On October 2, 1187, one of history’s most significant sieges ended: The Siege of Jerusalem in which Saladin captured Jerusalem after 88 years of Crusader rule.
Digging Deeper
Jerusalem must hold some kind of record for the number of times a city has been besieged or at least sought after by so many different people over such a long expanse of history. Long before the Crusades, the originally Hebrew city had been besieged by Egyptians in 925 B.C., Assyrians in 701 B.C., Babylonians in 597 B.C. and again in 587 B.C., Romans in 63 B.C., Herodians in 37 B.C., Romans again in 70 A.D., Persians in 614 A.D., and Arabs in 637 A.D. During that time, control of Jerusalem switched around among monotheistic Jews, Christians, and Muslims in addition to various polytheists. In 1099, during the First Crusade, Christian forces successfully recaptured the city from Muslims after nearly five hundred years of Islamic control of one of the world’s purportedly holiest cities.
