A Brief History
This article present a chronological history of Jerusalem!
Digging Deeper
On Good Friday, somewhere around 33 A.D., Jesus of Nazareth, prophet to Islam and Judaism, the Christ and Savior to Christians, was crucified by the Romans in Jerusalem. Crucifixion was a particularly brutal and drawn out process of execution often reserved for “dangerous” criminals, ones that threatened the status quo.
On August 4, 70 A.D., the Romans punished the rebellious Jews by destroying the Second Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. In 66 A.D. the Jews had rebelled against Roman rule, and 4 years later the Romans retook Jerusalem.
On July 15, 1099, during the First Crusade, Christian soldiers took the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after the final assault of a difficult siege.
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.
On October 2, 1187, one of history’s most significant sieges ended: The Siege of Jerusalem in which Saladin captured Jerusalem after 88 years of Crusader rule.
On April 28, 1192, the Hashshashin (Assassins) assassinated Conrad of Montferrat (Conrad I), King of Jerusalem, in Tyre, just two days after his title to the throne was confirmed by election. The incident was one of many bizarre and violent episodes to occur during the Crusades. These wars rank among the longest religious conflicts in human history.
On August 23, 1244, the main central citadel of the city of Jerusalem, the Tower of David, fell to the invaders from the remnants of the Khwarezmian Empire, a vast polyglot land that included parts of what is now Iran and Afghanistan along with other areas in Central Asia.
On December 9, 1917, British forces under the command of Field Marshall Allenby captured the city of Jerusalem, then in the territory known as Palestine.
Question for students (and subscribers): Why is Jerusalem so important to human history? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please read…
Armstrong, Karen. A History of Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 1997.