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- B.C.
4000 - Beginings of settlement in what is to become the Arab heartland known as the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and along the Nile River.
750-275 - Assyrian, Persian and Greek empires engulf the entire region.
64 - Rome begins dividing the area into provinces.
A.D.
305 - Control of the area passes to Byzantium.
570 - Mohammed born in Mecca.
610 - Mohammed begins to win converts to the new religion called Islam.
622 - Mohammed and his converts move to Medina to escape persecution and organize a religious community. The migration markes the begining of the Islamic era.
630 - Mohammed returns to Mecca in triumph.
632 - Death of Mohammed. His father-in-law, Abu Bakr is chosen as the first caliph.
633-644 - Converts sweep out of the Arabian deserts and conquer Byzantine, Persian and North African territories.
655-661 - Civil war develops over the succession to the caliphate. After the murder of Ali, son-in-law of Mohammed, Muawiya, a member of the Umayya family of Mecca attains the office despite opposition from Ali's followers who are known as Shiites.
661 - Damascus becomes the Umayyad capital.
670-699 - Umayyads conquer parts of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.
681 - A band of Ali's partisans is masacred by Umayyads. Advocating vengence, the Shiiites develop into a major religious movement in opposition to the Sunni (Orthodox).
711 - Moslems invade Spain.
732 - Moslem expansion into western Europe halted at the batle of Tours in France.
750 - Dissension bred by Umayyad decadence and Shiites' growing strength leads to the overthrow of the dynasty. Abu al Abbas, a descendant of Mohammed's uncle, founds the Abbasid line.
756 - Prince Abdul Rahman establishes an independent dynasty in Spain.
762 - Abbasids found a capital at Baghdad which acquires fame as an intellectual center of learning and art.
788-800 - Separtist movements begun in Spain spread to North Africa. Local dynasties are established first in Morocco then in Tunisia.
868 - Ahmed ibn Tulun, a military leader and former Turkish slave, leads a revolt in Egypt and later extends his dominion to Syria.
910 - Obaidallah, who claims descent from Mohammed's daughter Fatima, comes to power in Tunisia and founds the Fatimid line.
969 - Fatimids conquer Egypt and build Cairo and make it their capital.
1070-1080 - Seljuk Turks converts to Islam who infiltrate the Arab empire from central Asia, defeat the Byzantines in Asia Minor, move on to Syria and Palestine.
1096-1099 - Crusaders arrive in the region and conquer Jerusalem and build a chain of feudal principalities along the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
1171 - Saladin, a Kurdish army officer deposes Fatamids, founded a Sunni dynasty in Egypt and Syria.
1187 - Saladin defeats the Crusaders near Jerusalem.
1221 - Mongol troops of Genghis Khan overrun eastern regions of the Moslem world.
1250 - The first Mameluke sultan comes to power in Egypt. Mamelukes are to rule Egypt and Syria for 250 years.
1258-1260 - Mongols capture Baghdad and topple the Abbasid caliphate but are finally checked in Palestine by Egyptian armies.
1260 - A dispossed Abbasid heir is installed as a puppet caliph in Cairo under Mamelukes.
1300 - Uthman of Osman, an ambitious military leader after whom the Ottoman or Osmanli Empire is named, begins a series of conquests in western Turkey.
1400 - Attacks by forces of Timur the Lame (Tamerlane) restorer of Genghis Khan's Mongle empire devestates Iraq and Syria.
1453 - Constantinople falls to Islam under attack of the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II.
1492 - Christians conquer Granada, the last Moslem stronghold in Spain.
1516-1517 - Ottomans take Syria and Egypt, hang the last Mameluke sultan and remove the puppet caliph to Constantinople.
1639 - Ottomans take Iraq from Persia.
1750 - Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahhab launches a fundamentalist reform campaign in central Arabia.
1798-1801 - Napoleon invades Egypt and is later expelled by the British and Turks.
1830-1849 - France conquers Algeria.
1832-1882 - Egypt gains semi-independence from Ottomans.
1861 - European powers force Ottomans to recognize an autonomous Lebanon.
1869 - Completion of the Suez Canal.
1881-1883 - France conquers Tunisia, British occupy Egypt.
1898 - Sir Horatio Kitchener leads an Anglo-Egyptian force into the Sudan and supresses the Mahdist movement.
1916-1924 - Hussein ibn Ali of the Hashemite family of Mecca leads a revolt against the Turks in western Arabia. He rules until he is overpowered by the Wahhabis under Abdul Aziz ibn Saud.
1917 - Britain issues the Balfour Declaration favoring the establishment of a national home in Palestine for the Jews.
1918 - Turkey's defeat in World War I ends Ottoman rule in Arab lands. The empire is dissolved.
1920 - League of Nations gives mandates over Syria and Lebanon to France, and mandates over Palestine Transjordan and Iraq to Britain.
1921 - 1932 - Ibn Saud consolidates north and central Arabia into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
1935-1946 - As mandates end, Syria and Lebanon become republics. Hashemite heirs are enthoned, Feisal in Iraq and Abdullah in Transjordan.
1936 - Britain recognizes the independence of Egypt.
1938 - Oil in commercial quantities is found in Saudi Arabia.
1945 - The Arab League organized.
1948 - The State of Israel is proclaimed after Britain's terminatin of its Palestine mandate. Brief war between Arab states and Israel is won by Israel.
1951 - Libya gains independence.
1952 - A military coup ousts King Farouk in Egypt.
1954 - Algeria revolts against French rule.
1956 - The Sudan, Tunisia and Morocco win independence. Gamal Abdul Nasser become president of Egypt. Britain, France and Israel invade Egypt after Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal, later withdraw under UN Pressure.
1958 - Egypt and Syria form the United Arab Republic. A military revolt overthows the monarchy.
1961 - Syria withdraws from the U.A.R.
1967 - Arab countries attack Israel during a religious holiday. The Arabs are quickly defeated in six days time which results in Israel taking control of additional lands as a result.
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