Unless specified otherwise, the clippings come from L'Orient-le-Jour des Copains. The reason I picked this teenage- and children-oriented paper is its conciseness and simplicity. It is beyond this site's scope to go into the details of each event.
4th millenium BC: Arrival of the Cananeans, ancestors of the Phoenicians. beginnings of urban civilization.
3rd millenium BC: Foundation of the merchant cities. Commercial contacts from Byblos with Egypt.
Around 2750 BC: Foundation of Tyre (according to the city's priests)
First half of the 2nd millenium: Cnossos becomes the cultural center of Crete; Byblos benefits from it while contributing to the island's richness by commercial relations.
15th century BC: beginning of the Egyptian protectorate.
First half of the 14th century: The principalities of Byblos, Tyr, Sidon and Arwad maintain a correspondence with Pharaohs Amenophis III and Akhenaton.
Around 1200 BC: The Syrian-Palestinan coast is invaded by the "People of the Sea"; some of the cities are destroyed, like Ugarit and Tyr. According to Hellenistic tradition, this is also around the date of the destruction of Troy by the Greeks.
12th century BC: End of the Egyptian protectorate as Egypt crumbles. Independance and prosperity of the Phoenician cities.
1114-1076 BC: Teglatphalasar I, King of Assyria, leads the first military expedition against Phoenicia.
Around 1100 BC: Journey of the Egyptian Ounamon to Byblos for commercial reasons; sporadic contacts of Tyr and Sidon with Tarsus in Cilicia; foundation, according to literary sources, of Cadix (Spain), Uttica (Tunis) and Lixus (Morocco).
Around 1000 BC: Death of Ahiram king of Byblos; on his sarcophagus is engraved the first important Phoenician inscription.
Around 950 BC: Reign of Hiram in Tyr and Solomon in Jerusalem (according to the Bible).
Around 900 BC: Elibaal, king of Byblos, offers the statue of Pharaoh Osorkon to Baalat, goddess of the city.
First half of the 9th century: Itthobaal, king of Tyr, adds part of the northern territory to the sphere of influence of the city. First Phoenician inscriptions in Kition (Cyprus).
9th-8th centuries BC: The Aramean States of Upper Mesopotamia and inside Syria become independant and enter the political arena of the Assyrians in the Near East. With the Assyrian domination comes the decadence of Phoenician power.
9th century BC: Approximate date of the Phoenician inscriptions found in Nora (Sardinia).
814 BC: Traditional date of the foundation of Carthage.
776 BC: The first Olympiad.
754-753 BC: Foundation of Rome.
738 BC: Hiram, king of Tyr and Sidon, pays a tribute to Teglatphalasar III, king of Assyria.
680-669 BC: Assarhaddon is king of Assyria and Babylon; after the death of Luli, king of Tyr, Sidon attempts to become the centre of Phoenician politics; destruction of Sidon by Assarhaddon; circa 672 he imposes upon Tyr a humiliating tribute.
654 BC: Traditional date of the foundation of Ibiza by Carthage.
572 BC: Nabuchodonosor II, king of Babylon, takes Tyr after a siege of 13 years.
Around 540 BC: Battle of Alalia between the Phocean Greeks and an Etrusco-Punic coalition.
539 BC: Cyrus conquers Babylon: beginning of the Persian domination in the Near East.
6th century BC: Carthage takes in hand the Phoenician establishments of Sicily and Sardinia.
525 BC: Cambyse II, king of Persia, conquers Egypt.
509 BC: Traditional date of the first treatise between Rome and Carthage.
Around 500 BC: Approximative date of the Etruscan and Phoenician inscriptions of Pyrgi (southern Etruria).
480 BC: Defeat of Carthage against the Greeks of Sicily at Himera.
5th-2nd century BC: Spread of Hellenism.
333 BC: Victory of Alexander against the Persians, freeing the Phoenician cities from them only to replace them with the Hellenistic rule.
64 BC: Syria and Phoenicia become a Roman province.
395: Syria and Phoenicia (or more accurately, according to the maps of 5th century AD: Syria I, Syria II, Phoenice Parhalus and Phoenice Libanensis) become Byzantine.
7th century: Arab conquest.
1099: The Crusaders capture Jerusalem.
12th-13th centuries: Latin States of the Orient; conquest of the Lebanese littoral.
1291-1516: Mamluk domination.
1516-1918: The Ottoman Turks occupy Lebanon.
16th century: Period of the emirs of the Mountain.
16th-19th centuries: Attempts for the independence of Lebanon.
