Food · c. 12,400 BCE
Did you know that the oldest known bread-like food, made from ground wild cereals and tubers, was found at Shubayqa 1 in northeastern Jordan and dates to about 14,400 years ago, roughly 4,000 years before farming began in the region.
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Archaeology · c. 12,000 years ago
Did you know that at Ain Mallaha in the Hula Valley, a Natufian burial of about 12,000 years ago held an elderly person laid to rest with a puppy, one of the earliest signs of a close bond between people and dogs.
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Archaeology · c. 8000 BCE
Did you know that Neolithic Jericho had a stone tower over 8.5 meters high with an internal staircase of 22 steps, built around 8000 BCE, making it one of the oldest monumental structures known anywhere.
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Archaeology · c. 7000 BCE
Did you know that Neolithic Jericho produced human skulls covered in plaster and modelled into faces, some with shells set in the eye sockets, a burial custom dated to around 7000 BCE and found at several sites of the southern Levant.
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Archaeology · c. 1350 BCE
Did you know that the Amarna letters, clay tablets sent to Egypt in the 14th century BCE, include messages from a ruler of Jerusalem named Abdi-Heba, among the earliest written mentions of the city by name, centuries after the Egyptian Execration texts.
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Archaeology · c. 1208 BCE
Did you know that the Merneptah Stele, an Egyptian victory monument of about 1208 BCE, contains the earliest known mention of Israel outside the Bible, listing it among peoples in Canaan.
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Archaeology · c. 880 BCE
Did you know that Sebastia near Nablus was the site of Samaria, capital of the northern kingdom of Israel founded by King Omri in about 880 BCE, and Herod later renamed it Sebaste in honor of Augustus.
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Archaeology · c. 701 BCE
Did you know that the Siloam inscription, found in 1880 in a tunnel in Jerusalem, records in Hebrew how diggers working from both ends met, and it is usually linked to King Hezekiah's water project.
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Archaeology · c. 588 BCE
Did you know that the Lachish letters, ink on pottery found in 1935 at Tell ed-Duweir, are Hebrew messages written from a Judahite outpost just before the Babylonian conquest of 586 BCE.
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Language · c. 450 BCE
Did you know that the Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BCE, used the term Palaestina Syria for the coastal region, an early step in the history of the name Palestine, which echoes Philistia.
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Geography · Present day
Did you know that Jericho lies about 258 meters below sea level, which makes it the lowest city in the world, and archaeologists trace its first settlement back to roughly 9000 BCE.
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Food · Traditional
Did you know that Nabulsi knafeh combines shredded pastry with a soft white brined cheese called jibneh Nabulsi, then sweet syrup and pistachios, and is among the best known desserts of Palestinian cuisine.
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Religion · Ancient
Did you know that the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron is traditionally held to be the burial place of Abraham and other biblical figures, and it is revered by Jews, Muslims and Christians, who call the city Hebron or al-Khalil.
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Archaeology · Antiquity
Did you know that Anthedon was the ancient harbour of Gaza, a Greek named port whose ruins lie on the Gaza coast and show that the Mediterranean trade of the city stretched back more than two thousand years.
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Culture · Medieval
Did you know that the Great Mosque of Gaza, also called the Omari Mosque, stands on a site said to have held earlier temples and a church, and its present structure combines Crusader and Mamluk building work.
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Archaeology · Second Temple period
Did you know that the settlement at Qumran, close to the caves of the Dead Sea Scrolls, is often linked to the Essenes, but scholars still debate who lived there and how the scrolls related to the site.
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Religion · Ancient
Did you know that Rachel's Tomb, on the northern edge of Bethlehem, is revered by Jews, Muslims and Christians as the burial place of the biblical matriarch Rachel, and it lies today beside the Israeli separation barrier.
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Geography · Ancient
Did you know that some olive trees in Palestine, such as the Al-Badawi tree in the village of Al-Walaja, are said by locals to be thousands of years old, though dating living olives with certainty is notoriously difficult.
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Religion · Present day
Did you know that the retaining wall on the western side of the Temple Mount is called the Western Wall by Jews and the Buraq Wall by Muslims, who link it to Muhammad's night journey.
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Religion · Ottoman period
Did you know that at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a Muslim family holds the key and another opens the door each day, a custom dating back centuries and used to avoid disputes among Christian communities.
