On this day in 1991, Islamic militants in Lebanon release kidnapped American journalist Terry Anderson after 2,454 days in captivity. As chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, Anderson covered the long-running civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990). On March 16, ...read more
The Six-Day War was a brief but bloody conflict fought in June 1967 between Israel and the Arab states of Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Following years of diplomatic friction and skirmishes between Israel and its neighbors, Israel Defense Forces launched preemptive air strikes that ...read more
The Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO, was first founded in 1964 during a summit in Cairo, Egypt. The organization’s initial goals were to unite various Arab groups and create a liberated Palestine in Israel. Over time, the PLO has embraced a broader role, claiming to ...read more
The Camp David Accords were a series of agreements signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin following nearly two weeks of secret negotiations at Camp David, the historic country retreat of the president of the United States. The two ...read more
Anti-Semitism, sometimes called history’s oldest hatred, is hostility or prejudice against Jewish people. The Nazi Holocaust is history’s most extreme example of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism did not begin with Adolf Hitler: Anti-Semitic attitudes date back to ancient times. In ...read more
The Oslo Accords were a landmark moment in the pursuit of peace in the Middle East. Actually a set of two separate agreements signed by the government of Israel and the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)—the militant organization established in 1964 to ...read more
The Bronze Age marked the first time humans started to work with metal. Bronze tools and weapons soon replaced earlier stone versions. Ancient Sumerians in the Middle East may have been the first people to enter the Bronze Age. Humans made many technological advances during the ...read more
The Fertile Crescent is the boomerang-shaped region of the Middle East that was home to some of the earliest human civilizations. Also known as the “Cradle of Civilization,” this area was the birthplace of a number of technological innovations, including writing, the wheel, ...read more
It’s often said that winners dictate history. Not so for the medieval holy wars called the Crusades. Muslim forces ultimately expelled the European Christians who invaded the eastern Mediterranean repeatedly in the 12th and 13th centuries—and thwarted their effort to regain ...read more
Mesopotamia is a region of southwest Asia in the Tigris and Euphrates river system that benefitted from the area’s climate and geography to host the beginnings of human civilization. Its history is marked by many important inventions that changed the world, including the concept ...read more
Palestine is a small region of land—roughly 2,400 square miles—that has played a prominent role in the ancient and modern history of the Middle East. Violent attempts to control land have defined much of the history of Palestine, making it the site of constant political ...read more
Zionism is a religious and political effort that brought thousands of Jews from around the world back to their ancient homeland in the Middle East and reestablished Israel as the central location for Jewish identity. While some critics call Zionism an aggressive and ...read more
The Knights Templar was a large organization of devout Christians during the medieval era who carried out an important mission: to protect European travelers visiting sites in the Holy Land while also carrying out military operations. A wealthy, powerful and mysterious order ...read more
ISIS is a powerful terrorist militant group that has seized control of large areas of the Middle East. Infamous for its brutal violence and murderous assaults on civilians, this self-described caliphate has claimed responsibility for hundreds of terrorist attacks around the ...read more
Syria is home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world, with a rich artistic and cultural heritage. From its ancient roots to its recent political instability and the Syrian Civil War, the country has a complex and, at times, tumultuous history. Ancient Syria ...read more
Israel is small country in the Middle East, about the size of New Jersey, located on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and bordered by Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The nation of Israel—with a population of more than 8 million people, most of them Jewish—has many ...read more
Located some 130 miles northeast of Damascus, the Syrian city of Palmyra (meaning “city of palms”) has long been called the Pearl of the Desert. Before conflict tore through Syria in 2011, more than 150,000 tourists visited Palmyra each year, drawn by the ancient city’s rich ...read more
Ever since oil was discovered in Iran in the first decade of the 20th century, the country had attracted great interest from the West. British corporations controlled the majority of Iran’s petroleum by the early 1950s, when newly elected Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh ...read more
Barbary Wars (1801 and 1815) War breaks out after the United States refuses to pay tribute to the Barbary pirates of Tripoli (modern-day Libya) to ensure the safety of their merchant vessels. During the first Barbary War, U.S. Marines storm the pirates’ stronghold of Derna, an ...read more
On this day in 1961, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union goes on strike at Ford plants across the country to win higher wages and better benefits for its members. It was the first company-wide strike since Ford had agreed to a collective-bargaining deal in 1941. Ford had been the ...read more
While entering a mosque in the Jordanian sector of east Jerusalem, King Abdullah of Jordan is assassinated by a Palestinian nationalist. Abdullah was a member of the Hashemites, an Arab dynasty said to be directly descended from the Prophet Muhammad. During World War I, with ...read more
On June 23, 1956, 99.95 percent of Egyptian voters mark their ballots to elect Gamal Abdel Nasser as the first president of the Republic of Egypt. Nasser, who toppled the Egyptian monarchy in 1952 in a military coup, was the only presidential candidate on the ballot. In the same ...read more
In Egypt, the Society of Free Officers seizes control of the government in a military coup d’etat staged by Colonel Gamal Abdal Nasser’s Free Officers. King Farouk, whose rule had been criticized for its corruption and failures in the first Arab-Israeli war, was forced to ...read more
On this day, in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization was founded. In February of 1969, Yasir Arafat was elected as its leader. By 1974, when he addressed the United Nations, Arafat had made significant strides towards establishing new respectability for the PLO’s campaign ...read more