Chronography of Jewish history and the State of Israel
Also events relating to the Palestinian State
Page last
modified 23/2/2022
Jewish Virtual Library, useful links
here, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-population-of-the-world#history
Box
Index
14.0,
Recognition of Palestinian
State., 2009-14
13.0,
Israeli attacks on Gaza Strip
2006-10
12.5,
Israel-Hezbollah-southern
Lebanon conflict 2006
12.0,
Ariel Sharon administration,
2001-06
11.0,
Ehud Barak administration,
1999-2001
10.0,
Benjamin Netanyahu
administration, 1996-97
9.0,
Arab-Israeli Peace Deal
begins to unravel, 1994-96
8.0,
Movements towards
Arab-Israeli peace, 1993-95
7.4,
Israeli invasion of Lebanon
1977-85, to eradicate the PLO presence there
7.2,
Egypt and Israel make peace,
1974-82
7.0,
Entebbe Airport Rescue 1976
5.0,
Israel wins Six Day War. Jerusalem
reunited, many Arabs dispossessed of land, 1967
4.0,
Capture, trial and execution
of Adolf Eichmann, 1961-62
3.8, Suez Crisis 1956-57,
3.0 Attempted invasion by Arabs of the new
State of Israel, failed, 1948-49
2.0,
British, UN, US, attempts to
determine the future of Palestine 1945-48
1.0 Concentration camps liberated,
despite Nazi attempts to erase them, 1945
0.0 Genocide of Parisian Jews, 1941-44
-1.0, Anne Frank
-2.0, Danish and Italian Jews saved from the
Nazis
-3.0,
British plans for Jewish Homeland in Palestine, resisted by Arabs and Jews,
1905-39
-4.0,
Fascism, anti-Semitism, in the UK, 1911-36
-5.0,
Dreyfus Affair 1894-1911
10/5/2021, As Israel commemorated
Israel Day, a national holiday marking Israeli victory in the Six Day War,
Hamas began firing rockets from Gaza into Israel. Hamas rockets killed 12
Israelis, and Israeli retaliation into Gaza killed 227. The violence continued
for 11 days.
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.
14.0 Recognition of
Palestinian State, 2009-14
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.
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.
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.
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.
13.0 Israeli attacks on Gaza
Strip 2006-10
31/5/2010, 9 activists
died when Israeli naval forces raided a flotilla of ships
attempting to break the Gaza blockade.
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.
28/6/2006,
Israel launched an offensive against the Gaza Strip.
6/9/2007, Israeli warplanes
struck a suspected nuclear site in Syria.
12.5
Israel-Hezbollah-southern Lebanon conflict 2006
14/8/2006, Israel accepted a UN-brokered ceasefire in the Lebanon conflict.
13/8/2006, Israeli troops mounted a ground offensive in Lebanon north towards the
Litani River, reaching 30km north of the Israeli border.
6/8/2006, Violence continued to escalate between Israel and Lebanon, in defiance
of a UN ceasefire resolution, Hezbollah rocket attacks killed 15 Israelis and
Israeli airstrikes on southern Lebanon killed 19.
2/8/2006, Hezbollah fired more rockets into Israel, killing 1 and injuring 123,
after Israeli patrols penetrated as far as the town of Baalbek, in the Bekaa
valley, Lebanon, killing 10 Hezbollah and capturing 5 ,more. One Hezbollah
rocket reached 70km into Israel, the furthest so far.
1/8/2006, Israel stepped up ground operations in southern Lebanon. So far, since
12 July, some 624 to 750 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and some 54 Israelis, 18
of them civilians, had been killed.
30/7/2006, Israel agreed to suspend air strikes on southern Lebanon for 48 hours.
This followed international outrage after 54 civilians, including 37 children,
had been killed in an Israeli air attack on Qana.
25/7/2006, An Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon hit a UN observer post,
killing 4 UN personnel.
24/7/2006, US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice
visited Lebanon and then Israel to try and settle the current outbreak of
violence. She called for peace and democracy in the Middle east, and for
Hezbollah to withdraw in Lebanon to north of the Litani River, 20km north of
the Israeli border .So far since the conflict began on 12/7/2006, 378 Lebanese
and 41 Israelis had been killed.
