Judea. When the First Jewish-Roman War broke out in Judea, Gallus decided to march there with his troops, which included the Legio XII Fulminata; he conquered Beit She’arim, seat of the Sanhedrin (the supreme Jewish political-religious court), but was unable to retake Jerusalem. During a retreat, he was ambushed by Eleazar ben Simon (Lazarus son of Simon) at Bethoron: in the battle, he lost almost his entire legion (5,880 men). During the retreat, he was pursued by enemy forces, who surrounded him: he managed to escape and take refuge in Antioch only with the loss of many men and much material. Gallus died shortly thereafter, in early 67: the emperor Nero replaced him with Gaius Licinius Mucianus (who would become legate of Syria) and Titus Flavius Vespasianus, who was charged with crushing the rebels in Judea.

The passage of a bright comet. The Romans linked it to the death of Octavia, Nero’s wife.

Martyrdom of James the Lesser

Britain. The Romans annex the Iceni territory in East Anglia after the death of their king Prasutagus. This sparks a revolt led by his widow, Boudicca, which spreads across much of southeastern Britain. Camulodunum (Colchester), Londinum (London), and Verulamium (St. Albans) are burned. Boudicca is later defeated by an overwhelming Roman army, sent by governor Gaius Suetonius Paulnus, at the Battle of Watling Street. She dies shortly thereafter.

The queen of the Celts (Belgians), Voadicea (Boadicca), leads the last Celtic revolt against the Romans in England; after the defeat she commits suicide.

India. The first Christians, mostly from Syria, arrived in India with St. Thomas. Groups of Jews arrived in India after the diaspora in 70 AD. The Christian community that settled there during these years has survived to this day. The Syro-Marabrese Church was recognized as autonomous by the Vatican in 1992.

Hero of Alexandria built an aeolipile machine. It consisted of a hollow sphere filled with water and two pipes emerging at perpendicular angles. If the sphere was heated until the water boiled, the escaping steam caused the sphere to rotate. About a century earlier, the Roman architect Vitruvius had described it in his Architectura. But Hero’s machine was used only for entertainment.

Africa. Roman exploratory mission (Flaccus) through Libya and Niger, as far as Chad and Nigeria.

Buddhism arrives in China

Emperor Claudius adopts Nero, son of his second wife Agrippina, to the detriment of Britannicus, son of his with Messalina.

Claudius conquers southern Britain and founds Londinum (London – London)

Emperor Claudius legalizes flatulence at Roman banquets

Claudius is Roman Emperor

Death of James, the eldest

Luke the Evangelist Converts to Christianity

Alexandria, Egypt. The first historically attested massacre of a Jewish community in the diaspora. The causes appear to have been political, rather than religious.

Caligula is Roman Emperor

St. Peter is the first Pope

King Philip of Herod of Palestine dies and the territory passes under the direct control of Rome

(Roger Bacon’s 13th-century date based on astronomical calculations.) Jesus Christ (Yeoshua ben Yosef) is crucified near Jerusalem (the exact year is unknown, but it is certainly between 26 and 36, when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea).

Martyrdom of Stephen

Palmyra, present-day Syria. The city was part of the Roman Empire, but not under the “metropolitan” state of Cologne. Of the monuments that survived until the 21st century (and were then partially or totally destroyed by ISIS), only the temple remained. The other monuments (the enclosure, porticoes, theater, roads, pagan and later Christian sanctuaries) were built over the next two hundred years.

(Date of the Church of Alexandria and later Byzantine). Jesus Christ (Yeoshua ben Yosef) is crucified near Jerusalem (the exact year is unknown, but it is certainly between 26 and 36, when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea).

(Tertullian’s date – 3rd century). Jesus Christ (Yeoshua ben Yosef) is crucified near Jerusalem (the exact year is unknown, but it is certainly between 26 and 36, when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea).

The cult of John the Baptist, the Messiah who was in some ways a rival to Jesus Christ, reaches its peak; John the Baptist will be executed by King Herod, who considered him a threat given his popularity in the Roman Empire; at that point, most of John the Baptist’s followers will recognize Jesus as the Messiah; but a small portion, the Mandaeans, will continue to venerate John the Baptist up to the present day (for example, in the north of what is now Iraq).

12 apostles: Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas Iscariot, and the thirteenth: the apostle Paul

(Date of the Church of Rome). Jesus Christ (Yeoshua ben Yosef) is crucified near Jerusalem (the exact year is unknown, but it is certainly between 26 and 36, when Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea).

