Events relating to Jewish history and the history of the State of
Israel
Also events relating to the Palestinian State
Page last modified 13/1/2021
Jewish Virtual Library, useful links here, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-population-of-the-world#history
Colour key: Where dates are uncertain they are
denoted Ca; a range of possibilities may be given. Alternative dates may also be given.
People
State of Israel
Six Day
War, 1967
Suez Crisis 1956
Anti-Israel
non-State activities
Deaths -
Jewish non-State acts
Anne
Frank
Nazi anti-Semitism
Reform
Movement 1800s
Dreyfus Affair (France)
Pro-Semitism
Anti-Semitism (not
Nazi)
Bible Powers
Egypt
Assyria
Babylon
Persia
Bible
Books (number in brackets is the generally accepted order of the book within
the modern Bible)
13/8/2020, Israel and the United Arab
Emirates created diplomatic links; Israel undertook not to ‘annex more’ of the
West Bank. Palestinians were
disappointed. Israel and the Sunni Arab world have been united by a mutual
fear of Shia Iran.
9/4/2019, Benjamin Netanyahu won a record
fifth term as President. He intended to take a hard line on the issue of Israeli
settlements on the West Bank.
19/2/2019, 80 Jewish graves in eastern France were desecrated, in a rising tide of
anti-Semitism that had seen a rise of 74% in such attacks in 2018 over 2017.
27/10/2018, Robert Bowers, a white-supremacist, entered a synagogue in Pittsburgh, USA, and shot dead 11 worshippers.
6/12/2017, President Donald Trump of the USA
officially recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and announced that he
would move the US Embassy there, from Tel Aviv. There were protests from Palestinians.
14/7/2017, Two Israeli policemen were
shot by Palestinians near the Temple Mount, Jerusalem. Israel imposed security
measures including metal detectors on Muslim worshippers at the Haram al Sharif Mosque.
These measures were seen as part of the Israeli occupation and sparked further protests
and riots in Jerusalem.
6/2/2017, The coalition Israeli Government, led by Binyamin Netanyahu, passed a
Bill that legalised certain Israeli settlements built on privately-owned
Palestinian land.
28/9/2016, Shimon Peres, Labour leader of Israel from 1977, died aged 93.
17/12/2014, The European Parliament voted to
recognise the Palestinian State by 498 votes to 88.
13/10/2014, The British Parliament voted by 274 to
12 to recognise the Palestinian State. The vote had little real impact and was
essentially symbolic; it followed a similar vote by the Swedish Parliament
earlier in October 2014.
3/10/2014, Sweden became the first EU country to
recognise the Palestinian State. Israel withdrew its ambassador in protest.
22/7/2014, A Palestinian rocket landed within 2 kilometres
of Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport (see 8/7/2014), causing many airlines to cancel
flights to Israel.
8/7/2014, Israel launched a major attack on the
Gaza Strip, firing in rockets, followed by a ground invasion, following a
series of rockets launched into Israel from Gaza.
2/7/2014, In revenge for the
killing of three Israeli teenagers on 30/6/2014, a Palestinian youth was
murdered by Israeli settlers.
11/1/2014, Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon died, aged 85, after eight years
in a coma. See 4/1/2006.
29/11/2012, The United Nations granted Palestine non-member observer status.
31/10/2011, UNESCO admitted Palestine as a member; 107 members were in
support, and 14 opposed.
31/5/2010, 9 activists died when Israeli naval forces
raided a flotilla of ships attempting to break the Gaza blockade.
28/10/2009, UN Secretary Ban Ki Moon
stated that Jerusalem must be the capital both of Israel and a Palestinian
State if peace were to be achieved in the region.
21/1/2009, Israel completed its withdrawal from
the Gaza Strip. Air strikes by both sides continued.
3/1/2009, Israel invaded the Gaza Strip, as Hamas
fired rockets into Israel.
27/12/2008, Israel mounted military strikes against the Gaza Strip.
29/2/2008, After Hamas fired rockets into Israel, Israeli
troops began a 22-dau assault against Gaza.
23/1/2008, Palestinian militants blew up the border
wall between Egypt and Gaza at Rafah; thousands of Palestinians fled into Egypt.
6/9/2007, Israeli warplanes struck a suspected nuclear site in Syria.
28/6/2006, Israel launched an offensive against the Gaza Strip.
26/1/2006, Hamas won elections in
Palestine.
4/1/2006, Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a major stroke; after 8
years in a coma he died on 11/1/2013,
aged 85.
20/9/2005, The Nazi-hunter, Simon Weisenthal, died.
12/9/2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, ending
38 years of occupation.
28/8/2005, A terrorist attack at Beersheba bus
station, Israel, injured 52. Islamic
Jihad claimed responsibility.
23/8/2005, Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from 25 settlements in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip (see 17/8/2005) ended.
17/8/2005, The first forced evacuation of Israeli settlers began, as part of a
unilateral withdrawal from Arab territories.
8/2/2005, An Israeli-Palestinian
ceasefire was announced.
4/1/2005, Mahmoud Abbas became leader of
the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
21/4/2004, Mordecai Vanunu, who revealed details of the Israeli nuclear
programme in the 1980s, was released from an Israeil prison after an 18-year
term for treason.
15/11/2003, Two suicide bombings at Istanbul synagogues
killed at 25 people, mostly Turks. Islamic fundamentalists claimed
responsibility.
28/1/2003, The Likud Party won the Israeli elections; Ariel Sharon became Prime
Minister.
28/11/2002, Three suicide bombers blew themselves up
outside the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in Mombasa. Ten Kenyans and three
Israeli tourists died. On the same day a surface-to-air missile narrowly missed
an Israeli airliner taking off from Mombasa Airport.
17/11/2002, Abba Eban, Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister (born 1942), died.
11/4/2002, A suicide bomber set off a lorry full of
explosives outside an ancient synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba,
killing 21, mostly German tourists.
29/3/2002, Israeli tanks and bulldozers smashed
into the headquarters of the PLO in Ramallah on the West Bank, forcing Yasser Arafat to shelter in a basement with no
electricity or communications. This was in retaliation for a suicide bomb attack by
Hamas who had walked into a banquet hall in Netanya where some 250 Israelis
were celebrating Passover; the explosion killed 22 and injured 130 people.
This was the worst attack in 18 months of
terrorism and retaliatory attacks by the Israelis that had left a total of 400
Israelis and 1,247 Palestinians dead. Arafat was effectively held prisoner
until an agreement brokered by the UK and USA secured an Israeli withdrawal in
May 2002. However in June 2002 the Israelis returned to Ramallah and completely
demolished the PLO headquarters.
16/9/2001. Israeli tanks and troops entered the
Palestinian city of Ramallah as truce talks ended.
1/6/2001, A Hamas suicide bomber killed 21, mainly
teenagers, in the Dolphinarium Disco in Tel Aviv.
7/2/2001, Ariel Sharon was elected Prime Minister of Israel.
27/1/2001, The first Holocaust Memorial Day was held in Britain, to
mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on 27/1/1945.
28/9/2000, Start of the Palestinian ‘Intifada’, or uprising. It was
triggered by a visit by Ariel Sharon to the
Temple Mount in Jerusalem, leading several hundred armed Israelis.
25/5/2000. Israel withdrew the
IDF (Israeli Defence Force) troops from Lebanon
after 22 years occupation.
17/5/1999, Ehud Barak (Labour) was elected President of
Israel. He renewed the peace process with the Palestinians and Syria.
19/1/1997, Yasser Arafat returned to Hebron after an
absence of over 30 years. There were
major celebrations as the Israelis handed over the last Israeli-controlled West
Bank city.
20/1/1996, Yasser Arafat was
re-elected President of the PLO.
4/11/1995. Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Prime
Minister, was assassinated by an
Israeli extremist Moments after attending a peace rally in the Square of the
Kings, he was killed by a 27 year old Jewish law student, Yigal Amir. Mr Rabin
had been the target of a hate campaign since he shook hands with Mr Yasser Arafat, PLO leader, on the steps of the White House.
24/9/1995. Israel and the PLO
agree to extend self-rule to most of the West
Bank.
22/1/1995. 22 Israelis died in Tel Aviv in a
suicide bombing by Palestinians.
31/10.1994, The Duke of
Edinburgh became the first member of the British Royal Family to visit Israel.
14/10/1994. The Nobel Peace
prize was awarded jointly to Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Yasser Arafat.
18/7/1994, A bomb killed 194 at the Jewish Mutual Association,
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
25/7/1994, Israel and Jordan
signed a peace treaty, formally ending a state of war between them that had
existed since 1948.
5/7/1994, Yasser Arafat
became the first President of the Palestinian Authority, which had been created
under the Cairo Agreement of 1994.
25/2/1994. Kahanist Baruch Goldstein opened fire in the Cave of
the Patriarchs in Hebron, killing 29 Muslims, before worshippers overpowered
him and beat him to death.
30/12/1993, Israel
and The Vatican recognised each
other.
13/9/1993, Israel and the
PLO signed a peace accord in Washington.
Shimon Peres,
the Israeli Foreign Minister, shook hands with Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO deputy
chief, and Palestinian self-rule was promised. Then the PLO leader, Yassser Arafat,
held out his hand to the Israeli PM, Yitzhak Rabin. After a slight hesitation and a
nudge from the US President, Bill Clinton, the two shook hands. On
14/9/1993 Israel and Jordan signed an agreement to negotiate a peace treaty.
30/8/1993, The Israeli
Government approved the granting of self-rule to Palestinians living on the
West Bank and in Jericho. The PLO signed this plan on 9/9/1993.
20/8/1993, Israel and the
PLO signed the Oslo Peace Accord.
25/7/1993. Israeli air strikes on pro-Iranian Hizbullah
positions in southern Lebanon.
24/6/1993. Israel
announced plans to build a US$ 13 million fence around the Occupied Territories.
17/2/1993. Heavy fighting in Lebanon between Israeli forces and
pro-Iranian guerrillas.
13/2/1993, A second three-day
meeting between the PLO and Israel in Oslo, Norway, concluded with a draft
Declaration of Principles. See 23/1/1993 and 20/8/1993.
23/1/1993, A three-day
secret meeting between representatives of the PLO and Israel concluded in Oslo,
Norway. See 13/2/1993.
16/12/1992. Israel ordered the deportation of 415 Palestinians
to Lebanon. The intifada, or
Palestinian uprising, was now in its sixth year. However Lebanon refused to
accept the deportees and they remained
stranded in a no-mans-land between Lebanon and the barbed wire border of
Israel’s self-declared security zone.
7/12/1992. Three Israeli soldiers were shot by Islamic
militants on the Gaza Strip.
25/10/1992. Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak
Rabin confirmed that Israel did
not intend to withdraw from the Golan Heights.
18/10/1992. More violence on the West Bank, as a Palestinian
killed an Israeli woman and injured nine other Israelis.
17/3/1992. A suicide bomber with a 200lb bomb destroyed the Israeli
Embassy in Buenos Aires. Islamic Jihad
claimed responsibility, saying the attack was in revenge for the killing of
Sheikh Abbas Mussawi in an Israeli helicopter ambush last month. 29 were killed
and 242 injured.
9/3/1992, Menachem Begin, Israeli politician, died.
4/1/1991, The UN unanimously voted to condemn Israeli
treatment of Palestinians.
8/10/1990. 21 Arabs killed in rioting on the Temple
Mount, Jerusalem.
7/10/1990, Israel began handing out
gas masks to all its citizens.
20/5/1990 , Intifada rioting
in the Palestinian Territories.
14/5/1990, Anti-Semitism resurfaced in France,
with the desecration of a Jewish grave in Carpentras.
15/12/1988, The USA resumed contacts with the PLO, after a
13-year boycott.
14/12/1988, Yasser Arafat, PLO leader, renounced terrorism and accepted Israel’s right to exist within
secure borders.
7/12/1988. Yasser Arafat recognised the existence of Israel.
14/11/1988, In Algiers, the Palestine National Council
declared a Palestinian State on the
West Bank and Gaza.
25/4/1988, In Israel, John Demanjuk, known as Ivan the Terrible, was
sentenced to death for war crimes relating to the gas chambers at Treblinka
concentration camp.
16/4/1988, The
Palestine Liberation Organisation’s chief military commander, Khalil al Wazir,
was assassinated at his Tunis home; the
PLO blamed an Israeli hit squad. Mr Wazir had
organised many attacks from Lebanon into Israel, and orchestrated the
Palestinian intifada in the Occupied Territories.
2/4/1988. Israeli troops killed six Palestinians, the highest
total in a single day so far. On 6/4/1988 the
first Israeli civilian victim of the fighting died, a 15-year old girl.
24/3/1988, In Israel, Mordecai Vanunu
was found guilty of revealing Israeli nuclear secrets to the Sunday Times.
4/3/1988. Israel banned all foreign journalists as the Arab
unrest continued.
1/2/1988. Two Arab youths were shot dead by Israeli settlers
as the violence in Israel continued, from January 1988.
20/1/1988. The Israeli
Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, cracked
down hard on the Palestinians.
Beatings were routine and charity aid to the strike-hit West Bank and Gaza
Strip was banned by Israel.
15/1/1988. Arab uprising in
Israel began. Sporadic violence had occurred on 8/1/1988.
8/1/1988. Violence in Gaza and Jerusalem as young
Palestinians protested after Friday prayers. See 15/1/1988.
3/1/1988. An Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon killed 21
people.
25/12/1987, Israeli security forces cracked down on Arab rioters.
9/12/1987, The Intifada, the popular Palestinian uprising against
Israeli authority, began.
16/2/1987, John Demanjuk, also known as Ivan the Terrible, a former car worker who had lived in
the US for 40 years, went on trial in Israel accused of murdering hundreds of
Jews at Treblinka He was the second war criminal to be tried in Israel
after Adolph Eichmann.
9/11/1986, Israel announced
that Mordechai
Vanunu, 31, was in ‘lawful detention’ in Haifa but denied he was
kidnapped from Britain. On 5/10/1986 the Sunday
Times had printed Vanunu’s revelations about Israel’s nuclear arsenal at
Dimona, backed up with his photographs. He never collected his money, and was
probably lured into a honeytrap by a female Mossad agent, then sent in
diplomatic baggage to Jerusalem.
20/10/1986, Yitzhak Shamir succeeded Shimon Peres as Israeli Prime
Minister.
6/9/1986. Arab terrorists killed 21 at
an Istanbul synagogue.
1/10/1985, The Israeli Air Force bombed the PLO HQ in Tunis.
20/5/1985, Israel freed 1,150 Palestinians in exchange for three Israelis.
16/2/1985, Israel began to withdraw from Lebanon.
3/1/1985, Ethiopian Jews settled in Israel.
20/9/1984, 40 died when a suicide bomber attacked the
US Embassy in Beirut.