19/7/2006, Lebanon suffered its worst day of violence since the Israeli
bombardment began on 12/7/2006, with 61 killed in air strikes, all but one were
civilians.
16/7/2006, Hezbollah rockets killed 8 Israelis in Haifa, whilst in Lebanon Israeli
air strikes killed 40 civlinans, including 16 in the Lebanese port of Tyre.
14/7/2006, Israel bombed Beirut Airport as it stepped up attacks on Hezbollah,
partly in response to a Hezbollah ambush on an Israeli border patrol 2 days
earlier in which 8 Israeli soldiers were killed and 2 taken captive. Hezbollah
demanded as ransom the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
condemned this as �extortion�. Israel also blockaded :Lebanese ports. 50
Lebanese civilians were killed in the air attacks. On 15/7/2006 Hezbollah
rockets hit Haifa, their most southerly strike to date, and in retaliation
Israel fired missiles into districts of Beirut where Hezbollah operatives
lived, having warned civilians there to evacuate.� Israel threatened to re-invade southern
Lebanon, from where they had pulled out in 5/2000. However Israeli military
leaders were reluctant to get bogged down in southern Lebanon again.
12/7/2006, Hezbollah guerrillas ambushed an Israeli border patrol (see 14/7/2006),
starting a new round of attacks by Israel on Lebanon.
26/1/2006,
Hamas won elections in Palestine.
12.0
Ariel Sharon administration, 2001-06
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, 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.
30/9/2004,
After continued violence in Gaza, Israeli PM Ariel Sharon announced a
military campaign to re-occupy the north of the Strip.
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.
17/4/2004,
Israeli security forces assassinated the new Hamas leader, Abdul Aziz al Rantissi.
22/3/2004,
Israeli forces assassinated Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of the Islamic
Resistance Movement (Hamas), whom
Israel regarded as a terrorist, responsible for hundreds of Israeli deaths.
19/2/2004,
Nazi hunter Simon
Wiesenthal was awarded an honorary knighthood for �services to
humanity�.
15/11/2003, Two suicide
bombings at Istanbul synagogues killed at 25 people, mostly Turks. Islamic
fundamentalists claimed responsibility.
1/9/2003,
Israel began a policy of targeted killings of Palestinian opponents, and called
for the PLO to disarm militant groups.
30/4/2003,
The so-called �Road Map� to peace, drawn up by The USA, the UN the EU and
Russia, was presented to Israeli PM Ariel Sharon.
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.
6/4/2002,
Israeli forces, having reoccupied the whole West Bank, now began a campaign to
enter the Jenin refugee camp, which they suspected of harbouring terrorists.
There were international protests at the destruction of Palestinian property.
2/4/2002, A
siege began at the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, after 200 armed
Palestinians took over the building and held 200 nuns and priests as hostages.
The siege lasted 38 days before a release plan was negotiated with the Israeli
Army.
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.
25/1/2002, 52 Israeli
reservists refused to serve on the West Bank on moral grounds, the hard line
taken by Israel against the Palestinian threat was proving divisive.
16/9/2001. Israeli tanks and troops entered the
Palestinian city of Ramallah as truce talks ended.
27/8/2001, In the West Bank town of Ramallah, Israeli
security forces assassinated Abu Ali Mustafa,
deputy head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
13/6/2001, In response to the suicide bombing of 1/6/2001,
Israeli forces launched drone attacks intended to kill militants and demolish
West Bank homes.
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. Labour
leader Ehud
Barak lost power. Sharon was a former Army General with a
hard-line reputation. Sharon was Israel�s 5th Prime Minister in 6
years. Barak
refused to serve as Defence Minister under Sharon�s coalition Government.
11,0 Ehud Barak administration, 1999-2001
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.
This area is known to hard-line Jews as the Lost Jewish Temple of Jerusalem,
which they wish to rebuild at the expense of Muslim holy places.
14/8/2000,
Swiss banks approved a final settlement of US$ 1.3 billion to compensate
Holocaust victims or their surviving relatives whose assets had been seized and
deposited in those banks since World War Two.