1918: Autonomy of Lebanon during WW1.
1920: French mandate over Lebanon and Syria; creation of the Greater Lebanon (reinstated into its "natural and historical borders" as demanded by the Lebanese delegation to the Peace Conference in 1920).
May 23, 1926: Foundation of the Lebanese Republic.
1943: Proclamation of the Lebanese Independence.
1946: End of the French presence in Lebanon.
1950s: Period of prosperity only troubled by the Nasser revolution of 1958.
1960s-1970s: Lebanon maintains its dynamism in a troubled environment (Israelo-Arab wars)
1975: Start of the war; religious fractioning of Lebanon.
1976: Syrian intervention.
1978 and June 1982: Israeli invasions.
1989: "Taef agreements" that found the Second Republic.
April
Sad result of a 16-days war, from April 11 to 26 [Operation Grapes of Wrath launched by Israel]. 164 dead, 351 wounded, 400, 000 people displaced and half a billion dollars' worth of material losses, especially in the sectors of tourism, agriculture, electricity, water and road infrastructure.
Seventeen countries have answered the UN's call in favor of the victims of the war in the South. Nearly 11 million dollars were promised.
Massive French help to repair the electric power stations damaged by israeli bombings.
May
Lebanese students... young wiz. This year the Lebanese are more numerous than candidates from other countries to present entrance exams to the grat Schools in europe and the States. Their number is even superior to that of Canadians, who usually have the highest participation rate.
April
The return of the Festival of Baalbek is announced for this summer. It had been interrupted by war in 1974.
June
At the general assembly of the UN, 107 countries have adopted a resolution charging Israel with the entire responsibility for the shelling of the Fidjian encampment in Cana where 105 civilian refugeed had found death. Israel is therefore to pay 1.7 million dollars of compensation for the material damages caused by the shelling on April 18 1996.
October
Two sticks of dynamite explode on the night of October 23 inside AUB campus near the Chemistry Building, seemingly as an anonymous student's protest against the arrival of the new AUb president Dr. John Waterbury. Other than a car and a couple of faŤades, noone was hurt.
October
"Freedom, sovereignty, independence..." Slogans supporting freedom of opinion and of expression were chanted by protesters on December 14 in front of the locals of Mtv, to which the Minsitry of Information had forbidden the broadcasting of a live interview of general Michel Aoun. About 60 of general Aoun's partisans were manhandled and arrested under pretext that they represented a threat to "national security". University students, lawyers, parliamentaries reacted in outrage at those prohibitions that violate democracy in Lebanon.
June
After 35 yars of interruption, the electoral machine of the municipalities is back into gear. It was about time: over 70% of the municipalities functioned partially or not at all.
The elections that already took place in Mount Lebanon and in the North registered a massive participation of electors (contrarily to the period of the legislative elections) and the marked presence of female candidates in the electoral battle.
Eligible candidates are anyone above 25, with no criminal record, and who can read and write.
[Update: the participation rate in Beirut did not go beyond 35%, while it reached 65% in Saida, 50% in Tyre and 90% in some localities...]
February
On the 7th and 8th of February, Israeli bombings harrass the power plants of Jamhour, Ain Aboul and Baalbek. The damage is enormous and the larger part of the country can only be provided with 6 to 12 hours of electricity per day for over a year. 20 people are wounded. Egyptian president Moubarak visits Lebanon personally as a sign of protest, followed by several Saudi, Iranian and Jordanian figures. Lebanon receives a help of 40 billion Lebanese pounds for the repair.
May
After 22 years of occupation, Israel retreats from southern Lebanon much sooner than expected (they had announced the departure for July 7, 2000). Resolution 425, voted in 1978, is finally applied and UNO redraws the blue line (the frontier) between the two countries. But Israel still occupies zones inside the Lebanese territory. The year ends on a sad truth: there are still some 130, 000 landmines buried and scattered over the 850 km2 of the old occupied zone.
Bab Fatmeh, on the frontier, has become since June a place of political pilgrimage. The population irritated by so many years of occupation expresses their joy of the retreat by throwing stones at the Israeli military post.
6000 schoolchildren from the zone that Israel occupied discover Beirut for the first time, in a guided tour. Overwhlemed with emotion, the young southerners who never had the chance of leaving their occupied territory before spontaneoulsy danced the dabkeh down town.
For the first time in 24 years, the Syrian presence in Lebanon is questioned by patriarch Sfeir, followed by the deputy Walid Joumblatt. a return of the army towards Damascus is begun, and 50 Lebanese prisoners, held in Syria for over 20 years, are released. Dozens of other Lebanese are still prisoners or missing.