14/9/1984. Shimon Peres became Prime Minister in Israel.
26/2/1984, US marines pulled
out of Beirut.
23/10/1983 A suicide truck bomber destroyed the US
Marine Corps barracks at Beirut International Airport, killing 241 US
servicemen.
10/10/1983. Shamir became Prime Minister in Israel.
2/9/1983. Israel’s Prime
Minister Menachem Begin resigned, and
was replaced by Yitzhak Shamir.
26/6/1983. Yasser
Arafat was expelled from Syria.
17/5/1983, Israel, Lebanon,
and the US signed an agreement on
Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
31/3/1983, President Reagan of the US halted further sales of F-16
fighter aircraft to Israel until it fully withdrew from Lebanon.
9/10/1982, In an attack on a synagogue in Rome, 1 died.
26/9/1982, US President
Reagan sent marines into Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission; Italian
and French troops were also to arrive, and Syrian and Israeli forces would
leave Lebanon. In Israel, 300,000
Israelis had demonstrated against their country’s involvement in the massacres
(see 17/9/1982).
25/9/1982, 400,000 people
marched in Israel demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
17/9/1982. Lebanese Christian militia massacred hundreds of
Palestinian civilians in the Sabra
and Chatila refugee camps in Lebanon. This was in revenge for the assassination
of Christian president-elect Bashir Gemayel, replaced by his brother Amin.
16/9/1982, Israeli troops
now controlled all of Beirut.
15/9/1982, In response to
the assassination of the Lebanese President, Israeli troops fought their way into West Beirut.
14/9/1982, Mr Bachir Gemayel, President-elect of Lebanon, was killed when a
terrorist bomb destroyed his party HQ in Christian East Beirut.
2/9/1982, The Israeli
Government totally rejected President Reagan’s new Middle East Peace Plan, and
on 5/9/1982 announced that 13 new
settlements were to be built in Gaza and the West Bank.
31/8/1982. Israel ousted the
PLO from Beirut, Lebanon.
20/8/1982, A multinational force landed in Beirut to oversee
the PLO withdrawal from Lebanon.
French troops arrived on 21st August, and US Marines on the 25th.
12/8/1982. Israeli jets
bombed West Beirut. The city was
divided by the Green Line.
4/8/1982, The UN censured Israel, as its troops were still in Lebanon.
27/7/1982, Israeli jet
fighters attacked West Beirut, killing 120 including civilians.
3/7/1982, In Israel, Peace Now organised a protest against
the war in Lebanon; 100,000 Israelis took part. However a counter-demonstration
was organised by supporters of the war, with 200,000 people, many bussed in
from distant Israeli towns.
9/6/1982, Israeli forces in
Lebanon were just 3 kilometres south of Beirut Airport and had reached the
Beirut to Damascus Highway, where they were fighting against Syrian forces.
6/6/1982. Israel invaded Lebanon, eventually penetrating as
far north as Beirut. The UN Security Council demanded that Israel
withdraw.
4/6/1982, Israeli jets
bombed guerrilla bases in Lebanon in retaliation for the Argov shooting.
3/6/1982, Israeli Ambassador, Argov, was shot by Palestinians.
25/4/1982. Israel withdrew from the Sinai, after 15 years of occupation.
16/10/1981, Moshe Dayan,
Israeli military leader, died in Tel Aviv.
17/7/1981, Israeli bombers destroyed the PLO HQ in Beirut.
30/6/1981, Menachem Begin’s Likud Party
did well in Israeli elections. The Israeli air strike at Osirak, Iraq, had
helped him.
7/6/1981. Israeli planes bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor then
under construction at Osirak, Iraq.
1980, Israel replaced the Pound with a new currency, the Shekel.
3/10/1980. Terrorists bombed a Paris
synagogue.
30/7/1980. Israel declared
that the undivided city of Jerusalem
was its capital.
26/1/1980, Israel and Egypt established
diplomatic relations. Other Arab
nations strongly objected.
8/10/1979, In Israel, the new Tehiya
(Renaissance) Party was launched, to resist any further territorial concessions
by Israel for peace.
2/4/1979, Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem
Begin became the first
Israeli leader to make an official visit to Egypt.
26/3/1979. In Washington,
USA, Mr Begin of Israel and President Sadat of Egypt signed a peace treaty. President Carter oversaw
the signing.
10/12/1978. Presidents Menachim Begin of
Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt shared
the Nobel Peace Prize.
8/12/1978. Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel 1969-1974, died, aged 80,
in Jerusalem.
27/10/1978, Menachem
Begin and Anwar
Sadat were joint winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
18/9/1978. President Menachim Begin of Israel and President Anwar Sadat
of Egypt signed the Camp David peace agreement in America, with President Carter of the US. See
10/12/1978. Other Arab leaders were
appalled.
5/9/1978, The Camp David Accords; Menachim Begin
and Anwar
Sadat began peace talks at the Camp in Maryland.
20/8/1978. Gunmen opened fire on an El Al airline bus in London.
20/5/1978. 5 terrorists and 2 policemen were killed at Orly Airport,
Paris, after terrorists fired at passengers boarding an Israeli plane.
14/3/1978, Israeli forces,
under Operation Litani, invaded Lebanon. This was in retaliation for the bus hijacking on
11/3/1978. Israeli forces occupied a 6 mile deep strip of territory into
Lebanon.
11/3/1978, A PLO unit sailed from the south coast of Lebanon, landed
in northern Israel, and hijacked a bus. 39 of the passengers were killed near
Tel Aviv.
24/12/1977, Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem
Begin began peace discussions with President Sadat of Egypt.
5/12/1977, Egypt broke with
Syria, Libya, Algeria, and South Yemen.
20/11/1977. President Sadat of Egypt
became the first Arab leader to visit Israel. He met Israeli PM Menachem Begin
in the Knesset in Jerusalem, seeking a permanent peace settlement. This outraged many Arabs.
9/11/1977, The Israelis resumed the bombing of Lebanese villages,
after a two-year break, in retaliation for Lebanese tolerance of the PLO in
their country.
26/7/1977, Israeli Prime
Minister Menachem
Begin defied a plea from US President Jimmy Carter and ordered more settlements to be built on the
West Bank.
18/5/1977. Menachem
Begin became President of
Israel after his centre-right Likud
party coalition won elections, ending 29 years of Labour rule in Israel.
8/5/1977, Dutch
art dealer Peter Menten went on trial,
charged with murdering Polish Jews in 1941 for financial gain.
3/7/1976. Israeli commando raid at Entebbe Airport, Uganda, freed 103 hostages from a
hijacked aircraft. An Air France airbus had been hijacked there by Palestinian
guerrillas, on 27/6/1976, from Athens, on a flight to Paris, with 246
passengers and 12 crew. The Israeli commandos flew 2,500 miles and landed in
three large transport aircraft in the dark. In just 35 minutes they had killed all the hijackers and the 20 Ugandan troops guarding them as
hostages. 31 lives were lost; 3 hostages, 1 Israeli, 20 Ugandan
soldiers, and 7 hijackers. 11 Ugandan aircraft, Russian-made
Migs, were destroyed, as the Israelis and the 103 rescued hostages made for
Nairobi, where they refuelled and flew to Tel Aviv. In response the Ugandans
murdered Dora Bloch, a hostage who had been removed to a Kampala hospital
after choking whilst on board the aircraft.
29/7/1976, The hijackers (see 27/6/1976 and 3/7/1976) demanded the
release of 53 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the 98 Jewish hostages they
were holding in Entebbe.
27/6/1976, An Air France airbus on a flight from Athens to Tel Aviv
was hijacked by terrorists from the ‘Popular Front For The Liberation Of
Palestine’ and forced to fly to Libya, where all non-Jewish passengers were
released. The hijackers then flew to Entebbe, Uganda, see 29/7/1976 and
3/7/1976.
1/9/1975, Kissinger arranged an accord between Israel and Egypt on Sinai.
5/3/1975. Palestinian guerrillas raided a hotel at Tel Aviv, taking
30 hostages. Israeli troops stormed the hotel, killing 7 of the 8 terrorists,
and 11 other lives were lost.
2/12/1974, Israel announced
that it possessed the capability of manufacturing nuclear weapons.
30/10/1974, All Arab States recognised the Palestinian
Liberation organisation (PLO) as the ‘sole representative of the Palestinian
people’.
13/6/1974, Palestinian terrorists killed three Israeli women in
Kibbutz Shamir.
3/6/1974, Yitzhak Rabin became Prime Minister of Israel.
31/5/1974, Israel signed a
truce with Syria. Israel returned the city of Kuneitra, occupied since the Yom
Kippur War of October 1973, to Syria.
12/4/1974. Israeli soldiers
destroyed several houses in Lebanon in retaliation for an Arab guerrilla attack on the Israeli
town of Kiryat Shemona in which 18 people died.
11/4/1974, Palestinian terrorists killed 18 Israelis, mainly women
and children, in a raid on Kiryat Shemona.
10/4/1974. Golda Meir resigned as Israeli Prime Minister. Yitzhak Rabin
of the Labour party replaced her on 22/4/1974.
21/2/1974, The last Israeli
military units left the west bank of the Suez
Canal.
15/2/1974, Fierce fighting
on the Golan Heights between Israel
and Syria.
1/1/1974, Golda Meir was re-elected Prime Minister of Israel.
30/12/1973, In London, Joseph Seiff,
Jewish head of Marks and Spencer, was shot and injured by an Arab terrorist.
17/12/1973. 31 people died after Arab guerrillas hijacked a West German airliner at Rome Airport.
1/12/1973. Death of the
Israeli statesman David Ben Gurion. Born in 1886 he was one of
the founders of the State of Israel and its first President from 1948 to 1963.
15/11/1973, Egypt and Israel exchanged prisoners of war.
11/11/1973. Egypt and Israel signed a
ceasefire agreement.
24/10/1973, Syria accepted a
ceasefire, and fighting ceased on both fronts.
16/10/1973, Israeli forces
crossed the Suez Canal into Egypt.
15/10/1973, Moscow announced it would give all help possible to
Arab nations to assist them to recover territory lost to Israel in the Six Day War.
12/10/1973. Israeli
forces advanced to within 29 km of Damascus.
11/10/1973, Israeli
forces counterattacking on the Golan heights began to invade Syrian territory.
They advanced almost halfway from the Golan towards the Syrian capital
Damascus.territory.
6/10/1973.Egypt launched the Yom Kippur War. Syria also attacked Israel on a second front.
Israeli civilians had to be mobilised before the Syrians could be halted.
Israel was heavily outgunned on the Golan, with its 2 brigades, 11 artillery
batteries and 180 tanks facing a Syrian force of 5 divisions, 188 artillery
batteries and 1,300 tanks. Only with mass mobilisation of its reserve forces
did Israel tuen the tide on 8/3/1973, forcing Syrians back beyond their initial
positions by 10/10/1073. Meanwhile on the Egyptian front, Arab forces possessed
state of the art SAM missiles that were highly effective at destroying Israeli
fighter planes, in contrast to 1967. The Egyptians captured the Israeli / Sinai
town of Qantara on 8/10/1973; they actually advanced too far, beyond air
defence range, enabling Israeli aircraft to destroy their ground forces. On 16/10/1773
the Israeli General
Sharon crossed on to the Egyptian side of the Suez Canal and cut off
the Egyptian 100,000 – strong Third Army.
Fighting ceased on 23/10/1973.
This war strained relations between the USA and the USSR, who backed
Israel and the Arabs respectively. The
USSR was forced to threaten ‘unilateral military action’ if the USA did not
enforce a ceasefire, when it was clear the Israelis were winning.
13/9/1973, Major air battle between Israel and Syria.
20/7/1973. A Japanese
Boeing 747 with 123 passengers and 22 crew was hijacked over Holland and forced
to fly to Dubai. Later, at Benghazi, the aircraft was blown up by the
hijackers. A girl hijacker was killed by a grenade explosion, but all
passengers and crew escaped.
7/6/1973, The West German Chancellor Willy Brandt
visited Israel.
3/6/1973, Israel freed 96 Arab
prisoners in exchange for 3 pilots.
9/4/1973. Arab terrorists attempted to
hijack an Israeli plane at Nicosia. One Arab was killed and 7 captured.
14/2/1973, An Israeli
fighter jet shot down a Libyan passenger plane over the Sinai Desert,
killing 74 passengers and crew.
2/3/1973, Palestinian
terrorists murdered the US ambassador to the Sudan, citing ‘US collusion with
Israel’ as their motive.
12/1/1973. Yasser Arafat was re-elected leader of the PLO.
29/10/1972, Black September terrorists hijacked a Lufthansa aircraft and successfully negotiated the release of
the three terrorists being held in Germany for
the Munich bombing.
8/9/1972. In retaliation
for Munich, Israeli jets attacked 10 guerrilla bases in Lebanon.
5/9/1972. Arab terrorists from the Black September terrorist group massacred
11 Israeli athletes at the Munich
Olympics.
Initially 2 athletes were killed and 9 taken hostage as the terrorists broke
into dormitory, and after negotiations with the German Chancellor, Willy
Brandt, the kidnappers and their hostages were flown to Furstenfeld military
airfield, 25 miles from Munich. Later the terrorists were stormed by German
police, and all 9 hostages were killed plus a German policeman and 5
terrorists. 3 terrorists were captured; one terrorist escaped. Police had
stormed the kidnappers as they attempted to board a waiting aircraft. The
Munich Olympic Games continued.
30/5/1972, Terrorists opened fire on passengers at Lod Airport, Israel,
killing 26 and injuring hundreds. Two of the terrorists were shot dead by
security guards, and the third was arrested. 116 passengers had just arrived on
the Air France plane and filed into the airport baggage area; amongst them were
three Japanese belonging to the ‘Red Army’, a terrorist organisation with links
to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). They opened their
luggage which contained submachine guns, ammunition and grenades and proceeded
to sweep the airport with gunfire, throwing grenades into huddled groups of
passengers, as security guards struggled to respond. The massacre lasted four
minutes. Two terrorists died in the baggage hall, one killed by his own
grenade. The third ran out onto the runway, discarding his weapon, but was
caught by an El-Al mechanic.
9/5/1972, Israeli troops
stormed a hijacked jet at Jerusalem, freeing 92 passengers held hostage by
Black September Palestinian terrorists.
17/1/1972, 350 Soviet Jews
arrived in Israel.
7/10/1971, Israel refused entry to 21 Jewish Black Americans.
1/2/1971. Israeli troops made a raid into Lebanon.
5/10/1970. Anwar Sadat became president of
Egypt, succeeding Abdel Nasser.
30/9/1970, Britain swapped hijack hostages seized by
the PLO for the Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled.
28/9/1970. President Gamal Abdel
Nasser, President of Egypt
since 1954, died of a heart attack aged 52, after mediating in the
Jordan civil war.