25/5/2000.
Israel withdrew the IDF (Israeli Defence
Force) troops from Lebanon after 22
years occupation.
4/1/2000, As part of the Middle East
Peace Process, Israel agreed to transfer land on the occupied West Bank to
Palestinians.
27/5/1999, In Israel, former Premier Binyamin Netanyahu resigned as leader of the opposition Right-wing Likud Party, and was
replaced by Ariel Sharon.
17/5/1999,
Ehud Barak (Labour) was
elected President of Israel. He renewed the peace process with the Palestinians
and Syria.
10.0 Benjamin Netanyahu administration,
1996-97
30/7/1997, Hamas suicide bombers killed
13 in Jerusalem. Peace talks were jeopardised as Israel took retributive action
against the Palestinian economy.
25/4/1997, The UN Security Council
voted 4-1 against the new Israeli building in east Jerusalem (see 18/3/1997),
but the US vetoed the Resolution.
18/3/1997, Palestinians, already angry
at the slow pace of Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank,
were further enraged when a new Jewish building project began in Arab east
Jerusalem. See 25/4/1997.
23/1/1997, Following the discovery of
Nazi gold in Swiss banks, the Swiss Government established a fund to compensate
Holocaust victims.
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.
15/1/1997, A belated agreement for the
withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West bank city of Hebron was signed by
PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. However Arab-Israeli tensions remained high.
11/1996, Under the terms of a September 1995 Peace Agreement, Israel began
withdrawing troops fro hebron. However renewed violence between Arabs and
Israelis slows down the withdrawal process.
18/6/1996, In Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu formed a Likud-dominated coalition government with some smaller
religious Parties.
29/5/1996, Benjamin Netanyahu was
elected Prime Minister of Israel, narrowly defeating Shimon Peres of the Labour Party. Netanyahu was a hard-line Right-winger of the
Likud Party, who did not subscribe to Labour�s land for peace policy. This
imperilled the future of the peace process.
9.0 Arab-Israeli Peace Deal begins to
unravel, 1994-96
18/4/1996, Israeli helicopters attacked
Qana refugee camp, Lebanon, an alleged Hezbollah base. This, and an earlier
attack (11/4/1996) Hezbollah bases in Beirut, Lebanon, was in retaliation for
Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel.
5/3/1996, Further Hamas suicide
bombings killed 32 people in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (see 25/2/1996). In revenge
for these attacks, Israel declared all-out war on Hamas. This put the Peace
Process in jeopardy.
25/2/1996, In revenge for the killing
of Yayah Ayyash (6/1/1996), Hamas suicide bimbers killed 26 people in Jerusalem and
Ashkelon. See 3/3/1996.
15/2/1996, Hamas suicide bomber attacks
on Jerusalem and Ashkelon, killing 25. The
Palestinians wished to derail a Peace Agreement that would leave them with just
a fraction of their former lands.
20/1/1996,
Yasser Arafat was re-elected
President of the PLO.
6/1/1996, Palestinian bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash was killed, allegedly by Israeli security forces, see 25/2/1996.
4/11/1995.
Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Labour 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. Rabin�s successor, Shimon Peres, promised to continue the peace process. The
assassin, Yigal
Amir, was sentenced on 11/4/1996, to life
imprisonment.
9/1995, Israel agreed to hand over the West Bank city of Hebron to Palestinian
authpority by March 1996.
22/1/1995. 22
Israelis died in Tel Aviv in a suicide bombing by Palestinians.
18/7/1994, A bomb killed 194 at the Jewish Mutual Association,
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
5/7/1994, Yasser Arafat
became the first President of the Palestinian Authority, which had been created
under the Cairo Agreement of 1994.
1/7/1994, PLO
leader Yasser
Arafat returned to Gaza to lead the new Palestinian Authority. it
was the first time he had been in Palestine for 25 years.
13/5/1994, Israel
began to withdraw its forces from Jericho and the Gaza Strip, in accordance
with the Israeli-Palestinian agreement of 13/9/1993.
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.