October
The country is bent under a debt evaluated at 21 billion dollars. In the year 2000 much less money is circulating in Lebanon. 68% of the Lebanese live under the standard level, 48% in poverty. Many students have to leave school, unable to pay the tuition.
December
54 Lebanese prisoners, held for decades in Syria, were rapatriated to Lebanon. Among them political prisoners, Christian and Muslim opposants to the Syrian regime... Syria claims not to hold any more Lebanese prisoners in its jails. But NGOs and parents committees demand the opening of investigations regarding an estimate of 172 prisoners that haven't been heard of for 20 years.
Massed at the israelo-Lebanese border, young Lebanese and Palestinian schoolchildren started to dazzle the enemy with rays of light using a piece of mirror that, reflecting the sunlight directly in the eyes of Israeli soldiers, forced them to look away or bend their heads.
February
3rd: Students of the "terminale" classes [the final year of high school that is a supplementary year compared to the US] manifest to protest against the difficulty of the new syllabus: 16 subjects, short reading period, difficulty in assimilating the 3rd language...
August
For the first time since 1960 a religious figure visits the Chouf area: Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir, the Maronite Patriarch, toured it for 3 days as a symbol of reconciliation between the Christian and Druize community and of a belief in coexistence in the Great Lebanon. The patriarch encouraged the youth to live as brothers in the diversity of religious convictions and to remain aware of society's affairs. He bravely stood for sovereignty and independance of Lebanon.
The day after Sfeir's visit in the Chouf, the army's intelligence services proceeded to arbitrary arrests among the superiors and militants of the Aounist and Lebanese Forces formations. For the first time since 1994, two high responsables of the christian opposition are arrested: Toufic Hindi, former political adviser to Samir Geagea, and brigadier Nadim Lteif, official representative of the aounist current in Lebanon. The democratic Forum that regroups Kornet Chehwane, the PSP, PC and Muslim opposition figures, rise against these arrests. The rift widens between the population and the State that justifies those arrests by invoking "the Israeli conspiracy" and the "partition" that threatens the country. The Lebanese discover upsetting images of violence against the sympathisers who demonstrate peacefully to express their solidarity with their companions. Washington, Paris, the European Union and the Vatican denounce those arrests. Lteif and several others are released, but Hindi and other prisoners await the decision over their fate in jail. [Hindi will be released over a year later].
November
Ever since Hezbollah shelled the hamlets of Chebaa (still occupied by the Israeli army), on the 22 of October, the Israeli airforce flies over Lebanese territory on a daily basis. Sonic booms are regularly heard in the South and in Tripoli.
France is helping Lebanon with landmines. 100 Lebanese militaries will be trained in France for 5 years to specialize in removing them. Let us remind that every month, many people are victims of the explosions of landmines in South Lebanon.
June
Kofi Anan's personal representative handed to the chief of Parliament Nabih Berry a map of mined lands in southern Lebanon. This map represents the placement of over 400 000 mines. The UN drew this map based on information from the Israeli army and the inhabitants of the South. Continuous mine clearance manages to extract 200 landmines a day.
July
The Parliament finally voted a code of protection of the environment. From now on nature in all its forms must be protected, rubbish better managed, and polluters punished. The great novelty introduced by this code is the creation of a national environment council in charge of examining environmental problems before submitting them to the Council of ministers.
January
8000 Lebanese and Palestinians protest against an American strike in Iraq. Kamikaze islamists join the ranks of those who say no to the "butshery".
February
New security measures are imposed at the Palace of Justice in Beirut following several incidents: aggression against judge Nachar, discovery of a grenade in front of judge Masri's door.
The municipal council of 12-year-old children is elected (10 girls and 4 boys). On the program: save the environment, create public libraries, and sensibilise the youth against drugs.
April
April 15: Mr. Hariri resigns from the cabinet. The next day, 72% of deputies reelect him. He forms a new government of 30 mnisters. It is the 3rd government under President Lahoud' mandate.
Attack against McDonald's in Dora. The authors are islamists who seek to damage American interests. [All McDonald's are now under constant army protection]
Record-breaking statistics of a tough winter: 898 mm of rain have fallen in Lebanon. Temperatures have reached 0°C in Beirut several times. In OUyoun-el-Simane, 6m of snow have caused accidents that cost two people their lives.
May
Iranian President Khatami stays in Lebanon 3 days during which he condemns violence and terrorism based on religion [and praises Lebanon for being a model to all of the Middle East as the region's sole democracy].