27/9/1970, PLO leader Yasser Arafat
signed a truce with King Hussein of Jordan after the PLO had been
ejected from Jordan in a 10-day fight known to the PLO as Black September.
12/9/1970. Palestinians blew up three hijacked planes. The hijacked
British, Swiss, and American planes were taken by the PFLP (Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine) and flown to Dawson’s Field, a remote desert
airstrip outside Amman, Jordan. After days of negotiation, the 300 passengers
were released in exchange for 7 Arab detainees. In response King Hussein of
Jordan declared martial law and ordered the Palestinian Liberation Organisation
to be ejected from his country.
6/9/1970. In one day, 4 aircraft were hijacked in
Europe by Arabs. A Swissair DC-8 and a Trans-World 707 were forced to fly to
Jordan; a Pan-Am jumbo was blown up in Cairo; and am El-Al 707 hijacking failed
after a terrorist was shot dead. On 9/9/1970 a BOAC VC-10 was hijacked en route
from Bombay to London. It was forced to land and refuel at Beirut and then fly
to Jordan to join the other 2 planes held hostage there.
7/8/1970, Egypt and Israel, both
exhausted by their War of Attrition throughout 1970, agreed a ceasefire. Israel
remained in occupation of Sinai up to the east bank of the Suez Canal. Egypt
retained the west bank of the Canal, and agreed not to site any missiles within
20 miles of it. After a few months Egypt reneged o the missile agreement and
sited missiles close to the Canal. Israel protested but took no further action.
The strategic depth of the Sinai itself made Israel feel secure.
8/4/1970, Israeli bombs fell on a
primary school in the Nile delta, killing 30 children. The bombs were intended
for a military base but fell off-target; it was a further reprisal for the
sinking on 3/2/1970 of an Israeli ship near Eilat.
2/3/1970. Israel and Syria in the heaviest fighting since
the 6-Day War.
12/2/1970, Israeli raid on factories near Cairo; 70 civilians
died. This was a further Israeli reprisal for the sinking on 3/2/1970 of an
Israeli ship near Eilat.
9/2/1970, The PLO leader Yasser Arafat visited Moscow for
talks.
3/2/1970, Egyptian frogmen sank an Israeli supply ship off
the Israeli port of Eilat. In reprisal Israeli aircraft sank several Egyptian
minesweepers in the Gulf of Suez.
1969, Gadddafi,
President of Libya expelled the country’s Jewish population.
29/8/1969. Arab
guerrillas hijacked a TWA aircraft en route from Rome to Tel Aviv and force it
to land in Damascus.
8/4/1969, Arab
guerrillas attacked Eilat. In retaliation, Israeli jets attacked Aqaba, Jordan.
11/3/1969. Golda Meir, aged 70, became Prime Minister of Israel after the
death of Levi
Eshkol. Mrs Meir remained Prime Minister until her resignation in
1974.
26/2/1969, Levi
Eshkol, Prime Minister of Israel, died.
18/2/1969. At Zurich an Israeli aircraft was attacked by four Arabs,
injuring 6 passengers; one Arab was killed.
3/2/1969. In Cairo, Yasser
Arafat became leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the
PLO.
28/12/1968. Israeli commandos in helicopters raided Beirut
Airport, destroying 13 Lebanese aircraft.
This was in retaliation for alleged Lebanese toleration of guerrilla
raids into northern Israel.
26/12/1968. Two Arab gunmen attacked an Israeli Boeing 707 in Athens,
killing one passenger
29/11/1968, Arab guerrillas attacked a potash plant on the Dead Sea.
Israeli jets retaliated by blowing up two bridges in Jordan.
23/7/1968. An
Israeli Boeing 707, flying from Rome to Tel Aviv, was hijacked and flown to
Algeria.
22/11/1967. The UN passed the famous Resolution 242. It
promised secure Israeli borders in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the
occupied territories, and stated the need for a solution to the Palestinian
refugee problem. However no timetable was given for achieving these aims.
24/10/1967. Israeli artillery destroyed a petrol refinery at
Port Suez.
21/10/1967, The Israeli destroyer Eilat was sunk by Egyptian missiles
15/7/1967, Israel said
it would not comply with the UN request to withdraw from East Jerusalem
(4/7/1967) and also would not give up the strategically-important Golan Heights.
28/6/1967, Israel
declared the annexation of East Jerusalem.
4/7/1967, The United
Nations asked Israel to withdraw from Arab East Jerusalem.
10/6/1967, The White
House, Washington, received a threat from the USSR over the ‘hotline’ that
Russia would get involved in the Israel-Arab conflict to prevent a total
Israeli victory. Moscow, ally of Egypt,
had moved naval forces from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean and was
planning an invasion of Israel from the coast. The world was in danger of a
new World War between the USSR and USA, Israel’s ally. Russia’s ultimate
failure to intervene caused it to lose some credibility with its other allies
such as Cuba. This daya Moscow severed diplomatic relations with Israel.
9/6/1967, As Egypt was
heavily defeated in the Six Day war, Nasser
resigned.
7/6/1967, Israeli
forces captured Arab East Jerusalem.
8/6/1967, The Israeli
Air Force, during the Six-Day War, attacked and severely damaged a US research
ship, the USS Liberty. Israel maintained that the attack was an accident, the
ship having been mistaken for an Egyptian one.
5/6/1967. 8.00am local time; The Six Day War began between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. Israel routed the armies of three Arab
nations and occupied an area larger than the entire State of Israel in just six
days. The war began after Colonel Nasser, having formed a pact with Syria
and Jordan, moved his forces into Sinai and closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. Early on the
morning of 5/6/1967 Israel made lightning strikes against Arab airbases, and
within 24 hours the Egyptian and other Arab air forces were destroyed. Three
Israeli tank divisions moved into the Sinai Desert. The Sinai capital El Arish fell on 6/6/1967 and by then the Egyptian
army was in total disarray. By 7/6/1967 King Hussein's Jordanian forces
were also routed and most of the West bank, including the Old City of
Jerusalem, was in Israeli hands. On 9/6/1967, amid calls for a ceasefire, Israeli forces pressed on to the Suez
Canal. Israel also launched an attack on the Golan Heights and by 10/6/12967
had taken these from Syria.
1/6/1967. Moshe Dayan
appointed the Israeli Defence Minister.
31/5/1967. The President of Iraq stated, “The existence of Israel is an error that must be rectified.
This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy that has been with us since
1948. Our goal is clear – to wipe Israel off the map”.
27/5/1967. President Nasser, nine days
before the Six
Day War began, declared, “Our objective will be the destruction of Israel”.
22/5/1967, Egypt
began to blockade the Straits of Tiran, the only sea access to the Israeli port
of Elat.
19/5/1967, The UN began to withdraw
its peacekeeping forces from the Gaza Strip, at the
request of Egypt.
13/6/1965, Martin Buber, Austrian-born
Israeli Jewish philosopher, died aged 87.
12/5/1965. West
Germany established diplomatic relations with Israel.
14/3/1965, The Israeli Cabinet
formally approved the setting up of diplomatic relations with West Germany.
2/6/1964. The PLO was created in Jerusalem.
16/1/1964, Arab leaders announced a plan to divert the headwaters of the
River Jordan away from Israel. Israel had previously announced its National
Water Carrier Plan to make greater use of the Jordan waters. The issue
threatened another Arab-Israeli war., until the Arabs dropped their diversion
plan in May 1964.
4/1/1964, Michael
Brenner, German-Jewish historian, was born.
16/6/1963, Ben Gurion, Israeli Prime Minister, resigned aged 76. He was
replaced by Levi Eshkol.
31/5/1962, Adolf Eichmann was
executed inside Ramleh Prison, Tel Aviv, for his part in the mass killing of
millions of Jews during World War Two.
1961, The authoriries closed Moscow’s synagogues.
15/12/1961, Adolf Eichmann,
Nazi
official responsible for the execution of millions of Jews, was sentenced
to death after a four-month trial in Jerusalem.
11/4/1961, The trial of the Nazi war criminal, Adolf
Eichmann, opened in Jerusalem.
7/2/1960, Israeli
archaeologists announced the discovery of scrolls
from the Dead Sea area.
23/5/1960. The Israelis announced the capture of the war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Israeli Mossad agents snatched
Eichmann on 11/5/1960 as he returned home after work, and he was taken
to a secret hiding place outside Buenos Aires. He was living under the name Ricardo Klement.
On 21/5/1960 he was disguised in the uniform of an El Al flight attendant and
bundled on board a flight to Tel Aviv. Eichmann was found guilty of war crimes
by a court in Jerusalem, on 15/12/1961, and hanged on 31/5/1962 at Ramleh
Prison, Jerusalem. He remains the only person ever executed by due legal
process in Israel, after a trial involving 210 witnesses over 14 weeks. His
last words were ‘long live Germany, long live Argentina, long live Austria, I
shall not forget them’.
26/7/1959. President Nasser of Egypt announced in a speech in
Alexandria “I announce from here, on behalf of the
United Arab Republic people, that this time we will exterminate Israel”.
25/2/1959, Norway and Israel signed an agreement providing
Israel with heavy water, crucial to Israel's atomic program.
8/5/1958, The Supreme Religious Centre for World Jewry was
established in Jerusalem.
22/7/1957. Shell
and BP announced they would pull out of Israel to pacify some Arab nations, who
refused to accept the very existence of Israel.
20/4/1957, The US resumed aid to Israel, which had been
suspended on October 1956.
21/2/1957. The 70 year old Israeli president, David
Ben Gurion, defied US and UN calls to leave the Gaza Strip. In Jerusalem, thousands of Israelis protested on
the streets against the UN’s call for withdrawal. On 22/1/1957 Israeli troops left the Sinai Peninsula, and on 6/3/1957
handed the Gaza Strip over to the UN.
25/1/1957, The UN ordered Israel to quit Aqaba and Gaza.
6/11/1956, Israeli
forces reached Sharm El Sheikh.
29/10/1956. 5.pm. Israeli troops invaded the Sinai Peninsula
and troops pushed on towards the Suez Canal, ostensibly to destroy guerrilla
strongholds, coming within 20 miles of the Canal. 30,000 tank-supported Israeli
troops invaded Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, in retaliation “for Egyptian
attacks on land and sea communications near Gaza”. Israeli forces wanted to
reach the gun batteries at Sharm El Sheikh at the tip of the Sinai peninsula
which were closing the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. These batteries
were destroyed on 5/11/1956.
This was part of the Suez Crisis in which President Nasser nationalised the
canal. See 16/11/1869, 26/7/1956, and 23/6/1956. On 30/10/1956 Britain and
France issued an ultimatum to Egypt and Israel to stop fighting and on
31/10/1956 France and Britain invaded
the Suez area ‘to stop the Israeli-Egyptian fighting. Nasser closed the
canal by sinking 47 old ships full of concrete in it. In fact this move had been pre-planned with Israel’s co-operation. On 25/10/1956 the British, French, and Israeli PMs, Anthony
Eden, Guy Mollet, and David Ben Gurion, had met in secret at Sevres. On
6/11/1956 Anglo-French forces, 600 British and 487 French paratroopers, seized
the Canal itself, having landed at Port Said. The UN ordered a ceasefire on
8/11/1956. The US condemned the invasion
and the UN saw the rare sight of US and USSR delegates voting together. The US
had threatened not to defend Sterling against a run on international markets
against it unless the UK pulled out of Suez.
Because of the fighting, backed
by Britain and France, and ended by a UN ceasefire, the Canal was closed for
more than six months, blocked by sunken ships. UK petrol rationing began on
23/11/1956, see this date. The Canal closed again during the Arab-Israeli war
of 1967 and did not reopen until 1975. However by then very large oil tankers
had been developed that were too deep to pass through the canal. It is hoped
that plans to deepen the Canal and reduce fees will revive the enterprise
(2001).
See Egypt for more events of Suez Crisis 1950s
10/10/1956, Two Israeli regiments bombarded a Jordanian police
barracks for three hours.
11/9/1956. After sporadic attacks by Jordan along the Israeli
frontier, Israel retaliated. A battalion of Israeli troops attacked a Jordanian
police post at Rahwa, killing 5 policeman and ten soldiers and destroying the
building.
2/11/1955, Ben Gurion formed the new government in
Israel.
28/3/1955. Israeli made raids on the Gaza Strip.
20/7/1953, The USSR and Israel restored diplomatic relations.
2/2/1953. The USSR broke off relations with Israel.
8/12/1952, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi became the new President of Israel, succeeding Chaim Weitzmann.
9/11/1952, Chaim Weitzmann, first
President of Israel, died aged 77.
10/9/1952, West Germany offered Israel US$ 540 million in
compensation for Nazi atrocities.
13/9/1951. UN peace talks between
Israel and the Arabs failed.
13/3/1951, Israel demanded 6.2
billion Deutsche marks (1.47 billion US$) compensation from Germany.
14/2/1951. In Israel, Ben Gurion
dissolved Parliament after an election defeat.
27/4/1950. Britain
recognised the State of Israel
24/4/1950. King Abdullah of Jordan annexed Arab
Palestine, the West Bank.
12/1949, Ben Gurion created a new agency for intelligence operations
outside Israeli borders. He called it The Institute for Intelligence and
Special Operations; it is commonly known just as ‘the Institute’, or Mossad.
5/12/1949, David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, proclaimed Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Attempted invasion by Arabs of the new State of
Israel, failed
20/7/1949, Syria signed an armistice with Israel.
11/5/1949. Israel was voted into the UN.
3/4/1949, Jordan
signed an armistice with Israel.
23/3/1949, Lebanon
and Israel signed an armistice.
16/2/1949, Chaim Weizmann was sworn in as first President of Israel.
14/2/1949, Egypt and Israel signed an armistice.
25/1/1949. Ben Gurion's Mapai Party won the Israeli elections.
2/1/1949, The Battle of the Sinai in
the Arab-Israeli War ended when Israeli forces withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula.
15/11/1948, The Israeli airline El Al
was founded.
17/9/1948. Jewish terrorists
assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, Swedish UN
mediator, in Jerusalem.
15/7/1948. The UN ordered a ceasefire in Palestine.
30/6/1948, The last
British troops left Palestine.
15/6/1948, The
Israeli Herut Party was founded by Menachim Begin.
27/5/1948, The
Israeli Air Force, the Chel Ha’vir, was founded today. The newly formed State
of Israel was under attack from the Arabs, but both Israelis and Arabs were
very short of planes for aerial operations. The Arabs could muster only ten
Spitfires. The Israelis had a dozen Auster air-observation planes. Due to many
international arms dealers being unwilling to supply military hardware to Israel, the Israelis had
to use considerable ingenuity in assembling an air force. However they were
aided not just by Jews and Zionists abroad but by foreign volunteers, mahals, who wanted a fair deal for the
race that Hitler attempted to exterminate. The Israelis had previously
registered planes (that could be used by their air force) as ‘sports planes’,
and they were very efficient at scouring scrap yards and air crash sites for
any spare parts, which could be assembled into a plane that could fly. Another
ruse was to form a film company, that was making war epic films, that needed
military aircraft for the filming.