8.0 Movements towards Arab-Israeli peace, 1993-95
24/9/1995.
Israel and the PLO agree to extend self-rule
to most of the West Bank.
31/10.1994, The Duke
of Edinburgh became the first member of the British Royal Family to visit
Israel.
26/10/1994, Israel and Jordan signed a symbolic peace
treaty, ending 46 years of war, at a ceremony attended by US President Clinton.
14/10/1994. The Nobel
Peace prize was awarded jointly to Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, and Yasser Arafat.
25/7/1994, Israel and
Jordan signed a peace treaty, formally ending a state of war between them that
had existed since 1948.
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.
9/9/1993, Israel and the PLO recognised each other�s
right to exist, a major step forward in the peace process.
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.
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.
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.
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.
22/9/1991, The Dead Sea Scrolls, the only surviving Biblical
documents from before 100 CE, were made publically available for the first time
by Huntington Library, California.
25/5/1991, 15,000 Black Ethiopian Jews (Falashas) were
transported to Israel because of unrest in Ethiopia.
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.
13/4/1989, Israeli soldiers attacked Arab villagers in the
West Bank, killing 6 Palestinians. The soldiers claimed they were attacked by
rioting youths, but an investigation in 5/1989 found the soldiers had acted
without provocation.
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.
31/7/1988, King Hussein of Jordan announced that he is ceding
the Israeli-controlled West Bank to the PLO.
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. The protests were soarked when an IUsraeli
truck was deliberately driven into a passenger vehicle in Gaza, killing 4
Palestinians. The incident was a revenge attack for the fatal stabbing of n an
Israeli a few days earlier. Howevfer Arab tensions wree already high� after over 20 years Israeli occupation of
Palestinian lands. The Intifada continued until the Peace Process of 1993.
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.
10/6/1985, Israel withdrew from most of southern Lebanon,
except for a security zone in the far south which it still occupied.
20/5/1985, Israel freed
1,150 Palestinians in exchange for three Israelis.
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. After Israeli elections on 23/7/1984 produced no
overall winner, with Shimon Peres� :Labour Party taking 44 seats
and Yitzhak
Shamir�s Right Wing Likud Party taking 41 seats, no party had a
clear majority. This day a coalition arrangement
was made, with each leader alternating for 25 months. Shimon
Peres started the first 25 month leadership period this day.
Start
of alternating Peres � Shamir leadership
30/1/1984, West German chancellor Helmut Kohl concluded a 5-day
visit to |Israel. His visit had been disrupted by demonstrations.
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.
9/10/1982, In an attack on a synagogue in Rome, 1 died.
7.4, Israeli invasion of Lebanon 1977-85, to
eradicate the PLO presence there
16/2/1985, Israel began to withdraw from Lebanon.
26/2/1984, US marines pulled out of Beirut.
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.
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.
17/7/1982, Israeli
Prime Minister Menachem
Begin gave the PLO a deadline of 30 days to leave Lebanon. On
30/8/1982 Yasser Arafat left for Tunisia.
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.
10/6/1982, Israeli
forces invading Lebanon reached the edge of Beirut.
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.
9/5/1982, Israeli
planes attacked the PLO bases south of Beirut.
21/4/1982, Menachem Begin,
Israeli Prime Minister, ordered the Israeli Army to attack PLO bases in
Lebanon, in retaliation for a breach of a 1981 ceasefire agreement.
17/7/1981, Israeli bombers destroyed the PLO HQ in
Beirut.
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.
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.
3/6/1982, Israeli Ambassador, Argov, was shot by Palestinians.
14/12/1981, Israel formally annexed the Golan Heights, a
strategic area formerly part of Syria but occupied by Israel since 1967.
16/10/1981, Moshe Dayan,
Israeli military leader, died in Tel Aviv.
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.
8/10/1979, In Israel, the new Tehiya (Renaissance) Party was
launched, to resist any further territorial concessions by Israel for peace.
9/5/1979, Israeli forces pursued
into Lebanon some Palestinian guerrillas who had attacked a Jewish settlement.
Conflict in the area looked likely to escalate again.