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Food · Present day
Did you know that the Sea of Galilee is famous for tilapia, called St Peter's fish in English and musht in Arabic, served grilled at lakeside restaurants and linked in Christian tradition to the Gospel account of the fishermen.
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Geography · Present day
Did you know that the Dead Sea shore is the lowest dry land on Earth, more than 430 meters below sea level, and its water is about ten times saltier than the ocean.
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Religion · Ancient
Did you know that the word Armageddon comes from Har Megiddo, the hill of Megiddo overlooking the Jezreel Valley called Marj Ibn Amer in Arabic, an ancient battlefield on the road between Egypt and Mesopotamia.
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Politics · 72 CE
Did you know that Nablus takes its name from Neapolis, meaning New City, the Roman town of Flavia Neapolis founded in 72 CE beside an older settlement near ancient Shechem.
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Archaeology · 73 or 74 CE
Did you know that Masada, the desert fortress rebuilt by Herod the Great, fell to Rome in 73 or 74 CE according to Josephus, and its story of a mass suicide is debated by historians and archaeologists.
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Archaeology · c. 135 CE
Did you know that the Cave of Letters near the Dead Sea held documents from the Bar Kokhba revolt era, including the legal archive of a woman named Babatha, found in an expedition led by Yigael Yadin in 1960 and 1961.
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Religion · 326 to 339 CE
Did you know that construction of the first Church of the Nativity began in 326 under Emperor Constantine and the basilica was dedicated in 339, while its low entrance called the Door of Humility dates from Ottoman times.
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Religion · 483 CE
Did you know that Mar Saba, founded in 483 by Saint Sabbas in the Kidron Valley near Bethlehem, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited monasteries in the world and still has monks today.
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Geography · 6th century CE
Did you know that the Madaba Map, a 6th century mosaic in a church in Jordan, is the oldest surviving map of the Holy Land and shows Jerusalem, Jericho, Gaza and the Dead Sea in vivid detail.
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Religion · 614 CE
Did you know that when Persian forces took Palestine in 614, the Church of the Nativity was not destroyed, and a later legend says the invaders spared it after seeing Persian dress on the wise men in a mosaic.
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Religion · 691 or 692 CE
Did you know that the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem was completed by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik in about 692 and is among the oldest surviving works of Islamic architecture.
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Archaeology · c. 743 to 747 CE
Did you know that Hisham's Palace near Jericho, probably begun by Caliph al-Walid ibn Yazid rather than Hisham, was left unfinished and damaged by an earthquake in 747, yet its bath hall kept a famous mosaic floor showing a fruit tree.
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Science · c. 945 CE
Did you know that the geographer al-Muqaddasi, born in Jerusalem around 945, wrote a famous survey of the Islamic world, and he praised his hometown while describing the markets and customs of cities across the region.
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Geography · 1535 to 1542
Did you know that Jerusalem's Old City is divided into Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Armenian Quarters within walls built by the Ottoman sultan Suleiman between 1535 and 1542, and UNESCO listed it in 1981.
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Economy · 19th century
Did you know that Nablus once had about thirty soap factories in the nineteenth century, producing the olive oil soap known as Nabulsi soap, which is still made by the traditional method in only a few workshops.
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Economy · 19th century
Did you know that Jaffa oranges, the thick skinned Shamouti variety grown by Arab farmers around Jaffa, became a major export to Europe in the nineteenth century and the name Jaffa became a trade brand.
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Science · 1865
Did you know that the Palestine Exploration Fund, founded in London in 1865, sponsored the Survey of Western Palestine of 1871 to 1877, a map project of the land that later involved Kitchener and Conder.
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Archaeology · 1896 to 1897
Did you know that the Cairo Genizah, a storeroom in the Ben Ezra Synagogue, yielded about 300,000 manuscript fragments studied by Solomon Schechter from 1896, many of them letters and documents describing life in Palestine in the Middle Ages.
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Economy · 1 September 1908
Did you know that the Hejaz railway, built by the Ottomans and largely funded by donations from Muslims, reached Medina from Damascus in 1908, and a branch ran from Haifa toward the main line.
