Ca. 3000: beginning of the Bronze Age/Canaanite period.
Ca. 1200: beginning of the Iron Age; the Israelite tribes enter Canaan and settle the hill country, and the Philistines establish a kingdom on the southern coastal plain.
Ca. 1000: the death of Saul and establishment of the kingdom of David.
Ca. 960: Solomon builds the first temple on Jerusalem's Temple Mount.
Ca. 930: after Solomon's death, the United Kingdom splits into Israel (north) and Judah (south).
722: the kingdom of Israel falls to Assyria.
701: the Assyrians invades Judah, destroy Lachish and besiege Jerusalem (under King Hezekiah).
586: end of the Iron Age; the Babylonians destroy Jerusalem and Solomon's temple and disperse the Judahite (Judean) elite.
539: King Cyrus II of Persia issues an edict allowing the exiled Judeans to return to their homeland and rebuild the temple.
516: the second temple is consecrated.
490-480: Persian invasions of Greece.
Ca. 450: Ezra and Nehemiah in Jerusalem.
336: Alexander the Great becomes king of Macedon.
334: Alexander invades the Persian Empire.
332: Alexander conquers Palestine.
323: Alexander dies in Babylon.
301: the final division of Alexander's empire; Seleucus takes Asia Minor and Syria and Ptolemy takes Egypt and Palestine.
198: Palestine comes under Seleucid rule.
167: Antiochus IV Epiphanes outlaws Judaism and dedicates Jerusalem temple to Olympian Zeus, provoking the outbreak of the Maccabean Revolt
164: Antiochus IV rescinds his edict outlawing Judaism, and the Jerusalem temple is rededicated to the God of Israel, but the Maccabean Revolt continues.
Ca. 150-140: the Maccabees establish an independent Jewish kingdom ruled by their descendants (the Hasmoneans). In the decades that follow, the Hasmoneans increase the size of their kingdom through territorial expansion.
Ca. 100: a sectarian community settles at Qumran (the site associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls).
63: the Roman general Pompey annexes the Hasmonean kingdom.
40: the Parthians invade Syria-Palestine; Herod flees to Rome and is appointed king of Judea.
37: Herod defeats Mattathias Antigonus.
31: Octavian defeats Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium; afterward, he reconfirms Herod as king of Judea and increases the size of Herod's kingdom.
4: Herod dies and his kingdom is divided among three of his sons; Jesus is born around this time.
C. e.
6: Herod's son Archelaus is deposed and replaced by the Romans with prefects or procurators, who establish their base of administration at Caesarea Maritima.
26-36: Pontius Pilate is Roman prefect and executes Jesus.
37-44: rule of Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great and his Hasmonean wife Mariamne.
44-66: all of Palestine is under the administration of procurators.
62/63: James the Just (brother of Jesus) is executed by the Jewish Sanhedrin in Jerusalem and Paul is executed in Rome.
66: the First Jewish Revolt against Rome begins.
67: Galilee is subdued by the Romans and Josephus surrenders to Vespasian.
68: the sectarian settlement at Qumran is destroyed and the community flees, depositing the Dead Sea Scrolls in the nearby caves.
69: Vespasian becomes Roman emperor, leaves his son Titus in charge of subduing the revolt.
70: Jerusalem falls to the Romans and the second temple is destroyed.
73/74: Masada falls after a siege.
115-117: the Diaspora Revolt (during the reign of Trajan).
132-135: Second Jewish Revolt against the Romans (Bar-Kokhba Revolt) (during the reign of Hadrian).
Second-third centuries: period of rabbinic Judaism.
313: Constantine and Licinius issue the Edict of Milan, legalizing Christianity.
324: Constantine establishes Constantinople (formerly Byzantium) as the new capital of the Roman Empire.
395: the Roman Empire splits into West and East (East = the Byzantine Empire)
527-565: the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian.
614: the Sasanid Persian conquest of Palestine.
634-640: the Muslim conquest of Palestine (Jerusalem surrenders in 638).
661-750: the Umayyad dynasty rules Palestine from their capital in Damascus.
750: the Abbasid dynasty overthrows the Umayyads, and moves the capital to Baghdad
1914-18: World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Palestine comes under the British Mandate.
1948: the British Mandate ends, Palestine is partitioned, and the State of Israel is established.
World History