18/1/1979, A Palestinian bomb
explo0ded in Jerusalem. In retaliation, Israeli forces� oved into south Lebanon. A truce was agreed
on 24/1/1979.
7/2, Egypt and Israel make peace,
1974-82
25/4/1982. Israel withdrew
from the Sinai, after 15 years of occupation.
26/1/1980,
Israel and Egypt established diplomatic
relations. Other Arab nations strongly objected.
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.
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.
10/10/1976, Israel promised Egypt that Israeli forces
would withdraw from occupied Sinai.
1/9/1975, Kissinger arranged an accord between Israel
and Egypt on Sinai.
18/1/1974, Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State,
brokered a peace deal between Egypt and Israel. Israel would withdraw from the
east bank of the Suez Canal, and Egypt would reoccupy the west bank. Israell
then, in June 1974, agreed to withdraw from Syria and parts of the Golan
Heights.
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.
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.
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.
7.0 Entebbe Airport Rescue 1976
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.
27/1/1976, A UN Resolution calling
for Israel to withdraw from all territories occupied since 1967and for a
Palestinian State was vetoed by the US delegate.
10/11/1975, The UN General Assembly
passed by 72 votes to 35 a resolution defining Zionism as �a form of racism and
racial discrimination�. Some 32 nations abstained.
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�.
9/10/1974, Oskar Schindler, German businessman who saved
the lives of many Jews in World War Two, died.
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.
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 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.
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.
15/11/1973, Egypt and
Israel exchanged prisoners of war.
11/11/1973. Egypt and Israel
signed a ceasefire agreement.
5/11/1973, United
States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger began his shuttle diplomacy
initiative to facilitate the cessation of hostilities following the Yom Kippur
War.
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.
5.0 Israel wins Six Day
War. Jerusalem reunited, many Arabs dispossessed of land, 1967
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.
28/6/1963, Ahmed
Hilmi Pasha, Palestinian leader and one time
Prime Minister of the All-Palestine Government, died aged 84.
16/6/1963, Ben Gurion,
Israeli Prime Minister, resigned aged 76. He
was replaced by Levi Eshkol.
1961, The authoriries
closed Moscow�s synagogues.
7/2/1960, Israeli
archaeologists announced the discovery of scrolls
from the Dead Sea area.
4.0 Capture, trial and execution of Adolf
Eichmann, 1961-62
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.
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.
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�.
24/12/1959, Anti-Semitic riots
in Cologne.
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.
3.8, Suez Crisis 1956-57, See also Egypt
for more events of Suez Crisis 1950s
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.
6/2/1957, Israel
undertook to evacuate the Sinai but only on the understanding that the Gulf of
Aqaba would not be closed to Israeli shipping. If that happened, Israel said it
would go to war again.
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.
13/2/1955, Israel obtained four of the seven Dead Sea
Scrolls.
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.
21/7/1952, The Chief Rabbi of France, Isaie Schwartz, died aged 76.
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.
5/7/1950, Israel passed the Law of return, stating that all
Jews have the right to settle in Israel.
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.
13/12/1949, Israel officially moved its capital from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem.
5/12/1949, David Ben Gurion, Israel�s first prime minister, proclaimed Jerusalem as Israel�s capital.
23/2/1949, Jews in Berlin protested
at the portrayal of Jewish character Fagin in Alec Guinness�s film Oliver Twist.
3.0 Attempted
invasion by Arabs of the new State of Israel, failed, 1948-49
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.
24/2/1949, Egypt 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.
21/9/1948, The
Irgun dissolved and handed over its arms to the Israeli government in response
to an ultimatum to either disband or be labelled a terrorist organization.
20/9/1948, In
Israel, the Stern
Gang was declared illegal.
18/9/1948,
200 arrests were made in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in connection with the
assassination of Count Bernadotte.
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.
2.0 British,
UN, US, attempts to determine the future of Palestine 1945-48
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.
24/4/1947, In
Palestine the Zionist Stern Gang attacked a police barracks at
Sarona, near Tel Aviv; 4 were killed.
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.
3/5/1946, Arabs rioted in Jerusalem over British
plans to partition Jerusalem.