May 16: Pope John-Paul II canonizes the blessed Neemtallah Hardini (1808-1858), monk of the Maronite Order. The ceremony unfolds in the Vatican, attended by the President of the Republic and his spouse, accompanied by an official delegation as well as numerous Lebanese. Hardini is our 3rd national saint after St Charbel and St Rafka.
The website of the Bank of Lebanon is paralyzed several hours by Israeli hackers protesting the Palestinian suicide bombings.
Violent fights in the Palestinian camps of Ain el Heloue between the Fath and the partisans of Isbat-el-Nour.
The American consulate opens its gates in Awkar to facilitate administrative and visa formalities to the Lebanese.
October
October 12 is declared Day of the Apple. An action to help Lebanese agricultors sell their harvest, increasingly hard to export.
November
Marie Abou Khaled, 8 years old, represents Lebanon at the international singing competition Zecchino d'Oro. She earns the 2nd place.
The plan for the implantation of the Palestinian in Lebanon is totally rejected by president Lahoud. He asserts that this decision will tolerate no interpretation and that his position is shared by all of the Lebanese.
January
National campaign against the death penalty [abolished at the beginning of Lahoud's mandate and recently re-instated]. The Fondation des Droits de l'Homme et du Droit Humanitaire (FDHDH) denounced the deathpenalty, evoking article 3 of the Constitution, which stipulates that every individual has a right to life, freedom and physical integrity.
Vestiges of the 2000 Israeli retreat: the Lebanese army has announced that during the past 6 months over a million square meters of South Lebanon have been cleared of mines by local and foreign experts. In total, 8,000 landmines and explosive objects have been defused. Campaigns for clearing mines initiated by the army and the national commission of mine clearing are ongoing throughout Lebanon, and remind citizens to be wary of suspicious objects.
1,125,950 tourists visited Lebanon in 2003. The influx reached its peak during August, while the months of MArch, April and May suffered from the Iraqi war. Arab visitors represent 43% of the total, followed by Europeans and Asians. In October 2003 Newsweek had mentioned that Beirut was among the 12 capitals of fashion, alongside Los Angeles and Paris. An advertising campaign for Lebanon will be launched on CNN at the end of January. It will cost the pretty sum of a million dollars.
February
President Lahoud on official visit in Brazil, a country with nearly 8 million inhabitants of Lebanese origins. The president would like to encourage the emigrants to invest into Lebanon and return often to the motherland.
April
The minister of the interior has announced that nearly 4,000 people having obtained the Lebanese nationality will see it taken away from them. The concerned are Palestinian nationals and foreigners not installed in Lebanon, that had obtained the citizenship illegally in 1994.
Significant numbers: 202,422 tourists visited Lebanon during the first trimester of 2004, compared to 151,844 in the first trimester of 2003. Arab tourists come first (40%) followed by Europeans (27%) then Asians (16%). According to the touristic authorities, if the progression goes on, Lebanon could top the number of a million visitors reached last year, which would represent a record not reached in 30 years.
July
On Saturday 9 a small plane was forced to make an emergency landing on the high-traffic highway of Jnah. A Cessna 172, the plane was on a training flight when it underwent technical problems. The pilot was quick enough to put his head out the window and ask some drivers to stop the traffic. Nobody was hurt and the plane wasn't damaged.
On July 15 journalists, lawyers, engineers, doctors, merchants, industrialists and particulars are keeping their mobile phones shut for the day as a protest against the price of communications, for which Lebanon is the most expensive country in the region.
General procuror of the Republic, Adnan Addoum, has decided to shut the quarries functioning illegally since the ministerial decision of October 2002. It was about time to regulate a situation become chaotic. Four petitions to open quarries have been rejected already. Will the powers that be stand fast?
Outburst of violence on the southern border. The Israeli army fired several shells on Hezbollah observation posts in the villages of Blatt and Aita Chaab a few hundred meters from the blue line. One extremist fighter and two Israeli soldiers were killed. That evening, the Israeli fleet caused two supersonic booms by breaking the sound barrier at a low altitude over Beirut. This Israeli warning moved Lebanon to file a complaint at the Un Security Council.
Come from 30 countries of the diaspora, 300 young emigrants have participated in a vast meeting camp organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The organisers encouraged the youths to keep Lebanon in their hearts. Moreover Planet Lebanon 2004, a congress meant to strengthen the bonds between resident and expatriate Lebanese, took place in Beirut. Capitals sent every year by the Lebanese abroad to the homeland amount to $4 billion. The diaspora could contribute in saving the Lebanese economy.
