December 20, 1996: Renovated fortress opens in Kalba

The old fortress of Kalba was formally opened to the public after being restored and renovated recently by the Department of Heritage at the Department of Culture and Information in Sharjah.

The opening ceremony was attended by Shaikh Saeed Bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Deputy Chairman of the Amiri Diwan in Khor Fakkan, and Abdul Aziz Al Musallam, Director of Heritage at the Department of Culture and Information at the Government of Sharjah. Other directors and senior officials of local and government establishments in Kalba were also in attendance.

Various folklore and heritage dances accompanied the opening ceremony and were conducted by the Kalba Association for Folklore Arts as well as young female students.

An exhibition of traditional handicraft and folklore antiques was also opened in which students from the Child Education Centre in the Eastern Zones and Kalba scouts participated.

The opening of the fortress is part of a comprehensive plan to restore, renovate and maintain old historical places of heritage in the eastern areas of Sharjah, including Kalba, Khor Fakkan and Dibba Al Hosn.

Other important events:

1712 Swedes defeat the Danes at Gadebusch, Poland.

1830 The London conference of Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Russia agrees with Belgium on separation from Holland.

1852 British forces annex Pegu, lower Burma, now Myanmar.

1860 South Carolina becomes the first US state to secede from the Union.

1922 Fourteen republics merge to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

1938 Russian-born American inventor and television pioneer Vladimir Zworykin is granted a patent for his ‘television system’.

1943 Gualberto Villarroel becomes President of Bolivia after Enrique Peñaranda is ousted in a military coup.

1945 Leopold Figl becomes Chancellor of Austria.

1954 France sends 20,000 troops to Algeria to put down an independence movement.

1957 European Nuclear Energy Agency is founded.

1963 Berlin Wall opens for the first time to West Berliners for a day.

1971 President Aga Khan resigns after Pakistan loses control of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.

1973 Spain’s Premier Luis Carrero Blanco is killed when assassins bomb his car in Madrid.

1977 Djibouti and Vietnam join the United Nations.

1983 Dubai Duty Free opens its doors for business.

1987 Dona Paz, a Philippine passenger ship collides with the tanker Vector off Mindoro island, killing more than 3,000 people.

1989 US troops invades Panama and take control of the country, but strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega escapes.

1991 Paul Keating becomes Prime Minister of Australia.

1996 NeXT Software merges with Apple Computer.

1998 Nkem Chukwu of Houston, Texas, becomes the first woman to give birth to eight live babies.

2001 Argentine President Fernando de la Rua resigns amid riots sparked by the country’s collapsing economy.

2004 A tribunal upholds President Olusegun Obasanjo’s victory in Nigeria’s first-ever civilian-run vote, held more than a year earlier.

2007 Russia signs an agreement with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to build a huge natural gas pipeline along the Caspian Sea.

2009 Iran’s top dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hussain Ali Montazeri dies.

2013 Gunmen open fire outside Manila international airport, killing four people, including Ukol Talumpa, mayor of Labangan in the southern Philippines.

2014 The leader of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Mullah Fazlullah is killed in an air strike in Afghanistan.