circa 950 B.C.E. :

The Queen of Sheba visits Jerusalem and is received by King Solomon. According to the Bible, the main purpose of the visit was to test the king's wisdom with riddles.

 

 

332 B.C.E. :

Alexander the Great, on his way to Egypt, passes 40 miles from Jerusalem; in spite of some dubious witnesses, he probably did not care to visit the city.
19 B.C.E. :
Herod the Great begins construction of the Second Temple. The number of workers employed exceeded 18.000.

362:
The Emperor Julian the Apostate

allows the Jews to rebuild the Temple. An earthquake and the emperor's suddden death destroy the project.

 

Yeshua (better known as Jesus), a young Jew from Galilee, dies on the cross; his ideas will influence hundreds of millions of people all over the world and will change history's course.

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Circa 30 C.E.:

 

   
Circa 575 :

An anonymous Byzantine artist executes, on mosaic, what becomes the oldest known map of Jerusalem, the Madaba Map. (Details in the site)

 

 800:

The Caliph Haroun el Raschid, famous for " Arabian Nights ", sends the keys of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to Charlemagne as a gift.

 

 


 

1118:Hugh of Payens is allowed by King Baldwin I to install himself and a few companions in a wing of the royal palace, the former el-Aksa mosque in the Temple area (hence know as Templum Salomonis) ; it is the founding of the Templar order. The order will be suppressed rudely in France in 1314 under Philip the Fair's kingdom.

 

 
1229:

Frederik II, excommunicated by the Pope, self-crowns himself King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.(Details in the site)

 

 

 

1271:
 Marco Polo comes to Jerusalem in order to take some oil from the Holy Sepulchre to present to the Kublai Khan as a gift. (Details in the site)
 
 

 

1799:

Napoleon, like Alexander the Great two thousand years before him, marches not far from Jerusalem and does not deem the city worthy of a visit.

 

1855:
Leopold II, King of Belgium, visits the Dome of the Rock and the el Aksa Mosque; he is the first non-Moslem to be admitted to the Haram e-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary).

1896 :
The Lumiere brothers shoot the first film in Jerusalem.

 

1918:
A decree issued by the British governor Storrs obliges the use of local stone in every building. It remains valid until today.

 

 

 1951:
King Abdallah of Jordan is murdered as he exits the el Aksa Mosque.

 

 

1964:
Pope Paul VI comes to Jerusalem: it is the first time a Pope visits the Holy City.

 

1974:

Oskar Schindler, the German manufacturer who saved more than one thousand Jews from extermination camps during World War II, is buried in the Catholic cemetery on Mount Zion.

 

2000:

Pope Paul John II comes to Jerusalem in a memorable visit and wins the sympathy of millions of Israelis.
 

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