26/5/1948, The Israeli Defence Force was set up on the
orders of Defence Minister David Ben Gurion, formed out of the paramilitary
group Haganah.
25/5/1948, Moshe Dayan assisted Israeli General Yigael Yadin mount a
counter offensive against Arab troops, checking their invasion.
24/5/1948, The Battle of Yad Mordechai
ended in a successful Israeli delaying action.
22/5/1948, By a vote of 8-0, the
United Nations Security Council ordered a ceasefire in Palestine within 36
hours from midnight, New York time.
21/5/1948, Egyptian forces were reported to be only 4 miles from
Bethlehem.
20/5/1948, Egyptian forces captured Beersheba.
17/5/1948, The USSR recognised the State of Israel.
16/5/1948. Chaim Weitzmann was named first
President of Israel.
15/5/1948, Egyptian forces
invaded Israel.
14/5/1948. The State of Israel was
created (see 16/2/1949, 27/4/1950),
after the British Mandate ended in Palestine, and the
first Arab-Israeli war began. Arab forces invaded from Jordan. See also
2/11/1917, Balfour Declaration. Ben Gurion was the head of the provisional
Israeli Government. The nation’s 400,000 Jews at once opened the country to
unrestricted Jewish immigration, which had been banned since 1944. US President
Harry Truman immediately recognised the new State. On
15/5/1948 the British left Palestine, and Egypt invaded, as did Syria, Lebanon,
Jordan, and Iraq. The 30,000-strong Israeli defence force, the Haganah, assumed a war footing. However
the Arab attacks were uncoordinated
and by the end of 1948 the Israeli Army, by then 100,000 strong, had achieved
conclusive victory.
British, UN, US, attempts to determine the future
of Palestine
11/4/1948, The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was announced.
9/4/1948, The Irgun, under Begin, massacred between 116 and 254 Palestinians in the village
of Deir Yassin. Three
days later a retaliatory attack killed 77 Jews.
11/3/1948. The offices of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem were blown up.
8/3/1948, Johnathan Sacks, British
Orthodox Jew, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the
Commonwealth from 1991 to 2013, was born.
5/1/1948, In Jerusalem, the Arab-owned Semiramis
Hotel was destroyed by a bomb explosion; 20 people were killed.
29/11/1947, The United Nations voted to partition
Palestine between Jewish and Arab areas.
15/5/1947 The United Nations set up a special committee to decide the future of
Palestine.
2/4/1947. Britain passed the Palestine problem to the UN.
7/2/1947. Britain proposed dividing Palestine into Jewish and
Arab zones but both sides rejected the plan.
2/2/1947. The RAF
began evacuating Britons from Palestine.
20/12/1946, Uri Geller was born in Tel Aviv.
22/7/1946. The King David Hotel, Jerusalem, HQ of
the British Palestine Army, was destroyed by a Zionist bomb planted by Irgun,
killing 91 and injuring 45. Many Jews wanted Britain to withdraw so a
Jewish State could be established.
2/12/1945, The Arab world
began a general boycott of Israel, to geographically isolate the country. The
boycott was to cover not just companies trading with Israel or with Israeli
companies but also companies doing business with these companies. In 1977 the US,
under President Carter, declared it illegal for US companies to participate in
this boycott. In the 1990s Israel insisted upon the dismantling of
the boycott, which was estimated to have cost the country some US$ 40 billion,
as part of the Peace Process. In 2001, however, the Arab League’s Boycott Office resumed
activities as part of its support for the Palestinians during the Intifada.
14/11/1945, Riots
broke out in Tel Aviv over the U.S.-British statement on Palestine, killing two
and wounding 57.
13/11/1945. Britain and
the USA announced the creation of a joint committee to decide the future of
Palestine.
13/8/1945, The World Zionist Congress demanded the
admission of 1 million Jews to Palestine.
Concentration camps liberated, despite Nazi
attempts to erase them
28/4/1945, US
General George Patton ordered that German civilians be taken to see the Dachau
concentration camp.
18/4/1945, Dachau
concentration camp was liberated by the Allies
15/4/1945. The
Allies captured the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
11/4/1945, Buchenwald concentration camp, near Weimar, was liberated by US forces.
27/1/1945. The
Red Army captured Auschwitz.
They found 8,000 prisoners remaining there; a further 80,000 had been forced to
leave on a death march. However, of the 1.3 million who had entered Auschwitz
during World war Two, 1.1 million died there; 6,000 a day were murdered there.
See France-Germany
for main European events of World War Two
27/11/1944, The crematoria at Auschwitz were blown up
by retreating Nazi forces.
27/8/1944. Polish
and Russian officials showed the news media the Maidenek concentration camp.
12/3/1945. The young Jewish
diarist Anne
Frank died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
3/9/1944. Anne Frank and her family were transported to the Auschwitz
death camp in Poland, see 14/6/1943.
4/8/1944, Anne Frank and her
family, who had gone into hiding from the Nazis on 6/7/1942 (see also
14/6/1943) were discovered by the Nazis, see 3/9/1944.
31/7/1944. The last scheduled deportation of Parisian Jews from Drancy. By now gunfire could be heard
in Paris and liberation seemed very close.
Nazi Army commanders wanted to requisition the deportation trains for moving
their own troops back to safer positions.
9/7/1944. The last train carrying Jews to
the concentration camps left from Budapest
5/4/1944. The Germans began deporting Jews
from Hungary.
16/10/1943, Nazi German forces began to
round up Jews from Rome for deportation to the death camps. 1,200 Jews were
deported, of whom only 15 survived the War. However Giovanni Borromeo, head of the
Fatebenefratelli Hospital in Rome, rapidly admitted many Jews and other
anti-fascists with so-called K Syndrome. The Nazis took this to mean Koch
Syndrome (tuberculosis) and feared to enter the hospital, on an island in the
Tiber, saving many from the Nazi extermination camps.
1/10/1943, Hitler ordered that all Danish
Jews be arrested and deported. However the Danes largely thwarted this move, see
9/4/1940.
18/9/1943, Mass deportations began of
French Jews in Paris, with 1,150 being shipped in
railroad freight cars to the Buchenwald concentration camp.
2/9/1943. Inmates of the concentration
camps in Poland were being used for medical experiments.
16/8/1943. Jews in the ghetto at Bialystock, Poland, rose up.
19/6/1943. Goebbels declared Berlin to be ‘free of
Jews’.
14/6/1943, Anne Frank (born
12/6/1929) began to write her famous diary. She was born in Frankfurt, Germany,
to Otto
and Edith
Frank; Otto was a German Army officer in World War
One. Anne
had a sister called Margot. In 1933, as the Nazis came to power,
the Frank
family moved to Amsterdam where they hoped to be safe from Hitler’s
anti-Semitic policies. However Germany invaded The Netherlands in May 1940.
19/4/1943. Polish Jews in Warsaw put up a major fight against
the Nazis. This was the first case of serious resistance by the Jews to the
Nazis, en masse. The Jews could not win, but they seriously hampered German
operations. The Nazis retook the ghetto on 20/4/1943, and
massacred the Jews. The Warsaw ghetto
was totally erased from the city.
17/4/1943, Hitler and Ribbentrop demanded that
Hungary round up its Jews for extermination in concentration camps; part of the
‘final solution’. Hungary initially delayed but Germany exercised considerable
political influence within Hungary.
2/9/1942. German SS troops deported and
murdered 50,000 Jews from the ghetto in Warsaw.
17/7/1942, Operation Spring Wind in Paris came to
a conclusion, with the roundup of some 7,000 Jews, almost all of those
remaining in the city. Some Jews escaped, others committed suicide; in fact Spring Wind, which intended to capture
28,000 Jews, in fact seized just 12,884. The detainees were initially sent to Drancy or the Velodrome D’Hiver. Nazi action
against the French Resistance also intensified at this time. Non-Jewish
Parisians were not without sympathy for the Jews, especially the children.
6/7/1942, Anne Frank and her family went into hiding from the Nazis (see
14/6/1943).
29/5/1942. Jews in Paris were ordered to wear the Yellow Star of David. The
Nazis ordered 5,000 metres of yellow material from a French company so the
requisite number of stars, some 400,000, could be produced. However some
Parisian non-Jews
disliked this order, and many made a point of respecting the star, giving up
their seats on the Metro for wearers for example. Additionally, some French
Catholics wore the star also. French
university students wore a badge reading ‘JUIF’, said to stand for Jeunesse
Universitaire Intellectuelle Francaise.
30/4/1942, The Dzyatlava
massacre. About 1,100 Jews were massacred by German authorities in the Kurpiesze
forest, near Dzyatlava.
27/4/1942, All Jews in the
Nazi-occupied Netherlands were ordered to wear the yellow badge.
27/3/1942, 1,112 Jews were deported from Drancy, Paris, to an undisclosed destination.
26/3/1942. Germany began deporting Jews to Auschwitz
concentration camp.
20/1/1942. Reihard Heydrich proposed his ‘final solution’ – to exterminate all of
Europe’s 11 million Jews.
See France-Germany for main European events of World
War Two
12/12/1941. More Jews were arrested in Paris. This time it was the professional members of the community – doctors,
academics, scientists and writers – who were detained and sent to Drancy.
30/11/1941, The first day of the Rumbula massacre near Riga, Latvia. Around 25,000
Jews were killed between this day and December 8.
2/10/1941. The Nazi occupiers of Paris blew up Jewish synagogues across the city. Six
were destroyed, a seventh explosive failed to detonate but the building was destroyed anyway the next day.
29/9/1941. A Nazi death squad murdered 30,000 Russian Jews in Kiev, following the fall of Kiev to
the Nazis on 19/9/1941.
15/9/1941, The Nazis began testing the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
31/8/1941, Nazi persecution of the Jews in Paris intensified. On this day all radios belonging to Jews were confiscated.
Then their bicycles were taken. The Post Office was ordered to disconnect all
phones belonging to Jewish households, and Jews were forbidden to use public
phone boxes. Jerws were barred from cinemas, Jewish lawyers were forbidden to
practise, and it was made illegal for Jews to change address. Jews could only
use the last carriage of the Paris Metro trains.
20/8/1941, A further mass arrest of Parisian Jews took place, this time mainly affecting the artisan Jews of the 11th
Arrondissement. These detainess were held at a large unfinished public housing
complex at Drancy on the outskirts of Paris.
31/7/1941. Goering issued an order to Heydrich, a
subordinate of Himmler, to draw up a plan
for the total extinction of all non-Russian Jews. Heydrich called a conference on
20/1/1942 at Wannsee, a picnic area
outside Berlin. Reich administrators were to arrange for this genocide via the concentration
camps. Jews were to be forced to labour building roads and many were
expected to die of over-work.
6/7/1941, Over
2,500 Jews were murdered by Lithuanian militia under German direction.
14/5/1941. The first of a series of mass arrests of Parisian Jews took place, affecting 4,000 non-French Jews. SS officer Dannecker, who had arrived in Paris in
September 1941 to oversee the ‘Jewish Question’, sent these detainees to the
prisons at Pithiviers and Beaune la Rolande..
7/3/1941. Compulsory labour for German
Jews began.
25/11/1940, The ship Patria,
carrying illegal Jewish migrants, sank in the port of Haifa, 200 died.
15/11/1940. Warsaw’s 35,000 Jews were
confined to the ghetto.
22/10/1940, German Jews were deported from the regions of Baden, Saar, and
Alsace-Lorraine.
18/10/1940, A Second Nazi Ordinance was issued in Paris relating to the city’s Jews (see 27/9/1940). Jews were now excluded from a number of
occupations, including banking.
27/9/1940. The Nazi Governor of Paris, Helmut Knochen, issued an Ordinance relating to
the city’s Jews. A census of Jews was to be taken, all Jewish households had to
report to the Prefecture of Police by 20/10/1940 (149,734 Jews registered) and
all Jewish owned businesses had to put up a sign indicating Jewish ownership,
in both French and German; Enterprise
Juif and Judisches Geschaft. See
18/10.1940.
9/4/1940. Germany
began the invasion of Denmark and Norway. In September 1943 Danes became aware that the Nazis were about to round up all Danish
Jews. The Danes then began a massive effort to save
the Jews. Jewish names on doors were changed to common Danish ones
such as Jensen or Hansen, and hundreds of these ‘Jensens’ were suddenly
admitted to hospital, or hidden by Danes in their flats and houses. Then some
7,200 Jews, along with 680 non Jews, many married to Jews, were secreted aboard
fishing boats and smuggles across to neutral Sweden. Only 447 Danish
Jews were captured by the Germans and overall less than 25 of Denmark’s Jews
died in the Holocaust.
Danish
resistance continued until Allied forces liberated Denmark on 5/5/1945.
27/3/1940, In Poland, Heinrich Himmler ordered
the construction of a concentration camp at Auschwitz.
12/2/1940, Deportation of Jews from Germany began, mainly from the Pomerania
region.
26/1/1940, Germany ordered that Polish Jews remain in their place of residence and
could not travel. This created the ‘ghettos’ which were in effect temporary
concentration camps.
See France-Germany for main European events of World
War Two
30/10/1939. London published the horrors of
the German concentration camps.
28/10/1939. All German Jews had to wear a
yellow Star of David.
10/10/1939. Nazis deported Polish Jews to the Lublin ghetto.
23/9/1939. All wireless sets owned by Jews in Germany were confiscated.
1/9/1939. In Germany, Jews were put under a curfew from 8pm in winter and 9pm in
summer.
23/2/1939. The Nazis confiscated jewels and precious metals from the Jews.
17/1/1939. In Germany, Jews were banned from driving.
2/12/1938, 206 German-Jewish schoolchildren arrived in Britain as
refugees. This was the so-called Kindertransport:
by the end of August 1939 9,354 such children had arrived by boat-train at
Harwich from Germany and Austria. For many, their adult families
remained.probably to die in the concentration camps. A few adults did manage to
obtain visas for England or the USA.
14/11/1938. In Germany, Jews were expelled from colleges.
12/11/1938, The Jewish community was ordered to pay a collective fine of 1,250
million Marks, and in addition pay for all the damage resulting from the
Kristallnacht of a few days earlier.
10/11/1938. Anti Semitic laws passed in
Italy.
3/12/1938, Heinrich Himmler ordered all driver's licenses
of German Jews invalidated.
8/11/1938, Kristallnacht in Germany, when
the Nazis burned 267 synagogues and destroyed 7,000 Jewish homes and businesses. 35,000 Jews were arrested throughout Germany,
and 36 people killed. The Nazis prohibited insurance payments to the affected
premises; however the glass had to be repaired, and much was sourced from
abroad, draining German foreign currency reserves.
