A Brief History On July 12, AD 70, the army of Titus Caesar Vespasianus, a Roman general that would later become Roman Emperor, finally attacked the walls of the city of Jerusalem after a 6 month siege, succeeding in taking the city 3 days later. Digging Deeper By taking Jerusalem, Titus effectively ended the Jewish revolt and in a punitive measure he had the Second Temple destroyed, a temple that has yet to be rebuilt. The Second Temple, known as Herod’s Temple, had stood for nearly 6 centuries until its destruction. The Jews never recovered from this defeat, and the…
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A Brief History On January 21, 2009, Israel pulled its military forces out of the Gaza strip after a three-week war with Palestinian Islamic extremist group Hamas. While fighting in and around Gaza continued in the following weeks, the scale of the fighting was a mere shadow of the Israeli-Hamas fighting that began in October of 2023. Digging Deeper In what was called The Gaza War of 2008-2009, 13 Israelis and between 1,100 and 1,400 Palestinians were killed. Lasting from December 27, 2008 until January 18, 2009, the war was just one of many Arab-Israeli wars and other armed and…
A Brief History On November 27, 2020, Iranian nuclear scientist and purported head of the Iranian nuclear weapons program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Mahabadi, was assassinated in Absard, Iran. Incredibly, the murder was carried out in a manner worthy of a Hollywood movie plot, by use of a satellite controlled autonomous gun that had been pre-staged, allegedly by Israeli operatives. Digging Deeper The Israeli and US governments both stated that neither would allow Iran to develop or control a nuclear weapon. The US is believed to have been behind a hacking attack of Iranian nuclear lab computers in 2010, as part of…
A Brief History On June 7, 2021, we have had the opportunity to read and review a great new historical examination of “the Roman campaign to crush the Jewish revolt,” as the book calls itself. Conquering Jerusalem, by Stephen Dando-Collins, is just about 200 pages long, long enough to address detail while compact enough to keep the reader engaged. (By the way, this reviewer has personally been to Jerusalem, a fascinating place.) Digging Deeper We found the text highly readable, while retaining academic accuracy and serious addressing of facts and events, the flow of the book is more like a…
A Brief History On September 20, 1187, the Islamic forces of the famous Kurdish Muslim leader Saladin laid siege to the capital of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, the holiest city in the Christian world and likewise in the Jewish world, and the third holiest city in Islam. By October 2, 1187, the siege came to an unusually quick conclusion when the Christians surrendered the city, never to regain the main object of the Crusades again. Saladin, an historical character praised for his humanity during a time of terrible excesses allowed generous terms for the Christians, including continued access to…