1500 BC Jews adopt circumcision
The Jews adopt a long-established Egyptian ritual - the circumcision of boys

1250 BC I Am Who I Am
The god of the Hebrews, announcing to Moses 'I Am Who I Am', acquires his name - YHWH, meaning 'He Who Is'

1200 BC Ark contains covenant
Stone tablets, engraved by Moses to signify God's covenant with his people, are placed in a sacred chest - the ark of the covenant

1000 BC Jews write down Torah
The Jews write down the Torah, the earliest part of the text subsequently known to Christians as the Old Testament

1000 BC Jews say only one God
The Israelites, settled in Canaan, become the first people in history to decide that their god is the only god

960 BC First Temple in Jerusalem
Solomon, the king of Israel, builds the first Temple in Jerusalem

586 BC Jews in captivity in Babylon
The Jews, taken into captivity in Babylon, form the first community of the Diaspora

580 BC Jews in Babylon develop synagogue
The synagogue, as a simple place of Jewish worship, develops during the Babylonian captivity

550 BC Idea of Messiah gives hope
The optimistic concept of the Messiah is part of the Jewish response to captivity in Babylon

539 BC Jews begin second Temple
Returning to Jerusalem, the Jews begin to rebuild the Temple

280 BC Jewish diaspora in Alexandria
The Jewish community of Alexandria coins the word diaspora for Jews living far from Israel

280 BC Septuagint in Alexandria
The Jews of Alexandria commission the Greek translation of the Old Testament which becomes known as the Septuagint

141 BC Simon the Maccabee for high priest
Simon the Maccabee is appointed high priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, with the position declared hereditary in his family

140 BC Sadducees and Pharisees
The priestly Sadducees are confronted in the Sanhedrin by a new opposition party - the Pharisees

100 BC Essenes live as monks
The Essenes, a Jewish sect, withdraw from secular life to form monastic communities in the desert

20 BC Herod begins new Temple
Herod the Great, king of Judaea, begins to build a spectacular new Temple for the Jews on the sacred mount in Jerusalem

68 Dead Sea Scrolls hidden
The Essenes hide their sacred scrolls in caves near the Dead Sea, to save them from the Romans

70 First yeshiva
The first yeshiva, established by Johanan ben Zakkai at Yavne, begins a strong tradition of Jewish scholarship in the Diaspora

73 Mass suicide at Masada
The last of the Jewish insurgents are besieged in the stronghold of Masada, eventually killing each other to end their ordeal

200 The Mishnah is compiled
Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi compiles the Mishnah, a six-part digest of the Oral Torah

245 Origen's Testament in six columns
Origen, living in Caesarea, compiles the Hexapla, displaying versions of the Old Testament in six columns for comparative study

300 Jewish Diaspora throughout Roman empire
The Jews of the Diaspora have by now spread through much of the Roman empire, where they are treated with tolerance

400 The first Talmud is compiled
The earlier of the two Talmuds, consisting of commentaries on the Mishnah, is collected by rabbis in Palestine

500 Masoretes preserve the Torah
The scribes known as Masoretes safeguard the ancient Hebrew of the Torah by their careful copying of the text

600 Gregorian chant from Jewish sources
Ritual intoning of the psalms, derived from Jewish synagogues, is formalized in Christian worship as Gregorian chant

650 Jews and Christians favoured in Qur'an
Jews and Christians, sharing with Muslims the status of 'people of the book', are promised religious tolerance in the Qur'an

750 Karaites rely on scripture alone
Karaism, relying on scripture rather than rabbinical commentary, develops among the Jewish community in Babylon

800 Jews prosper in Spain and Germany
The Jews prosper in the Muslim and Carolingian empires, forming strong communities in Spain and in Germany

930 Saadiah's Book of Beliefs
Saadiah Gaon writes a seminal work of Jewish philosophy in his Book of Beliefs and Opinions

1000 Jews as money-lenders
The Jews, barred from any work which Christians want to do, find profitable employment as money-lenders

1096 Jews massacred in German cities
The German crusade begins with a massacre of Jews in many of the region's cities

1099 Crusaders capture Jerusalem
Crusaders capture the holy city of Jerusalem and massacre the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants

1200 Jews accused of desecrating Host
The new Christian doctrine of Transubstantiation prompts rumours that the Jews desecrate the consecrated Host

1290 Zohar developed in Spain
The classical work of the Kabbalah, the Zohar, is almost certainly the work of the Spanish Kabbalist Moses de Leon

1348 Jews accused of poisoning wells
Massacres of Jews, rumoured to have caused the Black Death by poisoning wells, begin in southern France and spread through much of Europe