7/11/1938, A
half-crazed young Jew whose parents of Polish origin had just been deported
from Germany fatally shot the Third Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris. This provided Germany with a pretext to further mistreat the Jews.
28/10/1938. 17,000 Polish Jews domiciled in
Germany were expelled.
5/10/1938, In Germany, passports held by Jews had to have the letter J stamped in
them.
10/8/1938, The synagogue in Nuremberg was destroyed.
14/7/1938. Italy officially adopted anti-Semitism.
27/6/1938. All Austrian-Jewish
employees given 2 weeks notice to quit by their employers.
9/6/1938, The synagogue in Munich was destroyed.
7/4/1938. The
Nazis seized Baron Rothschild’s bank, and arrested him.
6/4/1938. Leading Jewish figures in
Austria were sent to Dachau concentration camp.
1/8/1937. Germany
opened a new concentration camp at Buchenwald. Over the next 8 years, 56,500 were to die there.
15/9/1935. Germany passed the Nuremberg Laws, depriving Jews of German citizenship.
15/11/1933. Germany’s new Reichstag opened. Women and Jewish
members were excluded.
29/8/1933. It
was officially confirmed that German
Jews were being sent to concentration camps.
25/8/1933, The Haavara (‘transfer’) Agreement was signed between the Nazi German
Government and Zionist Jews. It provided for the relocation of Jews from
hostile Germany to what was then British Mandated Palestine, and for these Jews
to take some assets that would otherwise have been confiscated by Germany.
Advantages to Nazi Germany included the removal of Jews from their territory
and a possible easing of sanctions on the country which had been imposed by
Jews in the rest of Europe, which were a threat to the still-fragile German
economy. The Agreement was cancelled in 1939 after Hitler
invaded Poland. Hitler inititally opposed
the Haavara Agreement, but supported it in the period 1937-9.
23/7/1933. Germany decreed that importing banned books was punishable with
death.
9/5/1933. Hitler ordered the burning of more
than 25,000 books. ‘Un-German’ volumes
were thrown onto a huge bonfire outside Berlin University. Other similar
fires took place in other German cities and over 1 million books may have been burned altogether.
5/5/1933. Hitler proposed a ban on mixed marriages between Jews and Aryans, and
to begin sterilisations.
7/4/1933, Germany banned Jews from
government employment.
1/4/1933. Nazis seized Jewish bank accounts.
28/3/1933. Hitler ordered a boycott of Jews and Jewish shops. Jewish-owned shops were closed, Jewish professors thrown out of universities, and school textbooks
re-written to include ‘racial science’. Officials of trades unions and
employer’s organisations were sacked and replaced by Nazis. The boy scouts were
dissolved and replaced by the Hitler Youth organisation, run by the anti-Semitic Baldur
Von Schirach.
20/7/1933, 20,000 Jews protested in Hyde Park, London, against
Nazi anti-Semitism.
22/3/1933. The
Dachau concentration camp was opened
on the site of an old munitions factory in Munich
to detain Communists and other ‘political undesirables’. This was the first
German concentration camp.
15/3/1933. Hitler proclaimed the Third Reich,
which he said would last for a thousand years. Many Jews fled Germany, as Kosher food and left-wing newspapers were
banned.
See France/Germany
1933 for rise of German Nazi Party
14/3/1933. The
Nazis banned Kosher meat.
4/10/1932. Hungary formed a Nationalist and
anti-Semitic government.
Nazi German anti-Semitism from 1933
1917 –
1939; British plans for Jewish Homeland in Palestine, resisted by Arabs
23/5/1939. The British
Parliament agreed a plan for the independence of Palestine by 1949. This plan
was denounced by both Arabs and Jews.
17/5/1939. In the
UK government, MacDonald
attempted to limit Jewish migration to Palestine. Jewish numbers were to be
limited to 10,000 a year for five years, with an additional 25,000 in the first
year; 75,000 in all. No further migration was to be allowed without Arab
consent. A year earlier MacDonald had talked of Jewish migration of
400,000 but the UK Foreign Office had steadily reduced the number. Britain knew that in a war with Germany, UK
Jews were bound to side with Britain but the Arabs had to be persuaded.
9/11/1938, The British
Government called a conference on the future of Palestine.
19/10/1938, British
troops stormed Old Jerusalem, evicting the Arabs who had been occupying it. The
UK abandoned plans to partition Palestine between Jews and Arabs.
18/10/1938, As
terrorist violence escalated in Palestine, British troops imposed martial law.
4/1/1938. Britain
postponed plans to partition Palestine.
20/10/1937. The British
tried to limit Jewish migration into Palestine.
26/9/1937. The British
Commissioner for Galilee was murdered by Arabs.
8/9/1937. A Pan-Arab
conference rejected the British Peel plan to partition Palestine.
2/8/1937. The
Zionists endorsed the British Peel plan to partition Palestine.
7/7/1937. Britain published a plan issued by the Peel
Commission to partition Palestine between Jews and Arabs. Two-thirds was to be Arab, the rest Jewish, but
the cities of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth were to be under permanent
British control. Trans Jordan would receive a £2million grant and Arab
landowners would be compensated. Most
Arabs and Jews rejected the idea.
29/9/1936, Britain
declared martial law in Palestine to counter an Arab revolt.
21/10/1930, The Hope
Simpson Enquiry on Palestine was released.
20/10/1930. Zionist
leaders protested against a British plan to partition Palestine into Arab and
Jewish areas. They said it went against the Balfour Declaration which promised a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
The British attempted to halt Jewish immigration to Palestine.
25/8/1929. Britain declared martial law in Jerusalem as Arabs
and Jews continued fighting. Arabs
killed 8 Jews and then burned whole streets of houses; the rioting was sparked
by Arab hostility to Jewish access to the Wailing Wall, situated in the heart
of Arab east Jerusalem. Order was not restored by the British until 31/8/1929.
29/9/1923. The
British Mandate in Palestine officially began.
24/8/1922. Arabs at
Nablus rejected the British Mandate for Palestine.
25/4/1920, The UN
confirmed the British mandate to control Palestine and Mesopotamia.
1/7/1920, The British civil administration of Palestine began.
4/4/1920, Rioting broke out in Jerusalem (then under British
control) as fighting occurred between Arabs and Jews. The Arabs were angry at the arrival of Jewish
immigrants, and anti-Zionist speeches led to unrest. Martial law was declared as
5 Jews and 4 Arabs died in the riots, and 281 Jews, 18 Arabs, and 7 British
soldiers were injured.
9/11/1917. Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, unveiled plans for a Jewish national homeland in
Palestine. The message was conveyed to the Zionist representative, Baron
Rothschild. The British War cabinet, under David Lloyd George, believed that Zionist support would help the war effort,
especially against the Ottoman Turks. Arabs
outnumbered Jews by ten to one in Palestine but Zionist leaders like Dr Chaim
Weizmann would try and build up their numbers.
2/11/1917. UK foreign
secretary Arthur
Balfour stated British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine,
to Lord
Rothschild. The Balfour
Declaration gained Jewish support during World War I, and in 1945 sparked a
flood of Jewish refugees to Palestine after World War II. This led to clashes
with both Arabs and the British administration. Britain withdrew in 1948; the State of Israel was proclaimed on
14/5/1948.
10/2/1917. Weizmann and the British Government discussed plans for a Jewish homeland.
11/10/1936, An anti-Fascist group of 100,000 Jews and non-Jews
blocked a march by the British Union of Fascists through London’s East End. In revenge, a week later, gangs of Fascists
smashed up Jewish shops in the Mile End Road area.
8/1936, The World Jewish Congress was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, as an international
federation of all Jewish organosations and communities.
19/11/1935, The University of Budapest closed for a day due to
anti-Semitic rioting.
12/7/1935, Alfred Dreyfus, French Army Officer who was accused of selling
military secrets to Germany, then imprisoned and later pardoned, died aged 75.
24/12/1933, The Codex
Siniaticus arrived in London.
7/5/1933. Jews and Fascists fought
in the East End of London.
12/6/1929. Birth of Anne Frank,
Dutch
Jewish schoolgirl who wrote her famous dairies before going to her death in a
Nazi concentration camp.
1/4/1925, The Hebrew University
at Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, was opened by Lord Balfour.
16/8/1923, Shimon Peres, Prime Minister of Israel 1984-86, was
born in Poland.
16/8/1921. The Times exposed as a fake the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”,
which purported to be a manifesto for a Jewish conspiracy for world domination.
25/8/1918. The Hungarian
government expelled the Jews and confiscated their assets.
6/1917, A crowd several thousand strong destroyed homes
and shops in the Jewish quarter of Leeds. Some Jews were suspected
of links to Germany or of avoiding military service, due to their east European
origins.
See France-Germany
for main European events of World War One
20/5/1915, Moshe Dayan, Israeli military commander and politician, was
born in Deganya.
1914, Between 1880 and 1914,
some 120,000 to 150,000 east European Jews settled permanently in the UK, many
fleeing persecution. Many were poor, and around two thirds of them settled in
London’s East End. More Jews came to Britain but then moved on to the USA; due
to competition on transatlantic shipping routes, it was cheaper to sail from
northern Europe to Hull or Grimsby, then sail on from Liverpool to the US, than
to make the direct sea journey. Accurate figures of Jewish arrivals to the UK
were not kept.
In 1914, 80%
of British Jews were found in just three cities; London (180,000), Manchester (30,000)
and Leeds (20,000). A further 7-8% were accounted for by the communities in
Liverpool (8,000), Glasgow (7,500) and Birmingham (6,000).
Compare 1851 when England and Wales was
home to just 35,000 Jews; 2,500 in Liverpool, 1,100 in Manchester, under 1,000
in Birmingam., less than 100 in Leeds (but 2,250 in Leeds by 1880).
16/8/1913, Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel 1977-83, was born in
Russia.
4/8/1912, Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat, was born to a wealthy family in
Stockholm. He is famed for saving Jews
scheduled for Nazi death camps by giving them Swedish documentation, enabling
them to flee to that neutral country. In 1945 he was taken from Budapest as the
Soviets occupied the city; he was suspected of espionage and his fate has never
been determined.
7/11/1911, Walter Schlomo Gross, Jewish journalist, was
born.
23/8/1911, Violent anti-Semitic riots in Wales. Working class
mobs destroyed Jewish shops in Tredegar and ten smaller centres, causing damage
estimated at between £12,000 and £16,000.
18/7/1911, Hermann Adler, British chief rabbi (born
30/5/1839) died.
28/7/1911, The French Chief
of Staff resigned over the Dreyfus Affair.
1910, Jews acquired civil rights in Portugal.
1909, The first Kibbutz was set up, at the Jordan River Valley village of
Degania Aleph, then part of the Ottoman Empire.
31/12/1908, Simon Weisenthal, noted hunter of Nazi war
criminals, was born; he died in 2005.
4/6/1908. An attempt was made
to assassinate Major Alfred Dreyfus.
11/4/1908, Tel Aviv, Israel, was founded by 60 settlers.
13/2/1908, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was
encouraging anti-Semitism.
9/9/1906. 100 Jews massacred in Siedlce, Poland.
22/7/1906, Captain Dreyfus was formally reinstated in the French Army and
given the Legion of Honour.
12/7/1906. In France, Captain Dreyfus
was rehabilitated after being publicly disgraced 11 years earlier over spying
and treason charges. Dreyfus had been
imprisoned on Devil’s Island.
8/11/1905. In Odessa, Russia, 1,000 Jews
were killed when a mob of 50,000 went on the rampage stabbing Jewish men,
women, and children.
12/8/1905, Under Russian direction a pogrom of Jews occurred in
Bialystock, Poland; 38 were killed and over 200 wounded.
24/5/1905. Anti Semitic riots in Warsaw, many Jews killed.
24/10/1904, Four French officers were charged with lying in the Dreyfus case.
3/7/1904. Hungarian-born
Zionist Theodor
Herzl (1860-1904) died in Vienna.
He was a journalist, and the founder
of Zionism. He rejected territories
such as Uganda for a Jewish homeland, insisting
on Palestine.
5/3/1904, A new enquiry
into the Dreyfus
case began in France.
11/9/1903, A pogrom at
Czetochowa, Poland, many Jews were killed.
4/6/1903. A Russian
decree restricted Jewish ownership of property.
19/4/1903, A pogrom began in
Kishinev, in which 50 Jews were killed.
6/4/1903. The Dreyfus documents were proved to be forgeries by the army, in Paris.
29/9/1902. The writer Emile Zola,
and valiant champion of Captain Dreyfus, died, accidentally gassed by
charcoal fumes.
1901, Jewish Progressive (Liberal) Movement began.
19/12/1900, France granted an amnesty to
all those involved in the Dreyfus Affair.
7/10/1900. Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler was born in
Munich. He controlled the
concentration camps in which millions of Jews, communists, trade unionists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others, died.
13/8/1900, The
Fourth Zionist Congress was held in London. Concerns included a rise in
antisemitism in Europe in the 1890s, and financing the settlement of Jews in
Palestine, an aim for which money was short.
2/6/1900, The
French Senate voted an amnesty for Alfred Dreyfus, who had been pardoned earlier
(September 18, 1899) by President Loubet. Not until July 19, 1906, was
the verdict against Dreyfus set aside.
19/9/1899. France finally
granted a pardon to Alfred Dreyfus in an attempt to end the controversy over anti-Semitic
allegations that threatened the political stability of France. Dreyfus insisted
on a total clearing of his name.
7/8/1899. The guilt of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, condemned and
deported for treason in 1894, was confirmed
by a court-martial at Rennes.
1/4/1899, Maurice de Hirsch, German Jewish
philanthropist, died (born 9/12/1831).
3/5/1898, Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel 1969-74, was born.
23/2/1898, Emile Zola was imprisoned
for the publication of his letter, ‘J’Accuse’,
which accused the French Government of anti-Semitism and of wrongly imprisoning Captain Dreyfus.
13/1/1898. The Dreyfus affair in France
escalated with the famous novelist Emile Zola accusing the French war office of
judicial crime in an open letter on the front page of L’Aurore newspaper. Commandant Ferdinand Esterhazy had been acquitted of
betrayal of France’s military secrets to Germany even though his handwriting
had been identified as that on a note in the German embassy. Moreover, Georges
Picquart, the intelligence chief who made the Esterhazy connection, was reposted to Africa.
11/1/1898, In Paris, Major Esterhazy was wrongly acquitted of forging documents used to establish the guilt
of French Army Officer Captain Alfred Dreyfus.
31/8/1897. World Jewish leaders met in Basle, Switzerland to discuss their hopes
for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. 200 delegates from all
branches of Judaism came, mainly from east and Central Europe.
1896,
Theodor Herzl published ‘Der Judenstaat’, the start of the Zionist movement.
