| 20th -13th BC – The period of the Patriarchs, Abraham, his son Isaac, and Isaac’s son Jacob. Descent into Egypt, the people of Israel in Egypt. (According religious literature sources)
13th BC – The Exodus: Moses led the Israelites from ancient Egypt through the wilderness. 12th BC – The conquest of Canaan by Joshua. (According religious literature sources) 1026 BC – The United Kingdom of Israel. 931 BC – The kingdom splits into two kingdoms: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. 587 BC – Jerusalem falls to the Babylonians, ending the Kingdom. Exile of the Jews to Babylonia. 459 BC – some of the Jews (the tribe of Judah) return from Babylon to Jerusalem, to rebuild it. 332 BC – Alexander the Great conquered the region. 301 BC- Ptolemy I Soter conquered the region from the heirs of Alexander the Great. 200 BC – Antiochus III the Great from the Seleucid dynasty conquered the region from the Ptolemaic dynasty. 167 BC – Maccabean Revolt: Jewish revolt against the Seleucid Empire. 63 BC – Pompey the Great conquered Jerusalem and appoints John Hyrcanus II as king (ethnarch) under Roman suzerainty. 47 BC – Herod was appointed as the governor of Galilee. 40 BC – the Parthians invaded Judea, seized Jerusalem and appointed Antigonus II Mattathias as the King of Judea. 37 BC – Herod the Great seized back power in Judea with the help of the Romans and executed Antigonus II Mattathias. 7–2 BC – Birth of Jesus according to Christian tradition. 26-33 AD – Approximate date of the Crucifixion of Jesus. 66–73 AD – The First Jewish–Roman War. The first uprising of Jews against the rule of the Roman Empire. The upraising lead to destruction of Jewish Temple and the conquest of Masada. 132–135 AD – The Bar Kokhba revolt takes place, by the Jews of Judaea Province against the Roman Empire. After the rebellion failed emperor Hadrian changed the name of the province from Judaea to “Syria Palaestina” in order to complete the dissociation between the Jewish rebels to the region. 4th century AD – Constantine the Great becomes the sole ruler of the re-united Roman Empire with its capital at Byzantium (New Rome) and declares Christianity as the official religion of the Byzantine Empire 614 AD – The Persian Empire captures and sacks Jerusalem; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is damaged by fire and the True Cross is captured. 629 AD – Byzantine Emperor Heraclius retakes Jerusalem, Heraclius personally returns the True Cross to the city. 638 AD– the conquest of Jerusalem by the armies of the Caliph Umar Ibn el-Khatab (Islamic). Jews are permitted to return to the city after 568 years of Roman and Byzantine rule. 687–691 AD – the caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan of the Umayyad dynasty establishes the Muslim shrine Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem at the site of the First and Second Jewish Temples, a site which according to Muslim tradition was the place where Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. 1096–1099 – First Crusade and the establishment of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem. Christian soldiers under Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert II of Flanders, Raymond IV of Toulouse and Tancred take Jerusalem after a difficult siege, killing nearly every inhabitant. 1291 – Fall of Acre: Al-Ashraf Khalil of Egypt (Mamluk) captures Acre, thus exterminating the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem (the final Christian landholding remaining from the Crusades), and ending the Ninth Crusade and effectively all Crusades, by eliminating the possibility of further attacks on the Holy Land. 1538–1535 – Suleiman the Magnificent restores the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Jerusalem city walls (which are the current walls of the Old City of Jerusalem). 1799 – Napoleon Bonaparte leads the French Campaign. Siege of Jaffa – Napoleon captures the city of Jaffa. An unsuccessful attempt by Napoleon to capture the city of Acre. 1860 – The first Jewish neighborhood (Mishkenot Sha’ananim) is built outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. 1882-1903 – The First Aliyah took place in which 25,000-35,000 Jew immigrants immigrated to Ottoman Syria, (the province of Palestine, to become Israel) 1887-8 – Ottoman Syria was divided into the districts of Jerusalem, Nablus and Acre. 1909 – Tel Aviv was founded on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa. 1917 – The Balfour Declaration is published in which the British Government declares its support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in what is to become Mandate Palestine. 1918 – 1948 – British Mandate. 29 November 1947 – UN General Assembly proposes to divide Mandate Palestine into an Arab and Jewish state. 14 May 1948 – Israeli Declaration of Independence: the establishment of the independent and sovereign State of Israel. |
