1912: Albania declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire.
1943: The tide having turned decidedly in favor of the Allies in World War II, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin meet in Tehran to plan for what would come to be known as “Operation Overlord”—the June 6, 1944 landing in Normandy, France, that contributed to the liberation of Europe from Nazi Germany. The conference, which lasted until Dec. 2, was necessary to reduce severe tensions between Stalin and Churchill, neither of whom trusted the other. Stalin accused Britain and the United States of letting the Soviets bear the brunt of the war by purposefully delaying opening a second Western front.
1960: Mauritania, the westernmost nation in the Arab League, gains its independence from France.
1967: The Israeli government condemns Charles De Gaulle’s characterization, expressed at a news conference in Paris a day earlier, of Israel as an aggressor nation in the 1956 and 1967 wars
- 1967: Charles De Gaulle Condemns Israel's Occupation of Arab Territories
- UN Resolution 242
- Israeli Settlements in the West Bank: The Facts
- West Bank Settlements: Israeli Lies, American Rice-Throwing
- When Settlers Terrorize Palestinians
1983: President Reagan approves increased American military aid to and cooperation with Israel, including resumption of delivery of American-made cluster-bomb artillery shells. The shipments had been suspended in July 1982, during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. The shells explode and scatter small bombs over a wide area. Under the terms of the agreement with the United States, Israel may use cluster bombs only on large enemy troop concentrations—a condition Israel routinely ignored in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir begins two days of talks with Reagan at the White House.
2002: Terrorists in Mombasa, Kenya, fire shoulder-launched missiles at a crowded Israeli passenger jet, missing it, while three suicide bombers drive up to an Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel, detonate their explosives, kill themselves and 12 others -- nine Kenyans, three Israelis.