22/12/1894. The Dreyfus case
opened. Alfred Dreyfus, French artillery
officer, was convicted of selling army secrets to Germany, and imprisoned on
Devil’s Island. Later he was pardoned and completely exonerated
15/10/1894. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army
officer, was arrested for betraying military secrets to Germany. A
French agent had discovered evidence of betrayal of French secrets in the German
embassy. Suspicion fell on Dreyfus; he was ordered to take a handwriting test,
his hand shook, and he was arrested. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on
Devils Island.
Aged 34 Dreyfus was an unlikely spy. Cold, serious, punctilious in his
duties, he had no money problems because his father was a wealthy textile
manufacturer. He was however Jewish
and so was disliked
by the militant Catholics who dominated the officer corps. Anti-Semitism was
growing in France. At his court-martial evidence was thin and his
lawyers were barred from court.
1893, The Jewish Historical Society of Britain was founded; in part to defend
British Jews from prejudice through research that emphsasised their role in
British history and society.
3/5/1893, Golda Meir, Israeli Prime Minister, was born in Kiev, Russia, as Golda Mabovitch, daughter of a
carpenter.
1892, Increasing restrictions on the civil rights of
Jews in Russia led many to emigrate to
Argentina; Baron
Hirsch facilitated their resettlement.
1890, The Catholic Church
in Italy distributed to every parish in
the country a booklet asserting that Jews were the sworn enemies of all other
nations and did not merit equal treatment with other citizens.
21/1/1890, Nathan Marcus Adler, British chief rabbi (born 15/1/1803)
died.
16/10/1886, David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israeli in 1948,
was born in Plonsk, Poland, as David Green.
He changed his name to Ben Gurion because of its Biblical connotations.
13/2/1883. German composer Wilhelm Richard
Wagner died in Venice
aged 69, from a heart complaint. He was infamous for his anti-Semitism.
1882, The first Aliyah (migration)
of Jews to Palestine began. This laid the foundations of the modern State of
Israel. The second Aliyah (1904-14)
was focussed on ‘redemption of the soil’ and personal labour; the co-operatove
movement which developed into the Kibbutz began here. The third Aliyah was aimed at establishing a ‘national home’ for the
Jews, and the fourth Aliyah (1925)
was aimed at escaping Jewish persecution in eastern Europe, especially Poland. The
fifth Aliyah (1932) was the flight from Nazi persecution in Germany.
15/4/1881, Three days of anti-Semitic violence broke out at
Elizavetgrad, Russia, rapidly spreading to Kiev, Kishinev, Yalta and Odessa.
13/4/1882, The Anti-Semitic League was founded in Prussia.
13/3/1881, Alexander II, Tsar of Russia since 1855, aged 62, died from
injuries sustained when a bomb was thrown at him near his palace, by a Polish
student. The assassination was devised by a group of Nihilists headed by Sophia
Perovskaya. He was succeeded by his 36-year old son, Alexander III, who reacted to
the assassination with great severity, determined to root out sedition in
Russia. He also
authorised a systematic campaign against Russian Jews, imposing severe
restrictions on their worship from 5/1882 onwards. Millions of Jews emigrated
from Russia over the next three decades.
1880, Revival of antisemitism in Prussia. The
Judenhetze (hounding of the Jews) began.
15/5/1877, Jews in Switzerland were
granted full citizenship by the Emancipation Law enacted this day.
1875, Extremely traditional
Orthodox Jews founded the Mea Sharim (‘Hundred Gates’) district just outside
Jerusalem. They do not recognise the State of Israel as it is secular rather
than religious, so refuse to pay taxes or do military service, and have their
own schools rather than State schools. Rules on dress are strict and only
Yiddish is spoken as Hebrew, the language of prayer, is deemed too sacred to
use in ordinary speech.
1873, Britain’s third Reform synagogue was established, in Bradford.
1870, Reform Judiasm had become very popular in the USA, where many of the 200 synagogues
there had adopted some Reform principles. The Reform movement was making less
headway (against Orthodoxy) in Britain. It was not that most British
Jews tended towards strict Orthodoxy, but that the externalpressures for Reform
present in Germany and the US – to fir in more with secular society – were
absent in the UK. Victorian Britons venerated ‘tradirtional’ religion, such as
the Church of England, more than they did Non-Conformist branches.
1870, The last Jewish ghetto in
Europe, in Rome, was removed (until the
ghetto system was revived by Nazi Germany in the 1940s). Jews were forbidden to
leave the ghetto between sunset and sunrise, and on Sundays and Christian Holy
Days. Within the ghetto, the Jews were self-governing. Where necessary for
their trades, the Jews could hold a market just outside the ghetto, e.g. the
Tandelmarkt of Prague. The ghetto was generally very densely built up, and
highly destructive fires were common. For fear of plunder, the Jews often
refused outside assistance to extinguish the fire on these occasions. Most
ghettos had disappeared from European cities by the 1850s.
1867, Jews were granted full citizenship in the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, under a new constitution.
1860, Norway
allowed Jews to settle there.
2/5/1860, Theodor Herzl, Hungarian Jew who was the founder of Zionism and first President
of the World Zionist Organisation in 1897, was born in Budapest.
9/10/1859, Alfred Dreyfus, French army office noted for the ‘Dreyfus Treason Affair’, was born in
Alsace to Jewish parents.
1858,
Lionel de
Rothschild became the first Jewish MP in British Parliament.
23/7/1858, In Britain, the Oath of Allegiance was modified so as to
allow Jews to sit in Parliament.
1856, Britain’s second Reform synagogue was established, in Manchester.
1854, The Oxford University Reform Act allowed
Jews to take a degree, a process that had only been open to
chapel-attending Christians until then. A similar Act was passed relating to
Cambridge University in 1856.
However individual Colleges at these universities remained averse to the
admittance of Jews as students.
1848, Jews acquired civil rights in Italy,
1845, Britain passed the Jewish Municipal Relief
Act, allowing Jews to take up all municipal offices without taking a
Christian oath.
12/10/1843, Twelve Jewish men met in a
New York cafe to establish the B’Nai Brith, or ‘Sons of the Covenant’, to provide
assistance to Jewish widows, the elderly, orphans, and victims
of persecution. In 1908 the B’Nai
Brith had 35,870 membersacross the USA, Germany, Austro-Hungary, Romania,
Egypt and Palestine. A UK branch was established in 1910.
1841, The Jewish
Chronicle began publication in London. It was founded by Isaac Valentine
(1793-1868).
1840, The first
non-Orthodox (i.e. Reform) synagogue in Britain was founded; the West London
Synagogue.
30/5/1839, Hermann Adler, British chief
rabbi, was born (died 18/7/1911).
1837, Spain granted civil
rights to the Jews.
1835, The UK Parliament quickly passed the Sheriff’s Declaration
Act. This allowed David Salomons (1797-1873), a Jewish banker, who
had just been elected as one pf the two Sheriffs of the City of London, to take
office without having to take the Christian Oath.
1835, Moses Montefiore became President of the
Jewish Board of Deputies in the UK.
1833, In Britain, the barrister profession was opened to Jews.
Until this year the requirement for a Christian-based oath at Lincoln’s Inn had
debarred this profession to Jews, but in 1833 Francis Henry Goldsmid (1807-78)
was allowed to take a modified oath.
9/12/1831, Maurice de Hirsch, German Jewish
philanthropist, was born (died 1/4/1899).
1828, Death of Israel Jacobson
(1768-1828). He believed in integrating Jewish traditions more to the host
country (Germany, here), and incorporate dmany German elements in worship at
the synagogue.
1817, Edward Kley founded a ‘temple’ (not, synagogue) in Hamburg where
major reforms to Judaism were instituted. Prayers were ‘for all humanity’, not
for a ‘messianic state in Palestine’ (because, said Kley, the Jews could not ask for
a State in Palestine when they wanted to become full German citizens. By 1822 Jewish ‘confirmation’ services were being
held, modelled on Protestant ones, and separate seating for males
and females was abolished. Rabbis in Hamburg strongly objected and even
appealed to the Prussian Government to get these ‘temples’
closed down.
1814, Denmark granted equality of
citizenship to Jews.
1812, Jews in Prussia gained civil rights. By 1848 Prussian
Jews had gained full civil rights.
17/3/1808, In France, Napoleon imposed economic sanctions on the Jews (The ‘Infamous
Decrees’), ruining many. This followed accusation made in 1806 by Louis Count Mole, Napoleon’s Commissioner,
that French Jews were evading conscription and fleecing the population through
usurious moneylending.
1806, In France, Emperor Napoleon summoned a
Jewish ‘Sanhedrin’, in order to ascertain the suitability of Jews for full
French citizenship.
27/9/1791. France
granted citizenship to its Jews. This was as a result of the French
Revolution.
1782, Emperor Joseph II of Austria gave
civic rights to the Jews. However they could not own land in Austria
until 1860, with all restrictions removed by 1868.
1760, The Board of Deputies of British Jews was established in London.
1760, Israel ben Eliezer, charismatic Polish
founder of Nasidism, died aged 60.
1746, Sweden
allowed Jews to settle there – so long as they were wealthy.
1743, The Jews were expelled from Russia, by Empress
Elizabeth. Later readmitted to Russia by Emperor Alexander I, who
extended their civil rights in 1805 and 1809 however see 1892.
14/6/1711, The
Jewish quarter of Frankfurt was destroyed in what was one of the largest fires
in Germany before the 20th century.
1701, Bevis Marks Synagogue, the oldest surviving synagogue in
Britain, in London EC3, was built for Spanish and Portuguese Sephardi Jews.
4/3/1699, The Jews were expelled from Lubeck, Germany.
21/2/1677, Benedict Spinoza, Jewish philosopher, died.
27/7/1656, Jewish religious
authorities in Amsterdam excommunicated 24 year student Benedict Spinoza for maintaining
that the Bible did not support the idea of an immortal soul, or that God has no
body, or that angels exist. The secular authorities also banished Spinoza
from Amsterdam for a short period. The
Jewish community was concerned as Jews still did not have full citizenship
rights in Amsterdam.
24/4/1656, The Jews petitioned Cromwell to be allowed to live and trade in England. This was
permitted, although they were
denied legal toleration by the Puritan clergy of England.
Jewish civil rights increased only gradually
in England. In 1723 they were able to give evidence in Court, when the
words ‘on the true faith of a Christian’
were dropped from the oath. In 1753 they were awarded full rights of
naturalisation but under popular protest this was speedily revoked. Until 1828 the maximum number of Jewish
brokers in the City of London was limited to 12, and these were heavily taxed.
From 1833 an English Jew could become a barrister, and from 1847 Jewish
marriages gained the same legal recognition as Christian ones. From 1853 they
could become Alderman and Lord Mayor. In 1846 Jewish schools gaimned the same
legal standing as dissenting Protestant schools, and in 1871 the University
Test Act allowed Jews to graduate at British universities. In 1858 the British
Parliamentary Oath was modified to allow Jews to become MPs. In 1885 the first
Jew became a member of the House of Lords, when Baron Rothschild became a peer.
1655, The last Auto-da-Fe
in Portugal, a burning alove of supposedly converted
Jews (to Christianity) who were suspected of still being secret Jews.
1655, Sephardic Jews from Brazil
established a congregation in New Amsterdam (New York), despite the efforts of Dutch Governor Peter
Stuyvesant to exclude them.
15/10/1655, The Jews of Lublin, Poland, were massacred.
1654, The colony of Martinique gave sanctuary to
300 Jews who had been expelled from Brazil.
1648, Greek Orthodox peasants in Ukraine began a
massacre of all Jews who would not convert to Christianity. Politically, Ukraine
was seeking independence from Poland; the Polish nobility owned much land along
the Dneiper River, and employed Jews as tax collectors.
24/11/1632, Benedict Spinoza, Jewish philosopher, was born
in Amsterdam.
1/2/1620, Mario de Calasio, scholar of the Hebrew Bible,
died (born 1550).
1603, The Jews were permitted to settle in
Holland; however they did not acquire full citizenship rights until
1796.
13/8/1599, Johannes Buxtorf, Hebrew scholar, was born
(died 1664).
1588, Pope Sixtus V allowed the Jews to settle in the Papal States.
1573, The Jews were expelled from Brandenberg.
1567, The first Jewish University (Yeshiva)
was established, in Poland.
25/12/1564, Johannes Buxtorf, German Jewish scholar, was born
(died 1629).
12/7/1555, The Jewish Ghetto in Rome was created, on the
orders of Pope Paul IV.
1553, The Jews were expelled from Bavaria.
1551, Persecution of the Jews began in Bavaria.
1550, The Jews were allowed to settle in Bayonne
and Bordeaux.
27/11/1518, Daniel Bomberg completed the Rabbinical Bible.
1516, In Venice, the city
established a special area for Jews to live. Built on the site of a former ironworks,
it was called the ghetto nuovo, the Italian for
‘casting’ being getto. Jews
specialised in finance, and were a useful source of tax revenue. The Italian
word getto itself derives from the
Latin jactus or iactus, casting or founding iron. An alternative derivation
(Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910, vol.11, p.920) is from the Italian borghetto, dimutive of borgo, a borough.
Meanwhile many other Jews had moved to the Muslim
areas of North Africa or the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire.
1509, Persecution of the Jews in
Germany
began, led by a former Jew now converted, Johann Pfefferkorn, under the
leadership of Maximillian I.
1506, In riots in Lisbon, almost 4,000 Jews were
massacred.
5/12/1497, King Manuel I of Portugal
proclaimed an edict in which he demanded that Jews convert to Christianity or leave the country.
1494, The Jews were expelled from Tuscany.
1492, 80,000 Spanish
Jews who had refused to convert to Christianity were given asylum in Portugal by King Joao II.
31/12/1492, About 100,000 Jews were expelled from Sicily.
30/3/1492. The Jews were expelled
from Spain by edict of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella unless they agreed to convert to Roman
Catholicism. Under the Moslem rule, the Jews had benefited from tolerant Arab rulers. But the last
Moslem state was conquered by Christian Spain on 2/1/1492 when Granada fell. On
30/3/1492 the 150,000 strong Jewish community was
ordered out by Queen Isabella and her husband Ferdinand.
Urban
anti-Semitism in Spain had been growing for years, and the Spanish Inquisition, founded in 1487,
made things worse. See 12/2/1502.
1489, The Jews were expelled from Milan and Lucca.
1488, The Jews were expelled from Parma.
1486, The Jews were expelled from Vicenza.
1485, The Jews were expelled from Perugia, Italy.
1/1/1483, Jews were expelled from Andalusia.
1476, The Jews were expelled from Ratisbon.
1454, The Jews were expelled from the cities of
Moravia.
5/10/1450, Jews were expelled from Lower Bavaria by order of Ludwig IX.
1424, The Jews were expelled from Cologne.