1492 Jews expelled from Spain
Torquemada persuades Ferdinand and Isabella to expel from Spain all Jews (about 160,000) who will not convert to Christianity

1492 Muslim Istanbul welcomes Jews
Bayazid II, the Turkish sultan, makes a special point of welcoming in Istanbul the Jews expelled from Spain

1516 First ghetto - in Venice
The original ghetto is established as a district to which the Jews of Venice are confined

1528 Bible studies affect divorce
Discussion of Henry VIII's proposed divorce hinges on rival verses from the Old Testament, in Deuteronomy and Leviticus

1656 Jews return to England
Jews return to England after Cromwell repeals the law of 1290 forbidding their residence in the country

1740 Hasidism develops in Poland
A charismatic leader, Baal Shem Tov, develops Hasidism in Poland as an influential revivalist movement within Judaism

1780 Mendelssohn leads the Jewish Enlightenment
In developing the Haskalah, the German philosopher Moses Mendelssohn reconciles Judaism and the Enlightenment

1818 Reform movement in Judaism
The first Reform congregation within Judaism is established in Germany, in the Hamburg Temple

1851 Rabbi Hirsch becomes neo-Orthodox
Samson Raphael Hirsch becomes rabbi of a synagogue in Frankfurt, where he develops the theme of neo-Orthodoxy

1858 Rothschild takes seat on revised oath
Lionel Nathan Rothschild becomes the first Jew to sit in Britain's House of Commons, taking his oath on the Old Testament

1881 Pogroms in Russia
The first pogroms, or officially sanctioned attacks on Jews and their property, take place in Russia

1882 European Jews settle in Palestine
The first settlements of European Jews, returning to the promised land, are established in Palestine

1896 Herzl argues for a Jewish state
Theodor Herzl publishes The Jewish State, calling for a national homeland for all Jews

1897 First Zionist Congress
The first Zionist Congress is held in Basel with Theodor Herzl in the chair

1917 Balfour Declaration
Foreign Secretary A.J. Balfour declares Britain's conditional support for a homeland in Palestine for the Jews

1920 Haganah founded in Palestine
The Haganah is set up as an underground military organization to protect Jewish settlements in Palestine

1929 Jews massacred in Hebron
Arabs in the Palestinian town of Hebron turn on their Jewish neighbours and murder sixty-seven

1931 Irgun founded in Palestine
Irgun, a new Jewish paramilitary group, is set up by Haganah commanders frustrated by the older organization's policies

1933 Hitler dismisses Jewish state employees
Adolf Hitler passes a law forcing the 'retirement' of all Jews working in the civil service, schools and universities

1935 Hitler curtails sexual freedom of Jews
Adolf Hitler promulgates a law prohibiting any sexual relationship between Jews and 'Aryans'

1935 Jews in Germany are non-citizens
New Nazi laws announced at Nuremberg strip Jews of their German citizenship

1938 Persecution in Nazi Austria
Left-wingers and Jews suffer immediate persecution in Nazi Austria, now part of Germany

1938 November 9 Kristallnacht in Germany
Nazi gangs smash the premises of Jews throughout Germany and Austria in a night that becomes known as Kristallnacht, the night of cut glass

1941&nbIsp; May Hitler sets up murder squads
In preparation for the invasion of Russia, Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler set up Special Task Commandos (Einsatzkommando) to exterminate Communists and Jews

1941 July 31 Plans for Final Solution
Goering orders Reinhard Heydrich to prepare plans for the 'final solution of the Jewish queston'

1941 October 16 'Final solution' in use as a phrase
Adolf Eichmann, in an official letter about policy in relation to the Jews, uses the phrase 'the final solution'

1941 December 7 Germans use gas to kill Polish Jews
In three adapted vans at Chelmno, in western Poland, the Germans begin using poison gas to kill Jews

1942 Anne Frank is given a diary
A Jewish girl in Amsterdam, Anne Frank, is given a diary for her thirteenth birthday

1942  from March Factories move to Auschwitz
German industrial enterprises are moved from the vulnerable Ruhr valley to the slave labour facilities of Auschwitz

1943  April 19 Germans destroy Warsaw ghetto
Jews in Warsaw resist a fierce German onslaught for a month before their ghetto is finally destroyed

1944 September Wallenberg saves Jews in Hungary
Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat in Budapest, saves thousands of Jews from extermination

1945 Six million Jews dead
By the end of the war the total number of Jews killed by the Nazis is around 6 million

1947 Boy finds Dead Sea Scroll
An Arab boy, herding goats in the Qumran desert, finds the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls