë Karbunara was an Albanian teacher and politician, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence of Albania. Upon completing his studies, he returned to Berat in 1863. Although educated for the time, the Turks did not accept him into the administration, so he provided income for the family through trade, which he developed with his brothers and cousins settled in Vlora and emigration. He married and became the father of three daughters. His pronounced Albanianism caught the eye of the Turks, who burned his house in Berat in 1895. The period after Independence that passed was very difficult for Baba Duda. The patriotic teacher, representative of Berat in the Vlora Assembly in his old age was cruelly tortured by Esat Toptani’s mercenaries. In addition to destroying his property in 1915, the rebels of Haxhi Qamili, when they entered Berat, captured him, dragged him out of the city, beating him with sticks. Due to this violence, Baba Duda was in serious health until the end of his life. He passed away on December 17, 1917, at the age of 75.
1885 – Born in Shkodër Hilë Mosi was an activist and disseminator of the national cause, a figure in journalism and Albanian politics after independence. In 1920, he was a senator for the prefecture of Shkodër in the Senate of the Chamber of the National Council of Albania, and in the years 1921-1924, he was elected deputy of the same prefecture for two consecutive legislatures. He was a delegate and representative of Albania in the League of Nations in Geneva. On March 3, 1921, he was elected secretary of the National Council, in 1921-1922 and again in May 1924, he was appointed prefect in Korça. On August 3, 1923, he delivered the funeral speech on the occasion of the assassination of the patriot Pandeli Cale. With the Triumph of Legality, he emigrated abroad, but in August 1925 he was part of those amnestied by the President of the Republic, Ahmet Zogu. Upon his return, he was appointed prefect in Korça, where he remained until the end of 1926. At the beginning of 1927, he was appointed inspector of the Presidency of the Republic, but according to the decision of the President of the Republic, on January 16, 1927, and by the Decision of the Council of Ministers, on January 27, 1927, it turns out that he was appointed “General Inspector of Administration”, handing over the duty of prefect Zef Kadares, transferred from Berat to Korça. As soon as he came to this duty, Hila transferred the Commissioner of the Korça Police, his friend, Zef Mirdita, to the duty of “secretary of the Inspectorate of Administration”. After this duty, on October 24, 1927, he was appointed Minister of World Affairs and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, where he remained until November 16, 1927, replaced by Salih Vuçitërni. That autumn, he suffered the misfortune of the death of his son, Miri. He returned to prefect of Korça until March 6, 1930, when the government of Pandeli Evangeli gave him the post of Minister of Education and Deputy for World Affairs. During that time, he met Petro Marko, who appointed him a teacher in Dhërmi.
1915 – The use of poison gas in World War I escalates when chlorine gas is released as a chemical weapon in the Second Battle of Ypres. The Second Battle of Ypres was the first massive use of poison gas by Germany on the Western Front. It also marked the first time that a former colonial force (the First Canadian Division) defeated a European power (the German Empire) in Europe.
1918 – Born in Likmetaj, the former Ibrahim Shaban Likmetaj Kodra was an Albanian painter of international fame. Kodra is considered the most important Albanian painter internationally known. His life in Tirana in the boarding school of the “Naim Frashëri” school was interrupted when, at the age of 20 (1938), he left Albania forever with a scholarship from the royal court to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. He left Rome and ended up in Milan, at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera. He exhibited in Rome, Milan, Venice, Paris, Belgrade, New York. In 1948, Ibrahim Kodra became friends with Pablo Picasso, precisely on this topic at the “International Peace Conference of Rome”, in which the two together carried out a deep artistic research, he was a writer. Ibrahim Kodra has left behind about 6 thousand works, distributed by private museums, collectors and only 2 thousand of them are registered and documented. In Kodra’s artistic research, Pablo Picasso’s cubism will have a lot of influence, especially after their friendship in Rome in 1948, to the point that the same Spanish newspapers that talk about Picasso showed Kodra as “the last post-cubist in Europe” like Picasso.
1930 – The United Kingdom, Japan, France, Italy, and the United States sign the London Naval Treaty, which regulates naval warfare and limits the construction of warships. Ratifications were exchanged in London on 27 October 1930, and the treaty entered into force on the same day. The Treaty was registered in the Treaty Series of the League of Nations on 6 February 1931.
1937 – Jack Nicholson is born in New Jersey. Nicholson is an American actor and director whose career has spanned more than 60 years. He is known for playing a wide range of supporting roles, including comedy, romance, and darkly comic portrayals of anti-heroes and villains. Some of his films include The Shining, Batman, Wolf, The Departed, A Few Goodmen, etc.
1948 – During the Arab–Israeli War, Haifa, Israel’s major port, is captured by Arab forces. The Battle of Haifa, also known as Operation Haganah, was a major event in the final stages of the civil war in Palestine, leading up to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The objective of the operation was to capture the Arab neighborhoods of Haifa. Hundreds of Israeli and Arab troops were killed in the battle.
1977 – Fiber optics are used for the first time to carry direct telephone communication. Optical fibers are most commonly used as a means of transmitting light between two ends of the fiber and find widespread use in fiber optic communications. They allow transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths (data rates) than electrical cables.
1983 – The German magazine Stern claims that “Hitler’s Diaries” were found in a dump in East Germany. The diaries were later revealed to be forgeries. The Hitler Diaries were a 60-volume series of journals purportedly written by Adolf Hitler, but forged by Konrad Kujau in 1981–83. The diaries were purchased in 1983 for 10 million marks by the German news magazine Stern.
1994 – Richard Nixon dies at the age of 81. Nixon was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. After five years in the White House, he signed an end to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, friendship with the USSR and China, and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Nixon became the only president to resign from office.
2016 – The Paris Agreement, an agreement to help combat global warming, is officially signed. The language of the agreement was negotiated by representatives of 196 countries at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC in Le Bourget, near Paris, France, and was adopted by consensus on 12 December 2015. The only countries that have not signed this agreement are Turkey and Iran.
