Timeline of Lebanese history
This is a timeline of Lebanese history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in Lebanon and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of Lebanon. See also the list of Presidents of Lebanon and list of Prime Ministers of Lebanon.
This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.
14th century BC
Year | Date | Event |
1400 BC | | The height of the Canaanite town of Ugarit. |
12th century BC
Year | Date | Event |
1200 BC | | Phoenicians invent the alphabet and the Tyrian Purple which was a major component in their trade. |
| A crisis led to the Bronze Age collapse. Cities all around the eastern Mediterranean were sacked within a span of a few decades by assorted raiders. |
9th century BC
8th century BC
7th century BC
Year | Date | Event |
663 BC | | The Assyrian siege of Tyre by king Ashurbanipal. |
6th century BC
Year | Date | Event |
587 BC | | The region is annexed to the Babylonian empire, while Jerusalem fell into their hands. |
586 BC | | The Babylonians under king Nebuchadnezzar II sieged Tyre for thirteen years without success. Later a compromise peace was made in which Tyre had to pay tribute to the Babylonians. (to 573 BC) |
539 BC | | Cyrus the Great conquered Phoenicia. |
4th century BC
3rd century BC
2nd century BC
Year | Date | Event |
197 BC | | Phoenicia along with Syria reverted to the Seleucids, and the region became increasingly Hellenized, although Tyre actually became autonomous in 126 BC, followed by Sidon in 111 BC. |
140 BC | | Beirut was taken and destroyed by Diodotus Tryphon in his contest with Antiochus VII Sidetes for the throne of the Seleucid monarchy. It was later named Laodicea in Phoenicia (Greek: Λαοδικεια ή του Φοινίκη). |
1st century BC
Year | Date | Event |
82 BC | | Syria, including Phoenicia, were seized by king Tigranes the Great who was later defeated by Lucullus. (to 69 BC) |
65 BC | | Pompey finally incorporated Phoenicia as part of the Roman province of Syria. |
64 BC | | Beirut was conquered by Agrippa and the city was renamed in honour of the emperor's daughter, Julia; its full name became Colonia Julia Augusta Felix Berytus. |
27 BC | | the Pax Romana period, inhabitants of the principal Phoenician cities of Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre were granted Roman citizenship, while economic and intellectual activities flourished. (to AD 180) |
1st century
Year | Date | Event |
20 | | Beirut's school of law was founded, it later became widely known in the surrounding region. Two of Rome's most famous jurists, Papinian and Ulpian (both natives of Phoenicia), were taught at the law school under the Severan emperors. |
50 | | Saint Paul of Tarsus begins his third mission and preaches in Tyre. |
5th century
Year | Date | Event |
451 | | The Maronites, a Christian community named after Saint John Maron sought refuge in the mountains of Lebanon. |
6th century
Year | Date | Event |
551 | | Beirut is destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami. About 30,000 were killed in the city alone and, along the Phoenician coast, total casualties were close to 250,000. |
7th century
Year | Date | Event |
630 | | The Marada, a group of autonomous Maronite communities, settled in Mount Lebanon and the surrounding highlands following the conquest of Syria by the Arab caliphate. |
632 | | Calling for a jihad against non-Muslims, Muhammad's successor, Caliph Abu Bakr, brought Islam to the area surrounding Lebanon. (to 634) |
661 | | After the Battle of Yarmuk, Caliph Umar appointed the Arab Muawiyah I, founder of the Umayyad dynasty, as governor of Syria, an area that included present-day Lebanon. |
667 | | Muawiyah negotiated an agreement with Constantine IV, the Byzantine emperor, whereby he agreed to pay Constantine an annual tribute in return for the cessation of Marada incursions. |
670 | | Callinicus of Heliopolis, a Byzantine chemist from Heliopolis, invents the Greek fire in Constantinople. |
8th century
Year | Date | Event |
759 | | An abortive rebellion of Lebanese mountaineers against the Abbasid rule after the harsh treatment of people living in the Lebanese-Syrian region. |
10th century
Year | Date | Event |
960 | | Prince 'Allaqa of Tyre proclaimed his independence from the Abbasids and coined money in his own name. |
970 | | The Fatimides settled in Egypt and extended their authority to the coastal region of Bilad al-Sham and Damascus. |
986 | | Under the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, a new religion was born and spread by a man called Ad-Darazi. This was the beginning of the Druze religion and its expansion in several Lebanese regions. |
12th century
13th century
Year | Date | Event |
1260 | | The county of Tripoli becomes a vassal state of the Mongol Empire. |
1289 | | The county of Tripoli falls into the hands of the Mamluks after the attack of Egyptian Sultan Qalawun in March. |