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.
1.0 Concentration
camps liberated, despite Nazi attempts to erase them, 1945
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.
0.0 Genocide of Parisian Jews,
1941-44
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.
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.
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.
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.
21/5/1942, 4,300 Jews were
deported from the town of Chelm to the death camp at Sobibor.
27/3/1942, 1,112 Jews were deported from Drancy, Paris, to an undisclosed destination.
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.
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.
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.
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.
14/7/1946, Jews who had
survived World War Two were massacred in a pogrom at Kielce, Poland.
-1.0 Anne Frank
14/5/1986, Anne Frank�s
complete diary was published.
19/8/1980, Otto Frank,
father of Anne Frank, died.
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.
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.
6/7/1942, Anne Frank
and her family went into hiding from the Nazis (see 14/6/1943).
12/6/1942, Anne Frank
received a diary for her 13th birthday, which she kep writing as her
family hid in an Amsterdam attic unti;l discovered by the Gestapo in 1944.
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.
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.
-2.0 Danish and Italian Jews saved from the
Nazis
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.
3/10/1943, SS General Dr. Werner Best declared Denmark
to be �judenfrei�, although most of the nation's Jews had learned of the
impending mass arrests and were in hiding, awaiting the chance to flee to
Sweden.
1/10/1943, Hitler ordered that all Danish
Jews be arrested and deported. However the Danes largely thwarted this move, see
9/4/1940.
28/9/1943, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German diplomat in Nazi-occupied Denmark,
secretly warned leaders of the Danish resistance of an order from Berlin for
the arrest and deportation of the Kingdom's Jewish citizens, to begin on
October 1. Over the next two weeks, Danish residents helped most of the
nation's 8,000 Jews elude capture; Denmark's fishermen used their boats to
ferry 7,200 people to neutral Sweden.
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�.
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.
17/3/1943, The Bulgarian
Parliament voted unanimously against any mass deportation of Bulgarian Jews, as
demanded by Germany.
2/9/1942. German SS troops deported and
murdered 50,000 Jews from the ghetto in Warsaw.
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.
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
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.
15/10/1941, The Jewish population of Lubny, Ukraine, and neighbouring towns were
ordered to report for relocation. The 1,900 Jews who obeyed the order were
taken to an antitank trench outside the town and shot.
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.
31/7/1941. 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.
17/7/1941, Hitler gave Himmler
full authority for �police security� in the newly-occupied areas of Russia.
This meant that all Jews in these areas were to be massacred.
6/7/1941, Over
2,500 Jews were murdered by Lithuanian militia under German direction.
5/9/1940, Luxembourg was made subject to
the German Nuremberg Laws of 1935, reducing Jews to second-class citizens, and
all 555 Jewish-owned businesses in Luxembourg were seized by the Nazis.
3/10/1940, 150,000 Jews living across Warsaw were ordered to move into a ghetto
area where 250,000 Jews already lived. They were only allowed to take what they
could carry in hand carts.
31/5/1941, Expropriation of Jewish property began in Belgium.
1/5/1940, The Germans converted a small area od Lodz, Poland, into a prison for
the city�s 160,000 Jews, with gross overcrowding and limited water supplies.
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.
26/9/1940, Walter Benjamin,
48, German Jewish philosopher and social critic, committed suicide.
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 (formerly known by
its Polish name of Osweicim). This location was originally intended as a
punishment camp for rebellious Poles.
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 World War Two for main European events of World War Two
11/12/1939, Germany declared that all Jews
living in German-occupied Poland were now liable for 2 years forced labour.
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.
19/6/1939, A market
in Haifa was bombed, killing 18 Arabs and wounding 24. A Jew in a nearby street
was stabbed to death minutes later.
13/5/1939, �A ship with 937 Jews left Hamburg, many of
them former concentration camp inmates, to seek asylum in Cuba. However the
Cuban Government declined to take them as did the USA and Dominica. Eventually
the ship was ordered back to Germany, and arrived at Antwerp on 17/6/1939.
