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 …

August 7

117:  The Roman Emperor Trajan passed away.  Trajan came to think of himself as another
Alexander the Great and moved east towards Babylonia with the intent of
extending the boundaries of the Roman Empire. 
One of Trajan’s firs…

August 3

8
C.E.: Roman Empire general Tiberius defeats Dalmatians on the river Bathinus.
As the stepson of Augustus, Tiberius would become Caesar four years after this
victory.  Tiberius did appoint Pontius
Pilate as the procurator of Judea.&nbsp…

July 24

1148:  Louis VII of France lays siege to Damascus
during the Second Crusade. The Second Crusade gained nothing for the
Christians.  The failure of the crusade
may help explain “the long period of persecution that included French cler…

July 12

70: The armies
of Titus attacked the walls of Jerusalem after a six-month siege and three days
later they breached the walls, which enabled the army to destroy the Second
Temple.

1191: The armies of the Third Crusade (1189-92), led by England…

July 10

48 BCE: In his
war with Pompey, Julius Caesar barely avoids defeat at the Battle of
Dyrrhachium.  A month later, after
regrouping his forces, Caesar defeated Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus.  While neither of the Roman leaders were…

July
1

69: Tiberius Julius
Alexander orders his Roman legions in Alexandria to swear allegiance to
Vespasian as emperor. This consolidation of Vespasian’s imperial power helped
to seal the fate of Jerusalem since the destruction of the Jewish …