Mideast History – History Moments

Highlights of the History of the Middle East

Readings in the histories of the Levant, North Africa, Asia Minor, the Arabian Peninsula, and Southwest Asia as a whole by some of the greatest writers.

Some Years listed below are approximate.

Ancient

Year	Title	Author(s)
c 5900 BC	The Dawn of Civilization	Gaston Maspero
c 2500 BC	Pyramid Builders of Egypt	George Rawlinson\| \|Arthur Gilman
c 2000 BC	The Earliest Jews	Leopold von Ranke
1754 BC	Code of Hammurabi	Hammurabi
c 2200-275 BC	The Ancient City of Babylon	George Rawlinson
1184 BC	The Fall of Troy	George Grote
953 BC	Solomon Builds the Great Temple	Henry Hart Milman
612 BC	Assyrian Empire Destroyed	Francois Lenormant\| \|Emile Chevallier
600-530 BC	Cyrus Begins the Persian Empire	George Grote
490 BC	The Battle of Marathon	Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy
480 BC	Battle of Thermopylae	Herodotus
c 400 BC	Crisis of Xenophon’s Quest for Home	Xenophon
331 BC	Alexander the Great Wins the Battle of Gaugamela	Sir Edward S. Creasy
322 BC	Alexander the Great Reduces Tyre	Oliver Goldsmith
207 BC	The Battle of Metauru	Sir Edward Creasy

Year	Title	Author(s)
202 BC	Scipio Africanus Crushes Hannibal At Zama and Subjugates Carthage	Livy
51-30 BC	Cleopatra, Caesar and Antony	John P. Mahaffy
30 BC	Death of Antony and Cleopatra	Henry George Liddell
c 30	The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ	Frederic William Farrar
33	Christianity Appears	J. Ernest Renan, Isaac M. Wise, and \|John Cardinal Newman
70 AD	Romans Crush Jewish Revolt; Destroy Great Temple	Josephus
240-270	Reign of Persia’s King Sapor I	George Rawlinson
325	Arianism and the First Nicene Council	Johann L. Von Mosheim\| \|Arthur P. Stanley
330	Constantinople Founded	Edward Gibbon

Medieval

Year	Title	Author(s)
534	Justinian Code Published	Edward Gibbon
610-632	Mohammad	Washington Irving\| \|Simon Ockley
636	Muslims Conquer Syria	Simon Ockley
640	Saracens Destroy the Great Library	Washington Irving
732	The Battle of Tours	Edward S. Creasy
911-936	Henry the Fowler’s Reign	Wolfgang Menzel
969	Fatimites Conquer Egypt	Stanley Lane-Poole
1096-1099	The First Crusade	Sir George W. Cox
1118	Knights Templar Founded	Charles G. Addison
1146	Roger Ravages the Byzantine Empire	George Finlay
1187	Saladin Takes Jerusalem From the Christians	Sir George W. Cox
1189-1194	The Third Crusade	Henry Von Sybel
1204	Constantinople Taken by the Western Crusaders	Edwin Pears
1348	The Black Death Reaches Europe	J. F. C. Hecker\| \|Giovanni Boccaccio
1250	Mamelukes Usurp Power In Egypt	Sir William Muir
1354	The Turks Establish Foothold in Europe	Joseph Von Hammer-Purgstall
1370-1405	Timur’s (Tamerlane) Conquests	Edward Gibbon
1453	Ottomans Conquer Constantinople	George Finlay

Modern

Year	Title	Author(s)
1571	The Battle of Lepanto and the Destruction of the Turkish Navy	Sir William Stirling-Maxwell
1717	Turkish Threat on Europe Finally Vanquished	Prince Eugene Of Savoy
1739	Nadir Shah Captures Delhi	Sir John Malcolm
1798	Napoleon’s Egyptian War	Charles Knight
1804	The Tripolitan War of 1804	James Fenimore Cooper
1807	An Arab Looks at U.S. Politics	Washington Irving
1811	The Massacre of the Mamalukes	Andrew A. Paton
1825	Siege of Missolonghi	George Finlay
1826	The Janissaries Massacred	Edward Upham
1827	The Battle of Navarino	Harriet Martineau
1837	Abd-el-Kader and France’s Conquest of Algeria	Edgar Sanderson
1869	The Suez Canal Opens	Gardiner Greene Hubbard
1885	Great Britain Expands Control of Egypt	James Franck Bright
1899	The Baghdad Railway Deals Goes to Germans	Jack Le Moine
1907	Persia’s 1907 Revolution	Samuel M. Jordan\| \|Stanley White\| \|Emile J. Dillon
1908	The Turkish Revolution of 1908	Edwin Pears\| \|A. Rustem Bey\| \|Arminius Vambery
1911	The Strangling of Persia	W. Morgan Shuster
1911	The Turkish-Italian War	William T. Ellis
1916	Arabs Enter World War I	Lowell Thomas
1917	Lawrence Launches Arab Desert Campaign	Lowell Thomas
1918	How to Handle Arabs	Lowell Thomas

Prehistory

Year	Title	Author(s)
30,000 YA	Green Sahara	Jack Le Moine

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