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Economy · 1918
Did you know that the first stamps used in occupied Palestine in 1918 were Egyptian stamps overprinted E.E.F. by the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force, before specially designed Palestine stamps appeared under the Mandate.
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Language · 1922
Did you know that under the League of Nations Mandate approved in 1922, English, Arabic and Hebrew were all official languages of Palestine, so stamps, coins and street signs carried all three scripts.
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Economy · 1927
Did you know that the Palestine pound was introduced in 1927, replacing the Egyptian pound in the Mandate, and it was fixed at par with the pound sterling, with notes printed in English, Arabic and Hebrew.
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Archaeology · 1928
Did you know that the Natufian culture takes its name from Wadi Natuf in the Judaean hills of the West Bank, where archaeologist Dorothy Garrod excavated Shuqba Cave in the 1920s and identified a people who harvested wild grain with stone sickles.
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Culture · 1 December 1932
Did you know that the English language newspaper The Palestine Post was founded in Jerusalem on 1 December 1932 and was renamed The Jerusalem Post in 1950, after the end of the British Mandate.
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Culture · 30 March 1936
Did you know that the Palestine Broadcasting Service began transmitting from Jerusalem in 1936, with programmes in Arabic, Hebrew and English, and it remained the Mandate's official radio voice until the Mandate ended in 1948.
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Archaeology · 1946 to 1947
Did you know that the Dead Sea Scrolls were first found in 1946 or 1947 in caves near Qumran by Bedouin shepherds, and the discovery, with ancient Hebrew texts a thousand years older than earlier copies, changed biblical studies.
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Politics · 1994
Did you know that the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize was shared by Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres for the Oslo agreements, the first time a Palestinian leader received the prize.
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Food · 1994
Did you know that the Taybeh Brewery, founded in 1994 in the Christian village of Taybeh near Ramallah, is the first Palestinian brewery and hosts an annual Oktoberfest each autumn.
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Sport · 8 June 1998
Did you know that the Palestine national football team gained FIFA membership in June 1998, and it went on to lose to Qatar 2 to 1 in the Asian Cup round of 16 on 29 January 2024.
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Economy · 24 November 1998
Did you know that Gaza International Airport, named for Yasser Arafat, opened on 24 November 1998 under the Oslo framework, but it stopped operating in October 2000 after the Second Intifada began, and its runway was destroyed in 2002.
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Politics · 31 October 2011
Did you know that Palestine became a full member of UNESCO on 31 October 2011 after a General Conference vote of 107 in favor and 14 against, with 52 abstentions.
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Religion · 2012
Did you know that the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, with the Pilgrimage Route, became the first Palestinian site on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2012 and was listed as endangered because of water leaks until 2019.
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Politics · 29 November 2012
Did you know that on 29 November 2012 the UN General Assembly voted 138 to 9, with 41 abstentions, to upgrade Palestine from observer entity to non-member observer state.
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Geography · 2014
Did you know that UNESCO inscribed Battir, with its Land of Olives and Vines, in 2014, praising ancient stone terraces watered by seven springs, where eight local family clans take turns irrigating on a fixed rota.
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Culture · 18 May 2016
Did you know that the Palestinian Museum near Birzeit opened in May 2016 in a modern building with terraced gardens, and it was launched even though its first exhibition was not yet ready.
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Religion · 2017
Did you know that the Old City of Hebron was inscribed by UNESCO in 2017, citing its Mamluk urban fabric around the Cave of the Patriarchs, and was placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger in the same year.
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Culture · 2021
Did you know that UNESCO added the art of embroidery in Palestine, known as tatreez, to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2021, noting that motifs often identified a woman's village.
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Archaeology · 2023
Did you know that UNESCO inscribed Tell es-Sultan, the mound of ancient Jericho, on the World Heritage List in 2023, describing it as the site of what may be the oldest fortified settlement in the world.
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Sport · 23 January 2024
Did you know that at the 2023 Asian Cup, played in Qatar in January 2024, Palestine beat Hong Kong 3 to 0 for its first ever win at the tournament and reached the knockout round for the first time.
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Politics · As of 2025
Did you know that depending on the count, roughly 150 to 157 of the 193 UN member states recognize the State of Palestine, with several European countries adding recognition in 2024 and 2025, while Israel, the United States and others do not.
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