1421, The Jews were expelled from Vienna and Linz.
17/9/1394, King Charles VI of France ordered the expulsion of all Jews from France.
1391, The Jews were expelled from Prague.
5/8/1391, Anti-Jewish riots spread to Toledo, Spain
and Barcelona. Many Jews left Barcelona after the following massacres, though
many remained in the city.
6/6/1391, Anti-Jewish
riots broke out in Seville, Spain. Many thousands of Jews were massacred and
the violence spread throughout Spain and Portugal. Some 200,000 Spanish Jews
were forcibly ‘converted’ to Chrstianity. Many others were burnt alive.
1390, The Jews were expelled from Nuremburg.
5/11/1370. King Casimir III of Poland died in a hunting accident, aged
60, after a 30 year reign. He had repulsed a Mongol invasion, annexed Galicia,
and encouraged
the immigration of Jews to serve as bankers and tax collectors. He
founded the University of Cracow, and codified
the law and administration.
21/3/1349, Many of the 900 strong Jewish community of Erfurt (Germany) were
murdered by the rest of the population which accused them of causing of the Black Death. Pope Clement VI issued two Bulls declariung the Jews innocent,
but the
persecution continued, with many fleeing to Poland and other regions of eastern
Europe.
14/2/1349, 2,000 Jews were burned to death in Strasbourg.
9/1/1349,
The Jewish population of Basel, Switzerland
was rounded up and incinerated, believed by
the residents to be the cause of the ongoing Black
Death. See Medical, 1347, 1348.
1334, King Casimir III of Poland began to encourage Jewish immigration, granting
the Jews extensive priveliges.
24/6/1322, Jews were expelled from France for third time.
1306, Jews were expelled from France by King Philip IV.
1301, In Valencia, Spain,
11,000 Jews were compelled to become baptised as Christians on pain of death.
Elswehere in Spain, the entire Jewish population of towns were massacred.
20/4/1298, Beginning of the Rintfleisch-Pogrom, the Jews of Röttingen
were burned en masse, other Jewish communities were destroyed later in the year.
1293, Jewish communities in southern Italy had almost been destroyed after three years of
persecution.
18/7/1290, King Edward I of England ordered all Jews
(then numbering around 16,000) to leave England by November 1 (All Saints Day). This enabled him to seize their assets, and not repay
debts owed to them. London’s Jews were expelled; they had lived in the
area known as Old Jewry. The Italians, who wished to handle English
banking, had persuaded Edward I to take this move.
17/11/1278, In England, 680 Jewish people were imprisoned
in the Tower of London for coin-clipping, out of a total Jewish population in
England at that time of around 3,000. 293 of them were executed a year later.
Christians accused of coin-clipping were treated much more leniently, with
often just a fine imposed.
1275, King Edawrd I of England
ordered that all Jews above the age of 7 wear a yellow patch on their clothes 6
inches by 3 inches.
19/6/1269, King Louis IX of France
ordered all Jews
found in public without an identifying yellow badge to be fined ten livres of
silver.
1252, Louis IX of
France expelled the Jews.
1243, The Jews were expelled from Brandenburg.
1241, The Jews were expelled from Frankfurt.
In England the
Earl of Leicester expelled the Jews from Leicester.
1232, In London the Domus Conversorum was
established. It was a hostel to accommodate impoverished Jews who, in the face
of growing
anti-Semitism,
were seeking to convert to Christianity.
1225, The Jews were expelled from Mecklenburg.
28/1/1167, Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra, Jewish scholar,
born in Toledo, Spain, ca. 1092, died.
1163, First confirmed presence
of Judaism in China. A synagogue was established at Kaifeng in 1164.
1103, Henry IV,
Holy Roman Emperor, protected the Jews within his realm.
13/12/1204. The Jewish rabbi, lawyer, and philosopher Maimonides died, aged 69 (born 1135), in Cairo.
1196, The Jews were expelled from Vienna.
8/5/1190. After some six months of increasing persecution, 500 Jews were massacred in York after they had
taken refuge in the Castle there. The Jews were killed by groups of young men
after a three day siege before these men were due to depart on a Crusade, backed by people who were deeply in debt to
Jewish moneylenders. Because certain professions like moneylending were
forbidden to Christians, these came to be dominated by Jews. King Richard I, crowned on
2/9/189, showed his dislike of the Jews by
forbidding any to attend his coronation feast, and anti-Semitism
was on the rise in England from then.
1182, The Jews were expelled from Paris by order of King Philip II of France.
The persecution of the Jews across Europe coincided with
the start of the climatic cooling known as the Little |Ice Age, ca. 1200 –
1800, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
1163, A synagogue was founded at Kaifeng, China.
1140, Spanish Rabbi Judah ben Samuel ha’Levi died aged
55.
30/3/1135, The great
Jewish teacher Moses ben
Maimon (Maimonedes) was born
in Cordoba. See 13/12/1204.
850, German
Jews began to develop a new language, Yiddish.
This was an amalgam of German, Jewish and other languages.
9/11/694, Hispano-Visigothic King
Egica accused the Jews of aiding the Muslims, and sentenced all Jews to slavery. From 711 these Spanish
Jews were freed by the Arabs.
637, Jerusalem was captured by Arab forces under
Omar. However until the city’s capture by the Seljuk Turks in 1071, Christian
pilgrims were well tolerated. For
the history of Jerusalem from 637 onwards see Christian History.
619, Jerusalem
was sacked by the Persians.
499, Rabbi Abina II, head of the Sora Academy 437-499, died.
427, Rabbi Ashe (375 – 427), head of the Jewish
Academy of Sora in Babylonia, died.
279, The
Jewish Rabbi (teacher) Johanan died in
Tiberias. In Tiberias, Jewish scholars published a collection of Jewish laws
and customs, known as the The Talmud;
this comprised the Mishnah, plus commentaries known as the Gemara.
219, Death of Rabbi Jehuda ha Nasi (born 135). He put in
writing the previously oral Jewish interpretations known as te Mishnah,
189, Rabbi Yehuda codified the sayings of Moses and the Mishnah.
135, A Jewish
uprising under Bar Kokhba ended
(began in 122). After this was suppressed by the Romans, Judea was deliberately
razed, with almost all former Jewish/Judean towns and villages, some 985 places
altogether, flattened and the countryside depopulated. The city of Jerusalem
was changed to the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina, and no Jew permitted to
enter there.
115, Jewish revolt in Cyrenecia
against Roman rule.
15/4/73, To escape enslavement the male Jewish defenders of
Masada,
about to be overwhelmed by the Romans, killed the women and children and then
committed suicide.
8/9/70. Jerusalem
was stormed by the Romans
after a two year siege. This ended a revolt by the Jews that began in 66. Only
in Masada did the Jews still hold out for a while. See Roman Empire
37, Josephus, Jewish historian, was
born.
26, Pontius Pilate appointed as
Prefect of Judea.
18, Caiaphas became High Priest in
Jerusalem.
Jesus, 2 BCE – 33 AD, see Christianity.
For Roman conquest of Palestine see also Roman Empire
10 BCE,
Herod I
completed a major seaport at Caesarea.
20 BCE,
The Temple in Jerusalem was rebuilt by Herod the Great, who –had converted to Judaism
as a youth.
38 BCE,
Anti-Jewish
pogroms in Alexandria; many synagogues were destroyed.
63 BCE,
The Romans
under Pompey
conquered Jerusalem.
67 BCE,
King
Hyrcanus II deposed; the Antipater family gained control.
67 BCE,
Hyrcanus II
beame ruler of Judea; civil war broke out between him and his brother Aristobulus II.
76 BCE,
Salome
Alexandria became ruler of Judea.
103 BCE, Aristobulus I died aged 38 and was succeeded by
his brother Alexander Janneus. Janneus, a
selfish and cruel character, made further conquests for Judea and ruled iuntil
76 BCE. One of Janneus’ first acts as King was to murder his
brother, a rival clamant for the throne.
104 BCE, John Hyrcanus died after a 30-year reign. He was
succeeded by his 37-year-old son who ruled briefly as Aristobulus I.
he completed the conquest of Galilee and Judaised the people of Hurae.
110 BCE, The Jewish military leader John Hrycanus conquered Samaria.
112 BCE, Emergence of the Sadducees
and Pharisees in Palestine.
134 BCE, Simon
Maccabbeus
was assassinated by his son-in-law, the Governor of Jericho. Simon’s
sons, Mattathias
and Judah, were also killed, but he
was succeeded by his one surviving son, John Hyrcanus, who ruled
Judea until 104 BCE. Hyrcanus extended Judean
rule into Samaria, Idumea, and lands east of the Jordan.
135 BCE, Simon
Maccabbeus,
successor to Jonathan
Maccabbeus,
expelled the Syrians from Jerusalem again.
141 BCE, Judea was completely liberated from Syrian rule whilst Demetrius
was occupied with conquering Babylon. Judea
remained independent until 63 BCE.
142 BCE, The boy ruler Antiochus VI died and was succeeded by the son
of Demetrius
I Soter, who ruled as Demetrius II Nicator.
143 BCE, A usurper to the Syrian throne, Tryphon, killed Jonathan Maccabbeus;Jonathan was succeeded by his
older brother, Simon
Maccabbeus,
who succeded in driving the Syrians out of Jreuslaem and making it virtually an
independent state. Judea began to mint its own coins and sent an ambassador to Rome.
145 BCE, In Syria, Alexander Balas was killed in battle near
Antioch, by forces under Demetrius II, and Ptolemy VI Philometor and his
son by Cleopatra
Thea. The son became ruler as Antiochus VI until 142 BCE under a regent.
150 BCE, The Syrian usurper Alexander Balas, claiming to be a son of Antiochus IV
Epiphanes, overthrew Demetrius I Soter in battle and killed him. Balas
was supported by the Romans and ruled until 145 BCE.
162 BCE, Antiochus
V of Syria was deposed and killed by his cousin, Demetrius I
Soter, who ruled until 150 BCE.
163 BCE, Antiochus
IV of Syria died and was succeeded by his 10-year-old son who
briefly ruled as Antiochus V under the regency of Lydia. Peace was made with the
Jews.
165 BCE, Judas
Maccabbeus
reconsecrated the Temple at Jerusalem after expelling the Syrians. There was
only enough oil in the Temple Lamp to burn for one day but somehow the lamp
stayed alight for eight days. This is commemorated today in the Jewish festival
of Chanukah.
167 BCE, The Jewush priest Mattathias of Modin escaped from the
persecution of Antiochus
IV into the mountains near Lydia with his five sons and began a
Jewish revolt. He died in 166 BCE but his sons continued the rebeillion. His
third son, Judas,
revoved the name Maccabeus, ‘The Hammerer’.
168 BCE, King
Antiochus IV, whilst persecuting the Jews,
destroyed the Temple at Jerusalem. He outlawed Judiasm and tried to Helenise the
Jews by erecting staues of Greek gods for worship across Judea. Previously, the
historian and priest Manetho had spread his anti-Jewish ideas across ancient Greece.
198 BCE, Antiochus
III, King of Syria, took Palestine from Egypt.
255 BCE, The Septuagint, the Greek
version of the Old Testament, was written. Anti-Jewish polemics were written in Egypt.
305 BCE, The Seleucid Empire, which ruled Babylonia and Syria until 64 BCE,
was established by Seleucus (Nicator) (then aged 53).
307 BCE, Antigonus
I was killed at the Battle of the Kings at Ipsus. Palestine reverted
to Egyptian
rule.
312 BCE, Antigonus
I became King of Judea.
314 BCE, Palestine came under the rule of the Seleucids of Syria.
350 BCE, Revolt by Persian Jews against the rule of King Artaxerxes III.
409 BCE, Renegade Jews (Samaritans) built a rival Temple to Jehovah on
Mount Gerizim, to rival the one in Jerusalem.
440 BCE, Judean Law forbade intermarriage beteeen Jews and non-Jews.
445 BCE, Nehemiah
completed the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah wrote the book of Nehemiah
(16). The book of Malachi (39) also completed about this time. This
completes the generally accepted 39 books of the Old (Hebrew) Testament.
See Christianity
for books of the New (Christian/Greek) testament.
458 / 457 BCE, The Jewish prophet Ezra travelled to Jerusalem to restore the Law
of Moses.
455 BCE, The command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, issued by Nehemiah
and Ezra.
Ca. 460 BCE, Ezra
wrote the books of 1 Chronicles (13), 2 Chronicles (14), Ezra
(15). The book of Psalms (19) was also completed
about this time.
Ca. 475 BCE, Mordecai
wrote the book of Esther (17).
See Iran for events in Persia from 499
BCE onwards.
10/3/515 BCE, Proposed date for the completion of
the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. If this was the end of the ‘Seventy
years of desolation’, it would correlate with a Babylonian exile date of 586
BCE.
Note also that the numbers ‘forty’ and
‘seventy’ in the Bilbe may refer to specific time periods, or may symbolise,
respectively, an extended period of testing or trial and a ‘complete period’.
In reconstructing Bible chronology it is important but very difficult to
determine which instances are literal and which are symbolic of ‘many years’.
520 BCE,
The books of Haggai (37), Zechariah (38) were completed about this time.
521 BCE, Persian nobles chose Darius I (Hystapes) as successor to his father-n law, Cambyses II,
after a period of civil war
522 BCE, Death of King Cambyses II, som of King Cyrus, King of Persia 529 –
522 BCE. Cambyses
II conquered Egypt in 525 BCE.
529 BCE, Death of Cyrus.
537 BCE, The Jews returned to Israel, Media and Persia having conquered Babylon
in 539. BC. They were allowed to return by Cyrus the Great of Persia (550 – 529 BCE).This
ended the “Seventy years desolation
[of Jerusalem]” noted in the Bible. If this was a literal Seventy Years, this puts the
destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians as 607 BCE. However ‘seventy’ may
also mean, in the Bible, ‘a divinely ordained complete period of time’ (which
may not necessariy be a literal 70 years). The book of Daniel
(27) was completed about this time (end of
exile).
5/10/539 BCE. Persian soldiers were
encamped outside Babylon. Late in the night they invaded Babylon
across the partly-dried up bed of the river; the city’s gates had been left
open. The river itself had been diverted by the Persians upstream of Babylon
into a nearby depression (maybe, dried-up lake?).
547 BCE, Cyrus
the Great of Persia (553-529 BCE) overthrew Croesus, last King of Lydia
(561-547 BCE).
549 BCE, Death of the last Median King, Astyages
(acceded 584 BCE).
Under his reign,Median armies had campaigned as far afield as Azerbaijan and
Lydia (in Turkey); however by the 550s BCE Media was under pressure
both from Babylon
to the south and from Persia to the east.
See also Iran
556 BCE, Accession of Nabonidus, last King of Babylon (to 539 BCE). He moved
the royal court to the Arabian oasis of Tema. Popular discontent by the Babylonians
rose under his reign.
