Tuesday (24 July) is Ninth of Av 2007 (5767)

According to the Talmud, other disastrous events such as the following occurred on Av 9: the decree that the Jews would wander 40 years in the wilderness; the fall of Bethar in AD 135, ending the second Jewish revolt against Rome; and the establishment in 131 AD of a pagan temple in Jerusalem. Let's not forget the Arab intifada, the many Russian pogroms, the massacres of Jews in Europe by Hitler, and also by the Christian crusaders en route the holy land. Then there was also the expulsion of the Jews from Britain in 1290 A.D. and later from Spain in 1492.  Recently, there was the expulsion of 9,000 Jews from their homes in Gaza by the Israeli Government itself.  This Gaza Disengagement happened in 2005, on the tenth of Av.

This day is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar due to all the tragedies that have happened on this particular day to the Jewish people.

on the ninth of Av. ...On the ninth of Av it was decreed that our fathers should not enter the [Promised] Land, the Temple was destroyed the first and second time, Bethar was captured and the city [Jerusalem] was ploughed up. -Mishnah Ta'anit 4:6

...Should I weep in the fifth month (Av), separating myself, as I have done these so many years? -Zechariah 7:3


(1312 B.C.) The sin of the spies caused Hashem to decree that the Children of Israel who left Egypt would not be permitted to enter the land of Israel

on the ninth of Av. ...On the ninth of Av it was decreed that our fathers should not enter the [Promised] Land, the Temple was destroyed the first and second time, Bethar was captured and the city [Jerusalem] was ploughed up. -Mishnah Ta'anit 4:6

(586 B.C.) The first Temple (Bait Hamikdash) was destroyed:

And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem: And he burnt the house of the LORD, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man's house burnt he with fire. -II Kings 25:8-9

Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, which served the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem, And burned the house of the LORD, and the king's house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the houses of the great men, burned he with fire: And all the army of the Chaldeans, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down all the walls of Jerusalem round about. . - Jeremiah 52:12-14

How then are these dates to be reconciled? On the seventh the heathens entered the Temple and ate therein and desecrated it throughout the seventh and eighth and towards dusk of the ninth they set fire to it and it continued to burn the whole of that day. ... How will the Rabbis then [explain the choice of the 9th as the date]? The beginning of any misfortune [when the fire was set] is of greater moment. -Talmud Ta'anit 29a

(70 A.D.) The second Temple was destroyed-over 2.5 million killed

(135 A.D.) Betar, the last fortress to hold out against the Romans during the Bar Kochba revolt fell-over 100,000 killed

(131 A.D.)  The Temple area was plowed and the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina was built by the emperor Hadrian in the year 131, and occupied by a Roman colony, on the site of Jerusalem, which was in ruins when he visited his dominion known as Syria Palæstina.

Aelia" came from Hadrian's nomen gentile, Aelius, while "Capitolina" meant that the new city was dedicated to Jupiter Capitolinus, to whom a temple was built on the site of the Jewish temple.

(1095 A.D.) First Crusade declared by Pope Urban II -10,000 Jews killed in the first month by crusaders en route the holy land

(1190 A.D.) The anti-Jewish riots and the mass suicide of the Jews of York, England in 1190.

(1290 A.D.) Expulsion of Jews from England. On this day in 1290, King Edward I signed the edict compelling the Jews to leave England.

(1306 A.D.) On July 22, 1306, the tenth of Av, the Jews of France were arrested and ordered to leave the country. Approximately 100,000 were forced to wander in search of new homes, and many perished along the way. The Jewish community was not aware of the planned expulsion, as France's king, Phillip the 'Fair', did not want them to flee in advance with their assets. One of the monarch's motives for expelling the Jews was financial. Phillip saw plundering Jewish wealth as a way to shore up France's economic woes.

(1492 A.D.) King Ferdinand of Spain issued the expulsion decree by order of the Spanish inquisition, setting Tisha B'Av as the final date by which not a single Jew would be allowed to walk on Spanish soil. The Alhambra Decree, issued March 31, 1492, ordered all Jews (200,000) to leave Spain by the end of July 1492. July 31, 1492 was Tisha B'Av.

(1905 A.D.) On August 11,1905, the tenth of Av, the British Aliens Act was passed. In the late 19th century, England was a haven for tens of thousands of Jews fleeing oppression in Russia. Many of the immigrants made their way to the East End of London. Their continuous flow had slowly aroused the opposition of many British lawmakers. Some as far back as the 1880's dubbed the immigration wave, "the alien invasion."

(1914 A.D.) World War I – which began the downward slide to the Holocaust – began on Tisha B’av.

(1929 A.D.) On this very same date (Tisha B'Av), the Arabs began their riots in the city of Jerusalem, which resulted in great tragedy, including the Jewish massacre in Hebron (Chevron). On the tenth of Av in 1929, Arab hatred of Zionism once again boiled over into full-scale riots. On August 16, 1929, as a newly constructed door near the Wall was opened, Jewish worshippers were attacked, despite British assurances.

The next day, thousands of Arabs armed with clubs, swords and daggers converged upon the Mosque of Omar to hear impassioned hate speeches. The cry of "slaughter the Jews" spread throughout the Holy Land. Over the next ten days, Arab riots would take the lives of 133 Jews and leave 339 wounded. In Hebron and elsewhere, Jewish communities were ravaged by Arab mobs.

Throughout the Arab world, mass demonstrations were held in sympathy with the Palestinian Arabs. In Iraq, 10,000 assembled in anger over the victims of "British Zionist aggression." This pressured the British to yield to Arab terms: Passfield White Paper of 1929, and the MacDonald White Paper of 1939 imposed severe restrictions on Jewish immigration into the Land of Israel -- subject to Arab consent.

(1942 A.D.) Deportation of Jews from Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka Concentration Camp began on this day in 1942.

(1989 A.D.) Iraq walks out on talks with Kuwait

(1994 A.D.) Bombing of the JCC in Buenos Aires, Argentina-86 killed

(2005 A.D.) In 2005, on the tenth of Av, the government of Israel began the Gaza Disengagement, where 9,000 Jewish residents were evicted from their homes. Despite mass rallies against the disengagement, and an orange-ribbon campaign, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon implemented the plan with the hope of reducing security concerns and diffusing the demographic problem of Gaza's 1.5 million Arabs. Upon completion of the evacuation, all 21 Jewish communities in Gaza were bulldozed and destroyed. Only the synagogues were left standing; these were then torched by Arab mobs.

NOTE: 1492 expulsion -
If you use a Jewish calendar converter to check this, it may show July 31 as the 27th of Tammuz. If so, the converter has failed to take into account the Gregorian Reformation, which skipped 11 days on the calendar. If you add the 11 missing days and convert August 11 instead of July 31, you will see that "August 11" is 9 Av.