August 15

423: Honorious Flavius, the Western Roman Emperor who confiscated gold
and silver which had been collected by the synagogues to be sent to Jerusalem
and “defined Judaism as an unworthy superstition passed away today.

1096: The armies of the…

July 21

285:
Diocletian appoints Maximian as Caesar, co-ruler. This was part of an attempt
to shore up the imperial authority.  In
another such step, Diocletian “ordered all the people …to accept his divinity
and offer sacrifices to him.  Fo…

July 22

1099: During
the First Crusade, in what has to be one of the most ironic moment of the
Middle Ages, Godfrey of Bouillon, one of the leaders who had extorted money
from the Jews in Mainz and Cologne and had participated in the killing of the
Je…

August 12

30 BCE: Cleopatra committed suicide.  According to Josephus, the Egyptian tried to
convince her lover and co-ruler, Marc Antony, to give her control over lands to
the east including Syria and Palestine. 
Herod was so afraid of her …

July 30                                                                      …

August 9

48 B.C.E.: Julius
Caesar defeated Pompey at the battle of Parsalus. This victory helped to cement
Caesar’s position and put an end to Pompey. Considering Pompey’s behavior
towards the Jews, including his desecration of the Temple, Caesar’s vi…

July 20

356 BCE:  In Macedonia, King Philip
II and Queen Olympia gave birth to Alexander the Great. You can draw a straight
line from Alexander’s Hellenization of Asia Minor to Chanukah to Tisha B’Av, 70
CE.

http://www.biography.com/print/profil…