Belgium took 214 of the refugees, France 224, The Netherlands 1821 and the UK
288. The British and French contingents left aboard the cargo ship Rhakotis for
Boulogne and Southampton. Only the British bound Jews survived the war.
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.
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
-3.0 British
plans for Jewish Homeland in Palestine, resisted by Arabs and Jews, 1905-39
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.
27/10/1933, In
Palestine, a State of Emergency was declared in coastal towns after rioters
protested at Jewish immigration.
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.
24/8/1929, Yasser Arafat,
Palestinian leader, was born.
1/4/1925, The
Hebrew University at Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, was opened by Lord Balfour.
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.
11/2/1918, Chaim Weizmann
was appointed to head a commission on Jewish colonies in Palestine.
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.
1909, The first Kibbutz was set up, at the Jordan River
Valley village of Degania Aleph, then part of the Ottoman Empire.
11/4/1908, Tel Aviv, Israel,
was founded by 60 settlers.
1905, The term �Palestinian� was first used, to apply to Jews who
wanted to go and live in Palestine, which was the� part of the Ottoman Empire. It signified any
resident of the British-mandated territory of Palestine after 1920, the land
west of the River Jordan which has become Israel. By the 1970s it signified
Arabs who had left the area which came under Israeli rule.
-4.0 Fascism,
anti-Semitism, in the UK, 1911-36
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.
24/12/1933, The Codex
Siniaticus arrived in London.
7/5/1933. Jews and Fascists
fought in the East End of London.
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
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).
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.
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.
20/5/1915, Moshe Dayan, Israeli military commander and politician, was
born in Deganya.
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.
18/7/1911, Hermann Adler, British chief rabbi (born
30/5/1839) died.
1910, Jews acquired civil rights in Portugal.
31/12/1908, Simon Weisenthal, noted hunter of Nazi war
criminals, was born; he died in 2005.
28/4/1908, Oskar Schindler, Austrian-German industrialist
who saved many Jews from death, was born.
13/2/1908, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was
encouraging anti-Semitism.
9/9/1906. 100 Jews massacred in Siedlce, Poland.
-5.0 Dreyfus
Affair 1894-1911
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.
28/7/1911, The French
Chief of Staff resigned over the Dreyfus Affair.
4/6/1908. An attempt
was made to assassinate Major Alfred Dreyfus.
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.
24/10/1904, Four French officers were charged with lying in the Dreyfus case.
5/3/1904, A new
enquiry into the Dreyfus case began in France.
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.
19/12/1900, France granted an amnesty to all those
involved in the Dreyfus Affair.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
1901, Jewish Progressive (Liberal) Movement began.
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.
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.
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.
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.
28/7/1885, Sir
Moses Haim Montefiore, Jewish philanthropist, died
(born 24/10/1784).
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, aged 41, 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.
24/10/1784, Sir Moses Haim Montefiore, Jewish
philanthropist, was born (died 28/7/1885).
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.
1763, Touro Synagogue opened in
Newport, Rhode Island, USA, for the local Sephardic Jews. It had a sand floor
to commemorate the Exodus from Egypt.
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.
20/4/1657, Jews in New Amsterdam (now, New York) were
granted freedom of worship.
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.
The first synagogue was built in Creechurch Lane, London, 1657, and the second
(which still exists today) was the Spanish/Portuguese synagogiue at Bevis
Marks, London, built 1701. 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.
27/1/1654, Some 150 Sephardic Jewish families fled Brazil for
the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (now, New York). The colony mamnager Peter
Stuyvesant wanted to expel these Jews, but the company refused.
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.
14/3/1486, Queen Isabella of Castile decreed
that150,000 Jews within Spain must convert to Christianity or be expelled.
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 R�ttingen
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 Edward 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 round yellow badge to be fined ten
livres of silver. This had led to accusations that Louis IX
was the inspiration for the Nazi anti-Semitic policies of the 1930s.
1252,
Louis IX of France expelled the Jews.
1243, The Jews were expelled from Brandenburg.
6/1242, Louis IX of
France organised a major book burning of 24 cartloads of Jewish books, mainly
copies of the Talmud.
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.