September
For the third time in less than 10 years, the Lebanese Constitution is modified. This amendment touches solely article 49, that forbids the reelection of the President for a second mandate.
Emile Lahoud, elected President of the Republic in 1998, could not see his mandate renewed 6 years later unless the deputies modified article 49, with the agreement of the government. This modification, which took place on September 1st (96 for, 29 against and 3 abstentions), permits Emile Lahoud's reconduction for 3 more years. This has caused numerous reactions on the local and international scenes.
In Lebanon. The pro-reconduction justify their choice: They consider Lahoud's reelection preserves civil peace and coexistence between Christians and Muslims. For them, President Lahoud is the onyl one who can face the challenges that threaten national interest in the face of Israel. They consider him as the main protector of the resistance that led to the liberation of the South. Finally, they support their arguments on the fact the current regional situation does not permit the election of a new figure.
The anti-reconduction and more particularly Patriarch Sfeir and the Kornet Chehwan group demand the election of a new president "made in Lebanon", without foreign interference [read: not puppeted by Syria] so that he may freely take decisions in the interest of his country, especially concerning the re-balancing of Lebano-Syrian relations. With the Joumblatt block, they also demand the respect of the Lebanese Constitution and its non-modification, so as not to pave the road for eventual pressures, like those that would impose the implantation of the Palestinians in Lebanon. For certain deputies, a new mandate would only be a prolongation to the economical crisis and daily conflicts between decision-making poles. Finally the anti-reconductions find that Pres. Lahoud never respected his investiture speech and hold him partly responsible for the events of August 7, 2001 during which younths were beaten up as well as in the closing of the Mtv station following ex-deputy Gabriel Murr's election.
On the international scene. Facing the direct interference of Syria in Lebanon's presidential race, the Security Council of the UN votes, the day before the amendment, resolution 1559 denouncing, essentially, the foreign seizure and the undemocratic election process.
Resolution 1559: All foreign forces must retire from Lebanon. Lebanon's sovereignty must be respected, its authority must be exclusively in the hands of the government and be exercised on its whole territory. All foreign and Lebanese militias must be disarmed. The Lebanese government must be extended throughout the territory. Presidential elections must take place in a free and democratic way and according to the Constitution. The concerned parties must cooperate with this resolution. A report from the secretary general will follow the resolution's implementation.
A room for underage victims of mistreatment has been inaugurated in the Palace of Justice in Beirut. It is equipped with audio and video apparel to gain the most information in the least number of auditions for these children and adolescents victims of penal infractions, particularly sexual.
Announced by the Syrian minister of Defense from Washington, the retreat of the Syrian army from Lebanon limited itself to 3000 soldiers leaving their small posts to move to the Bekaa. While waiting for the report of the UN general secretary on resolution 1559, the Lebanese meditate over their fate and that of the 18,000 Syrian soldiers still residing in Lebanon.
October
The Syrian army has definitely left the localities of Damour, Khalde and Doha south of Beirut. This retreat will encourage the return of hundreds of inhabitants displaced from those areas since the beginning of the war, especially after the Damour massacre by the Palestinians.
Car bomb: all of Lebanon condemned the assassination attempt on minister Marwan Hamade, that killed his bodyguard. [To put things in perspective: Hamade is part of the Joumblatt block that strenuously criticised Syria after the elections fiasco]
November
Thousands of crickets invested the caza of Jbeil, the Metn and the Saida area. Caried by warm winds, they arrived from Lybia via Egypt,Crete and Cyprus. This kind of invasion is not a first: in 1916 the country had known a terrible famine caused by the massive arrival of crickets. Towns have been mobilized and the danger has been averted. Fortunately the rains were particularly late this year and the ground was too dry for them to lay eggs, so there is little risk of seeing them show up again as larvae in the spring.
Prime minister Omar Karame has asserted his wish to revise the matter of military duty, in accordance with the commander of the Lebanese Army and hwile preserving its interests. Military duty prompts thousands of young men to emigrate every year in order to pursue their studies or professional carreer abroad.
A few days before the November 22 parade, the Statue of the Martyrs is back in its place. Pierced and mutilated by shrapnel, it had been removed 8 years prior to be restored. The bronze statue represents a woman holding aloft the flame of liberty. With the other hand she leads a young man, while at their feet lie two other martyrs. The work is that of an Italian sculptor, Mazacurati, who'd been commissioned the statue by the Beirut Municipality. It had been inaugurated by President Fouad Chehab on May 6, 1960.
| Articles © Joumana Medlej |