1291 | | The Shia Muslims and Druze, in Lebanon, rebelled against the Mamluks who were busy fighting the European Crusaders and Mongols. |
14th century
Year | Date | Event |
1308 | | The rebellion was crushed by the Mamluks. |
16th century
Year | Date | Event |
1516 | | The Ottoman Sultan Selim I grants Emir Fakhr ad-Din I a semi-autonomous reign in Lebanon. |
1570 | | The Maanid period reaches its peak with the reign of Fakhr ad-Din II. (to 1635) |
17th century
Year | Date | Event |
1613 | | Fakhr ad-Din II is exiled to Tuscany after his inability to defeat the army of Ahmad al Hafiz, the governor of Damascus. |
1618 | | Fakhr ad-Din II returns to Lebanon with the beginning of Muhammad Pasha's reign as the new governor of Damascus. |
1622 | | The Battle of Anjar took place on 31 October, near Majdal Anjar between the army of Fakhr ad-Din II and an Ottoman army led by the governor of Damascus Mustafa Pasha. |
1635 | | By the orders of Murad IV, Kutshuk, the governor of Damascus, defeats Fakhr ad-Din who was later executed in Constantinople. |
18th century
Year | Date | Event |
1799 | | Bashir II declines to assist the siege of Acre by Napoleon and Jezzar Pasha. Unable to conquer Acre, Napoleon returned to Egypt, and the death of Jezzar Pasha in 1804 removed Bashir's principal opponent in the area. |
19th century
Year | Date | Event |
1831 | | Bashir II breaks away from the Ottoman Empire, allies with Muhammad Ali of Egypt and assists Muhammad Ali's son, Ibrahim Pasha, in another siege of Acre. This siege lasted seven months, the city falling on 27 May 1832. The Egyptian army, with assistance from Bashir's troops, also attacked and conquered Damascus on 14 June 1832. |
1840 | | After Muhammad Ali's rejection of the requests of the London treaty signed on 15 June 1840, Ottoman and British troops landed on the Lebanese coast on 10 September 1840. Faced with this combined force, Muhammad Ali retreated, and on 14 October 1840, Bashir II surrendered to the British and went into exile. |
1841 | | Conflicts between the Druze and the Maronite Christians exploded. A Maronite revolt against the Feudal class erupted, and lasted until 1858. |
1860 | | A full-scale war erupted between Maronites and Druze. Napoleon III of France sent 7,000 troops to Beirut and helped impose a partition: The Druze control of the territory was recognised as the fact on the ground, and the Maronites were forced into an enclave, arrangements ratified by the concert of Europe in 1861. |
1890 | | The "silk crisis" took place. Cheaper and better quality Chinese silk and silk products flooded Lebanese silk's main market: Europe. The crisis was especially hard considering many had taken on large debt to expand their lands and plant mulberry trees -which leaves were used to feed the worm. |
20th century
Year | Date | Event |
1914 | | After the abolishment of Lebanon's semiautonomous status, Jamal Pasha militarily occupies Lebanon. |
1915 | | Jamal Pasha initiates a blockade of the entire eastern Mediterranean coast. Lebanon witnessed thousands of deaths from widespread famine and plagues. (Great Famine of Mount Lebanon) |
1916 | | Turkish authorities publicly executed 21 Syrians and Lebanese in Damascus and Beirut, respectively, for alleged anti-Turkish activities.[1] |
1918 | | British general Edmund Allenby and Faysal I, son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca, moved into Palestine with British and Arab forces, thus opening the way for the occupation of Lebanon. |
1920 | | France takes control over Lebanese territory after the San Remo conference. |
1943 | | On 22 November, Lebanon gains its independence after national and international pressure following the imprisonment of president Bechara El Khoury and other parliament members by the French. |
1947 | 29 November | The United Nations General Assembly recommended the adoption and implementation of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. |
1948 | | The state of Israel was declared. Palestinian refugees begin arriving in Lebanon. |
1958 | | A civil war erupts but short lived after the intervention of 5,000 US Marines ordered by President Eisenhower upon the request of the Lebanese president Camille Chamoun. |
1975 | | The Lebanese Civil War and Israeli Invasions. (to 1990) |
1990 | | A period of fifteen years of Syrian occupation starts when Syrian troops invade the Baabda residential Palace on 13 October 1990 and overthrow then President General Michel Aoun, and ends with the peaceful Cedar Revolution of more than one million protesters in Beirut central district, following the assassination of the Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri and the withdrawal of the Syrian troops. (to 2005) |
21st century
See also
References
Further reading
External links
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