SEPTEMBER 8th, known as
Tisha B'Av in the Hebrew calendar, was the day that the First Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC.
September 8th,
Tisha B'Av, is the day the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
Historian Josephus recorded over a million Jews died as the Roman army laid siege, led by the future Roman Emperor Titus.
The
Temple treasures were carried to Rome, being memorialized on the Arch
of Titus, and used to finance the building of the Rome's Colosseum.
Tisha B'Av is
the day Romans massacred of over 100,000 Jews at Betar in 132 AD, as
well as the date of other Jewish massacres throughout the centuries,
including the Nazi Holocaust.
In 135 AD, after Bar Kokhba's
revolt, Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed the Province "Syria Palaestina,"
and renamed Jerusalem "Aelia Capitolina," in an attempt to erase Jewish
history from the area.
Jews
were banned from entering Jerusalem on pain of death, though in 325 AD,
Jews were allowed to enter once a year to pray at the Western Wall on
Tisha B'Av.
Tish B'Av is
believed to have been the day that 10 of the 12 spies Moses sent into
the Promised Land discouraged the Israelites from possessing the land.
The Land of Israel was invaded or occupied by:
390 AD Byzantine Empire
614 AD Sassanid Persians
635 AD Umayyad Caliphate
750 AD Abbasid Caliphate
909 AD Fatimid Caliphate
1071 AD Seljuk Turks
1099 AD Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem
1187 AD Ayyubid Sultanate
1260 AD Mongolian Empire
1291 AD Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt
1517 AD Ottoman Sultanate
1660 AD Druze Dynasty
1799 AD French Napoleon
1844 AD Tanzimat Ottoman Empire
1864 AD Ottoman Vilayet of Syria
1917 AD Britain Mandate, issuing the Balfour Declaration establishing the Jewish homeland.
On
May 14, 1948 AD, the Nation of Israel came into being again, and after
the 1967 War, Jerusalem was once again under Jewish control.
Jerusalem was reaffirmed as Israel's capital with "The Basic Law: Jerusalem, the Capital of Israel," passed in 1980.
For centuries, people desired to pilgrimage to Jerusalem, including Abraham Lincoln.
A
scrapbook in the Library of Congress contains the account of Rev. N.W.
Miner of Springfield, who officiated at Lincoln's burial, recalling
President Lincoln's last words while at Ford's Theater with his wife:
"Mrs.
Lincoln informed me that...the very last moments of his conscious life
were spent in conversation with her about his future plans...
He
said he wanted to visit the Holy Land and see those places hallowed
by the footprints of the Saviour. He was saying there was no city he so
much desired to see as Jerusalem."
Get the book, America's God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations 
Israel
was pressured by the U.S. to evacuate its Gaza region in exchange for a
promise of peace, with the last residents being forced out on August
22, 2005.
The
next day, on the other side of the world, a tropical depression turned
into Hurricane Katrina which headed for New Orleans, forcing tens of
thousands to evacuate.
With property damage estimated at $81 billion and nearly 2,000 people dead, it was the deadliest hurricane in U.S. history.
On SEPTEMBER 8, 2005, President Bush declared a Day of Prayer and Remembrance, saying:
"Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters in our
Nation's history and has caused unimaginable devastation and heartbreak
throughout the Gulf Coast Region...
Communities...decimated... Lives...lost... Hundreds of thousands of our fellow Americans are suffering great hardship."
President Bush continued:
"To honor the memory of those who lost their lives, to provide comfort and strength to families of the victims...
I call upon all Americans to pray to Almighty God and to perform acts of service...
Across our Nation, many selfless deeds reflect the promise of the Scripture:
'For I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in.'"
Get the DVD, Change to Chains (eight 30 minute episodes)Watch
Faith in History
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