1222, In England the Synod of Oxford confirmed the
anti-Semitic measures of the Fourth Lateran council (1215). Jews were also prohibited
from holding public office.
1215, The Fourth Lateran Council in Rome set out
anti-Semitic measures that included forcing Jews to wear distinctive clothing
and a yellow Star of David. This was to prevent
marriages between Jews and Christians. 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 1163.
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.
Jewish revolt and Roman suppression, destruction of
Jerusalem, 66-73.
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.
6/71, Titus celebrated victory over
the Jews, although some 960 of them still �held out at Masada.
8/9/70. Jerusalem was stormed� by the
Romans. 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 Titus allowed his soldiers., after the
capture of Jerusalem, �to burn the Upper City
of Jerusalem and slaughter the inhabitants. He took some 97,000 captive, and
claimed to have killed some 1,100,000 Jews, a possibly implausibly high figure.� Titus looted treasures from the Temple,
including a golden table, musical intruments, and a large Menorah. Opinion is
divided on whether Titus wanted the Temple preserved, or burnt down, or was
simply indifferent as to its fate. Some accounts say the soldiers held back
from burning the temple due to superstition, but that Titus wanted it destroyed
so as to toally eradicate the Jewish religion, so he could claim total triumph
in Palestine. However some Jews had escaped the siege and Judaism
was reconstituted at a new base, the town of Iamnia (now, Yavneh), where Johanan ben Zakai supervised the writing down of the
Torah and a replacement of animal sacrifice rituals with prayer.
68, Gaius Julius Vindex, Governor of
Gallia Lugdunensis (souttherb France) was followed by the suicide of Emperor Nero
(9/6/68). Nero�s
death precipitated a struggle for the throne, and Vespasian was one of the
candidates. Vespasian
left his son Titus
to complete the capture of Jerusalem. The logistics were forbidding; to feed
his army of 48,000 infanttry and 8,000 cavalry would require some 60 tonnes of
food and 100,000 litres of water, every day. Titus, however, took his time to
prepare elaborare siege works, to attack a city defended by some 23,400 Jewish Zealots,
Idumaeans and Galileans. It took Titus 4 months to capture Jerusalem. 10/67, The Romans now
besieged and captured Gamala, Golan Heights, and then made preparations for besieging
Jerusalem itself. However see 68.
Spring
67, Vespasian
gathered an army at Ptolemais (now Acre/Akko) of 60,000 soldiers who marched
into Lower Galilee and massacred all resistance. Only the fortress town of Iotapata
and Gamala resisted. Iotapata withstood a 1-month siege then the Romans broke
through. Most of the defenders committed suicide but Josephus and a companion
surrendered to the Romans. Josephus was then utilised by the Romans to
try and persuade his fellow Jews to surrender in other poarts of Palestine; he
was unsuccessful.
66, Anger grew between the Jewish population of Palestine and the Romans.
The trouble began in Spring 66 when a Greek citizen ritually defiled a Jewish
temple in Caesarea by sacrificing some birds there. The Roman Governor of Palestine,
Gessius Florus,
refused to intervene. And the Jews were further angered when Florus
appropriated the large sum of 15 talents of silver from the Treasury in Jerusalem,
to fund the rebuilding of Rome after the disastrous fire of 18/7/64. Some Jews
began to mock Florus,
going round with begging bowls for spare change, and Florus ordered the sacking of
the Upper Agora of Jerusalem. 3.600 Jews were massacred. An initial peaceful
protest followed, the cessation of the sacrifices that had been made since the
reign of Augustus (27 BCE � 14 CE) for the Roman Emperor and people.
A number of Jews now attacked a Roman
garrison and massacred the soldiers. In response to this, Cestius Gallus, Roman Governor
of Syria, marched down from Antioch in late summer 66 with an army of 29,400. The
Jews ambushed them at Beit Horon and killed 515; the Romans suffered a further
5,300 infantry and 480 cavalry killed on the retreat form Jerusalem, having
failed to suppress the Jewish rebellion.
37, Josephus, Jewish historian, was
born.
Roman conquest of Jerusalem, 63 BCE � 26 CE
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.