585 BCE, Death of the prophet Jeremiah.
He authored the books of 1 Kings (11), 2 Kings (12), Jeremiah (24)
560 BCE,
Evil-Merodach was deposed and killed. He had released the
Jewish King Jehoiachim from captivity.
Ca. 582-562 BCE, King
Nebuchadnezzar II died. He was succeeded by his son, Evil-Merodach
(Amelmarduk).
Ca. 568 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar II conquered Egypt.
Ca. 573 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar II conquered Tyre.
587 BCE, King Zedekiah, installed as
puppet ruler of Judah by the Babylonians,rebelled
against them. After a siege of Jerusalem, the Baylonians captured it and
sacked the city, deporting many of its inhabitants into exile. During this
exile the books of Ezekiel (26) was completed.
590 BCE, The Medes, over whom the Scythians had assisted the Assyrian
conquest of, now turned on the Scythians
and pushed them back north into the steppelands.
607. BCE. Jerusalem
was conquered by Babylon, King Jehoachim
was deposed, and the Jews began a 70 year exile. Soon after this exile began, Jeremiah wrote
the book of Lamentations (25). Many sources put the
Exilic date some 20 years later around 588-586 BCE. However,
see 537 BCE, and then the date of Jeremiah’s death
(who began his prophesying ca 647 BCE) must also be put a little later than 585 BCE.
The Kingdom of Judah had been a block on Babylonian
expansion to the west and they were keen to remove this barrier.
The book of Obadiah (31) was also completed about this time.
608 BCE, End of Josiah’s rule as King of Judah. Nebuchadnezzar II
of Babylon
took control of Judah.
609 BCE, A small remnant of the Assyrian Empire had clung on around Harran.
A new Assyrian
ruler, Ashuruballit,
had emerged and attempted to rally his people, but this attempt failed. This
year this Assyrian
remnant too fell to Babylon.
612 BCE, Battle of Nineveh. The Assyrian
capital Nineveh itself was sacked by Baylonian forces.
615 BCE, The Scythians had until this point been allies of Assyria,
assisting the Assyrians to conquer Media; Scythian King Bartatua
had even been given an Assyrian princess as wife. However this
year the Scythians switched sides and began to support Babylon against Assyria.
Ca. 617 BCE, Daniel
and Ezekiel
taken to Babylon.
Ca. 620 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II became King of Babylon
Ca. 620 BCE, Babylon
, allied with the Medes, conquered Assyria
and sacked Nineveh. The books of Nahum (34), Habakkuk (35), Zephaniah (36)
were completed about this time or a little earlier.
630 BCE, Assyria
having never recovered from its disastrous over-extension into Egypt
(670s-660s), was now in retreat on many fronts.
Ca. 641 BCE, Josiah became
King of Judah.
642 BCE, King Manasseh
of Judah died.
Ca. 647 BCE, Jeremiah commissioned as a
prophet.
652 BCE, A Babylonian rebellion threatened the Assyrian Empire, but was
suppressed in 649 BCE. The rebellion was led by Shamash-Shuma-Ukin, against his
younger brother, Ashurbanipal. Although the rebellion was suppressed, it weakened
Assyrian
power, also that of their allies the Elamites..
By 630 BCE Assyria
had lost control over Egypt and Palestine, and in 626 BCE Babylon again recovered its
independence.
662 BCE, The Assyrians returned to Egypt and sacked Thebes. This was the
zenith of Assyrian
power.
668 BCE, Memphis, Egyptian capital,was again captured by the Assyrians
under King Ashurbanipal.
Egypt had supported
Syrian rebels against Assyria.
669 BCE, Ashurbanipal
became King of Assyria. The last ruler of the Sargonid Dynasty, which governed for over a century, his rule
brought great prosperity to Assyria. However after his death, ca. 630 BCE, Assyria
crumbled and was invaded by Babylon.
671 BCE, Assyrian King Esarhaddon captured Memphis, the capital
of Egypt.
681 BCE, Sennacherib
was assassinated by his two sons, Adrammalech and Sharezer; they in turn were
defeated by their brother Esar-Haddon, who then became King of Assyria.
Esar-Haddon
subsequently conquered Egypt, driving out its Ethiopian ruler, Tirhakah.
Egypt, however, proved to be an over-extension of Assyrian power and they
withdrew in the 660s.
682 BCE, Judah fell to the Assyrians.
697 BCE, Manasseh (born 709 BCE) became King
of Judah. Isaiah wrote the book of Isaiah (23) about this time.
693 BCE, Sennacherib,
King of Assyria.
destroyed Babylon.
The city was later rebuilt under King Esar-Haddon, and became a major
commercial centre. This increased status led to its rebellion against Assyria
in 652 BCE.
705 BCE, Sennacherib
became King of Assyria. He moved
the Assyrian capital to Nineveh. He had to deal with rebellions in Syria. It was one of these expeditions, to plunder Judah in
701 BCE, that is referred to in the Bible at 2 Kings 19:35
where it says ‘The Angel of Jehovah
killed 185,000 Assyrians overnight’. The Assyrians account says that the Assyrians withdrew because King Hezekiah agreed to pay more
tribute; Sennacherib
may also have returned to Assyiria to put down a revolt –or perhaps the revolt
was caused by his military failure. In any
event Jerusalem and the Temple were spared destruction. The book of Micah
(33) was completed about this time.
714 BCE, King
Sargon II of Assyria defeated Urartu and sacked its main religious city of Musasir.
721 BCE, The Kingdom of Israel
(founded ca.933 BCE)
was conquered by the Assyrians under King Sargon II. Its Ten Tribes
were deported to central Asia where they vanish from the historical record; the
Lost Tribes of Israel.
722 BCE, Sargon
II became King of Assyria (to 705 BCE). He defeated a combined
Egyptian-Gazan force in 719 BCE.
Meanwhile
Israel, who had stopped paying tribute taxes to again when Tiglath Pileser III
died, was invaded by the Assyrians
who killed Hoshea and installed a Governor.
Tens of thousands of Israelites were deported, to work on irrigation and
agricultural projects across Assyria.
727 BCE, King
Tiglath-Pileser III died. King
Shalmaneser IV became King of Assyria. He campaigned against Persia, blockaded Tyre for five years and invaded Israel. He also attacked Samaria, but died
before they surrendered.
735 BCE, King Pekah of Israel, by then a vassal-state
to
Assyria,
joined Damascus and other Syrian cities in a tax revolt against Tiglath-Pileser III. In retaliation, Assyria
destroyed Damascus in 732 BCE aqnd annexed the fertile northern regions of
Israel. The Israelites assassinated King Pekah and installed the pro- Assyrian King Hoshea instead,
744 BCE, Tiglath-Pileser
III became ruler of Assyria. He ruled until 727 BCE. He recovered
earlier Assyrian territorial losses.
750 BCE, Amos prophesied
in Israel. Books of Hosea
(28), Joel (29), Amos (30) completed about this time.
783-744 BCE, Assyria endured a period of instability,
when the rule of the kings was weak, there were frequent coups, and rival
rulers vied for power.
783 BCE, Under King Jeroboam
II, Israel enjoyed period of prosperity. The book of Jonah (32) was
completed about this time.
842 BCE, An Israelite soldier, Jehu, founed as
new dynasty.
853 BCE, King
Shalmaneser III of Assyria won the Battle of Qarqar against a coalition led by the King of Damascus.
Ca. 854 BCE, Death of King Ahab of Israel.
859 BCE, The death of King
Assur-Nazir-Pal of Assyria. Under his rule, Assyria had become the principal
world power. He was succeeded by his son, Shalmaneser
II, who conquered Babyon. He also exacted tribute from Damascus
and Israel (Kings Ahab and Jehu).
Ca. 875 BCE, Accession of King Ahab of Israel.
878 BCE, King
Assur-Nazir-Pal of Assyria had conquered most of the eastern Mediterranean,
including Phoenicia. Assyria would give vassal State Kings an offer they
couldn’t refuse; accept our overlordship, and we leave you in peace, or resist
and we put you to death cruelly. Vassal States could even keep their own
religion, so long as they ‘acknowledged’ that Ashur, chief God of Assyria, was
divine overlord over their Gods too. Rebellion against Assyria then became a
religious as well as political crime, so was punished severely.
880 BCE,The city of Nimrud
was made capital of the Assyrian Empire.
Ca. 907 BCE, Jeroboam I,
first King of Israel, died.
912 BCE, Death of Assyrian King Ashur-Dan II. Under his
rule Assyria
regained power and prosperity; agriculture was promoted. His successor, Adad-Nirari II,
increased the extent of the Assyrian Empire, regaining lands that had been part
of the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 1200s BCE.
Ca. 917 BCE, Rehoboam I,
first King of Judah, died.
926 BCE, Sheshonk I of Egypt attempted an invasion of
Israel and Judah, but failed.
Ca. 931 / 922? BCE, Solomon died. Israel split into kingdoms of Israel
and Judah, when 10 northern tribes,
out of the 12 seceded from Judah to
form Israel; they were protesting at high taxation. Rehoboam I became ruler of Judah; Jeroboam I became ruler of Israel.
934 BCE, The Assyria state began to revive after a 100-years ‘dark ages’;
Royal records recommenced under King Ashur-Dan II.
973 BCE, King Solomon began construction of the Temple
in Jerusalem. He also about
this time wrote the books of Ecclesiastes (21), Song of Solomon (22) and contributed to
the book of Proverbs (20).
973 BCE King Solomon
began ruling, for 40 years.
1005 BCE. King David
began reigning in Jerusalem. He succeeded Saul.
Ca.1015 BCE, King David born.
Ca. 1025 BCE (1020?), Samuel anointed Saul
as first King of Israel. The Bible books of 1 Samuel (9). 2 Samuel (10) were written
Ca. 1250 – 1020 BCE, Period
of the Judges. Peace and unity prevailed amongst the 12 Tribes of Israel.
The Bible books of Judges (7),
Ruth (8), were written.
Ca. 1120 (1100?)
BCE, King Tiglath Pileser I of Assyria enlarged his Empire to extend from the Mediterraneam
to the Persian Gulf and the Caspian.
1146 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar I began a 23 year long
reign of Babylon.
(1254?? BCE)
Joshua died.
Ca. 1200 BCE, Hittite capital of Hattusas was
destroyed by invaders.
1258 BCE, The Hittites advanced down the eastern Mediterranean coast towards
Egypt, but did not invade there as they fought battles with the Assyrians
and also with Greek
adventurers in what is now northern Turkey. A peace treaty was signed between Pharoah Ramses
II and the new Hittite ruler, Hattusilis III. Ramses
II took two Hittite princesses
in marriage, making a total of around seven wives in total.
1274 BCE, Major
battle at Kadesh (now in northern Lebanon) between the Hittites and the Egyptians. Pharaoh
Ramses II blundered into a trap and barely managed to escape; he
retreated back to Egypt.
The Hittites retained control of
northern Levant.
1300, The Hittites had absorbed Arzawa, a kingdom in SW Turkey.
1320-1350?, The Hittites (central Turkey; from whose name, Hatay) and the Assyrians had between them
taken over the kingdom of Mittani (which lay between them).
Ca. 1473 BCE, Moses died. Joshua
succeeded Moses as leader, and began to write the book of Joshua (6).
Ca. 1513 BCE. The Jews left Egypt
after the 10 Plagues. Moses began to write the Pentateuch; the books of Genesis (1), Exodus
(2), Leviticus (3),
Numbers
(4), Deuteronomy (5). He also wrote the book of Job
(18).
Ca. 1593 (Jerome) BCE, Moses born. See also Egypt.
1590 BCE, Death of King Mursilis of the Hittites; acceded ca. 1620 BCE,
1595 BCE, The Hittites
sacked Babylon. However this
victory was short lived; they were soon beaten back and their area of control
shrank back westwards again.
1650 BCE, The Hittites
had assembled an extensive kingdom in central Anatolia, with its capital at Hattusas.
Ca. 1711 BCE, Jacob
died
1725 BCE, Unrest destroyed the stability of the Middle Kingdom
in Egypt.
Start of the Second Intermediate Period, until
ca. 1550 BCE.
Ca. 1728 BCE, Jacob moved his family to Egypt. See also Egypt.
1750 BCE, Death of Hammurabi, 6th King of the 1st Dynasty of Babylon, ruler from 1792 BCE. He is noted
for the comprehensive legal system, containing 282 laws, which he drew up.
1755 BCE, King
Hammurabi of Babylon conquered most of northern
Mesopotamia, capturing the city of Eshunna after diverting its water supply.
1762 BCE, King
Hammurabi of Babylon defeated the kingdoms of Elam to
the west and Larsa/Sumer to the south.
1781 BCE, Death and end of the reign of Shamshi-Adad; acceded 1813 BCE. He conquered
northern Mesopotamia to create the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia, with its
capital at Shubat-Enlil. This kingdom later became the Assyrian Empire.
Shamshi-Adad was succeeded by his son, Ishme Dagan, during whose reign Assyria
declined, allowing the ascendancy of Babylon in the region. Babylon
had formerly been a vassal state of Assyria.
Ca. 1843 BCE Abraham
died.
1964 BCE, Founding of the 1st
Dynasty of Babylon.
2004 BCE, The city of Ur fell to the Elamites; end of the Kingdom of Ur.
2047 BCE, King
Shulgi of Ur died. His country started disintegrating. The
Amorites (from modern-day Syria) made
constant raids, despite a 150 km wall built by Ur to
keep them out. By 2028 BCE Ur’s cities were no
longer paying taxes to the centre, and the state finances collapsed. In 2004 BCE raiders sacked Ur and took its last king
into slavery. Egypt, however,
continued as a viable state.
2094 BCE, Shulgi
became King of Ur.
2095 BCE, End of the reign of Ur-Nammu, of Ur
(reign began ca. 2112 BCE?-founder of the 3rd Dynasty).
2112 BCE, Ur gained ascendancy in the Middle East; it
came to rule much of the former Sumerian Empire.
By 2100 BCE Ur had a probable population of around
100,000.
2150 BCE, The mountain people of Gutium (nomads living in the mountains on what
is now the Iran/Iraq border) attacked the Akkadian Empire. Former Sumerian-ruled
States such as Kish, Ur and Lagash
asserted their independence.
2190 BCE, As the climate
dried and agricultural yields fell, the Akkadian / Sumerian
state began to disintegrate.
2334 BCE, King
Sargon founded the city of Akkad (probably near modern-day Baghdad).
He then subjugated other Sumerians to become ruler of the Sumerian
Empire.
2750 BCE, The Phoenician city of Tyre
(now Lebanon) was founded.
Ca. 7000 BCE, The city of Jericho was
founded; settlers were attracted by the permanent spring there.