Ministry of John the Baptist; beginning of the public life of Jesus (Yeoshua ben Yosef)

Eurasia. Grains, originally grown only in the Fertile Crescent, are now cultivated from the Atlantic coast of Europe to the Pacific coast of Japan, a distance of 14,000 kilometers—the greatest uninterrupted east-west distance (required for uniform climatic conditions) on the entire planet.

Roman Empire money was accepted for commercial transactions as far away as India, where it was even meticulously imitated, with coins minted featuring the portrait of the Roman Emperor.

The Indo-Iranian religion, that is the cult of Mithra, spreads in the Roman Empire, which sets the celebration of the winter solstice on December 25th, considered the birth of Mithra-Sun, which later became the Christmas of Christ for Christians.

Birth of Christ according to tradition. Although most Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th, during the first two centuries of Christianity, there was no precise information regarding the day or year of his birth, and most interest was focused on his death. However, at the beginning of the 4th century, religious authorities designated December 25th, the birthday of Mithras, a popular pagan deity, as the official birth date of Jesus Christ. The celebration of Jesus’ birth also coincided with the pagan celebration of the winter solstice, which fell in late December. Since then, December 25th has always been celebrated by Christians with a Mass. Today, a third of the world’s population celebrates Christmas on December 25th.

The first windows with transparent glass were found in the Roman Empire.

The city of Teotihuacan in Mexico begins its urban growth. Entire populations cross the Puebla Valley and the Basin of Mexico to escape the effects of seismic activity on its southern borders, including a Plinian eruption of the Popocatepetl volcano. Some of the abandoned villages bring with them their culture, which will characterize Teotihuacan: for example, Cuicuilco had a tradition of building pyramids (think of the incredible Step Pyramids of the Moon and the Sun in Teotihuacan), while in Tetimpa, archaeologists have unearthed houses that resemble those of Teotihuacan. The city can, to some extent, rely on the manpower and organization to build the pyramids (all without pack animals or metal tools). All these monumental constructions required sacrifices: in the two pyramids and the temple, the human remains of hundreds of victims of ritual killings were found, including the remains of newborns at the corners of the Pyramid of the Sun, and those of foreign prisoners, some of them mutilated or decapitated. The city of Teotihuacan initially took an authoritarian path, only to then, around 300 AD, drastically deviate towards an egalitarian one, without a military, religious, or administrative leadership. With the egalitarian shift, pyramid construction suddenly stopped, but they continued to be used until 550 AD, albeit for less lethal purposes, unknown to us, before being abandoned to the forest that would eventually engulf them. During the egalitarian period, Teotihuacanha provided more than decent stone houses for every family, not just the wealthy and privileged: complete sewer systems, finely plastered walls and floors, a comfortable lifestyle with a diet of corn tortillas, eggs, turkey, rabbit meat, and a milky drink called pulque, made from the fermentation of the thorny agave plant. We can certainly rule out any kind of top-down system, although there may have been some sort of neighborhood councils. Nevertheless, social tensions simmered between groups of different ethnic origins, which by 550 AD would tear the city’s social fabric apart. Things would disintegrate from within, and the population would disperse into the surrounding areas, just as rapidly as the city had emerged more than five centuries earlier.

Rome falls, end of a glorious era:Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, Diocletian divides the Roman Empire, Edict of Thessalonica: Christianity is the official religion of the Roman Empire

Meroe, Sudan. A bronze bust of Augustus is captured by warriors from the kingdom of Meroe, belonging to the one-eyed Queen Candace. Augustus Caesar is the emperor who rules the Roman Empire during the time of Jesus Christ’s birth. Queen Candace has the bust of Augustus brought to Meroe and buried in humiliating fashion beneath the entrance steps of a monument to victory over the Romans. It is a well-calculated insult to the arrogant aggression of the Roman Empire, which ends here, on the threshold of deepest Africa.

The Roman Empire under Augustus extended from Gibraltar and Spain to the Rhine, Bavaria, Austria, the Danube, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa

Egypt becomes a Roman province

The Roman Senate declares Mark Antony an enemy of Rome and strips him of all his offices.

Major invasion of Parthian Mesopotamia by the Romans under Antony from Armenia; the expedition, however, ends in complete disaster.

Israel. With the help of the Romans, who elected him king of Judea, Herod reclaims the country. He thus finds himself controlling a vast territory and rebuilds the Temple in Jerusalem.

Herod’s reign in Judea and Galilee.