On August 9, 1823, at the age of 33, the Suliot commander Marko Boçari, who was called the “Eagle of Suli”, was killed. They also tried to desecrate his grave, but the Albanians prevented them by taking the body of Marko Bocari and burying it with the honors of a hero.

The publication of newspapers in the Albanian language has its origin in Istanbul with the paper Drita /The Light/, which later took the name Dituria /The Knowledge/. It was published by the Society for Printing in Albanian Letters, from August 1884 to July 1885. The editor-in-chief of this first Albanian newspaper in the Ottoman Empire was Pandeli Sotiri.

On August 9, 1912, a few months before the country’s Independence Declaration, the 14-point program of Hasan Prishtina, which was called an agreement with the Ottoman government, was delivered to the relevant government commission in pressuring tone. This program, which was on behalf of the entire Albania, and to the fulfillment of the demands of the Albanian leadership, marked an important step towards the requested autonomy at that point in time.

On August 9, 1914, Don Pjetër Çuni was born in Shkodër. He studied theology at Fide Propaganda in Rome. He was ordained a priest in 1939, and served in parishes around Shkodër area. He was arrested without motive in 1948 and died in inhuman tortures.

In August 1919, Gjergj Fishta, the prominent Albanian epic poet, in the quality of the general secretary of the Albanian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, was engaged in a special commission in the United States to look after of the interests of the new Albanian state.

On August 9, 1924, the town of Shëngjin, by proposal of the head of “Vatra”, Albanian Federation in the US, Faik Konica, and by decision of the Albanian government of Fan Noli, took the name of the 28th president of the US, Wilson, as a sign of honor and respect for the role he played in favor of Albania at the Peace Conference in Paris after the WWI. A name which the town kept until 1939, when the country was invaded by fascist Italy.

/a.p./