Middle East

geopolitical region encompassing Egypt and most of Western Asia, including Iran

17 dated entries naming Middle East, drawn from 17 separate years between 246 BCE and 2024 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

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3rd century BC

246 BCEAntiochus II Theos, king of the Seleucid dominions in the Middle East from 261 BC. He has spent much of his reign at war with Egypt, recovering much of the territory in Anatolia lost in earlier wars between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid dynasties (born c. 287 BC)source

6th century

541Plague of Justinian: Bubonic plague appears suddenly in the Egyptian port of Pelusium, spreading to Alexandria and, the following year, to Constantinople. This is the beginning of a 200-year-long pandemic that will devastate Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.source

8th century

748An earthquake strikes the Middle East from northern Egypt to northwestern Mesopotamia, destroying many remnants of Byzantine culture (approximate date).source
773The number 0 is introduced to the city of Baghdad, which will be developed in the Middle East by Arabian mathematicians, who will base their numbers on the Indian system (long after the Maya culture developed the concept, cf. Maya numerals).source

11th century

1046March 5 – Nasir Khusraw begins his 7-year Middle Eastern (19,000-kilometre) journey, which he later describes in the book Safarnāmé.source
1092November 19 – Sultan Malik-Shah I dies after a 20-year reign while hunting. The Seljuk Empire falls into chaos: his brother Tutush I and rival successors carve up their own independent sultanates in the Middle East. Malik-Shah is succeeded by his son Mahmud I, but he does not gain control of the empire.source
1099July 22 – The Kingdom of Jerusalem is established in the Middle East. Godfrey of Bouillon is named king (but refuses to be crowned) and takes the title Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri.source

12th century

1109July 12 – Siege of Tripoli: After a 7-year siege (supported by the Genoese fleet), Tripoli falls to the Crusaders. Fakhr al-Mulk ibn Ammar, qadi of Tripoli, submits to Bertrand of Toulouse (the eldest son of Raymond IV). He establishes the County of Tripoli, the fourth Crusader state in the Middle East. Raymond's nephew William II Jordan dies of an arrow wound sustained during the siege, leaving Bertrand as its sole ruler.source
1114November 29 – A large earthquake damages the areas of the Crusaders in the Middle East. From Antioch and Mamistra to Marash and Edessa are hit by the shocks.source

13th century

1202April–May – The bulk of the Crusader army gathers at Venice, although with far smaller numbers than expected: about 12,000 men (4–5,000 knights and 8,000 soldiers) instead of 33,500 men. Several contingents decide to make their own way to the Holy Land by different routes. A Crusader fleet, sailing from Flanders, carrying supplies for the Counts Baldwin IX and his brother Henry of Flanders, winters in Marseille, but is slowed by adverse weather. Later it sails on to the Middle East, along with other contingents from southern France.source
1228Summer – Emperor Frederick II sails from Brindisi with an expeditionary force and arrives in Acre in the Middle East on September 7. He disembarks a well-trained and equipped Crusader army (some 10,000 men and 2,000 knights). After his arrival in Palestine, Frederick is again excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX, for setting out for the Crusade before he has obtained absolution from his previous ex-communication (see 1227). Many of the local nobility, the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller deny him their support for the Crusade. Frederick can only rely on his own army and the Teutonic Knights, whose Grand Master, Hermann von Salza, is his friend.source
1236Pope Gregory IX condemns the links that both the Knights Templer and Knights Hospitaller have with the Assassin fighters in the Middle East. He issues a bull (a formal papal proclamation) preventing further contact with the Assassins.source

20th century

1917April 26 – Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne between France, Italy and the United Kingdom, signed at Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. Drafted by the Italian Foreign Minister Sidney Sonnino, as a tentative agreement to settle its Middle Eastern interest, the agreement was needed by the allies to secure the position of Italian forces in the Middle East and to balance the military power drops at the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I as Russian (Tsarist) forces were pulling out of the Caucasus Campaign. Italy would receive a part of southwestern Anatolia, including İzmir (Smyrna).source
1918June – First meeting between the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann and the son of the Sharif of Mecca Hashemite Prince Faisal, who led the Arab forces in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, which takes place in Faisal's headquarters in Aqaba in an attempt to establish favourable relations between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East.source
1919January 3 – The Faisal–Weizmann Agreement is signed by Emir Faisal (representing the Arab Kingdom of Hejaz) and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, for Arab–Jewish cooperation in the development of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and an Arab nation in a large part of the Middle East.source

21st century

2011February 5 – An explosion was reported at the Arab Gas Pipeline, which exports Egyptian natural gas to the Middle East, in North Sinai Governorate.source
2024April 16 – 2024 Persian Gulf floods: At least 32 people are killed when heavy rainfall strikes the Middle East, causing flash flooding. This caused many disruptions for the airline Emirates at Dubai International Airport.source