Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and East Asian traditions — from the earliest covenants to the twenty-first century. Each of the 200 events opens on click with a title and two facts. All lanes are on by default. Click a chip to hide a tradition; click again to bring it back. “All traditions” turns every lane on. Zoom in (the + / − buttons, or Ctrl + mouse wheel) and event names appear on the lanes.
Abraham is considered the forefather of the three Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
By tradition, Abraham originally bore the name Abram and came from the city of Ur in Mesopotamia.
The Rigveda is the oldest surviving text of the Indo-European language family.
The Rigveda consists of 1,028 hymns, divided into ten books, or mandalas.
The Exodus is commemorated every year at Passover, one of the oldest continuously observed holidays in history.
The Exodus is recalled each year at the Passover seder table, with a special text called the Haggadah.
The Ten Commandments underlie the legal systems of many later cultures.
Mount Sinai is also called Horeb in some biblical texts.
From this point, Jerusalem remains Judaism's religious center for three millennia.
Before David, the capital of the Israelite tribal confederation was the city of Hebron.
The First Temple stood for about four centuries before being destroyed by the Babylonians.
Building the First Temple, according to tradition, took seven years.
The Upanishads laid down the concepts of karma and moksha, central to all Indian religions.
The Upanishads were traditionally passed from teacher to student as 'hidden knowledge,' the source of their name.
The ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom are considered the 'lost tribes,' their fate remaining the subject of legend.
The Assyrians deported a large share of the Northern Kingdom's population to other parts of the empire.
It was during the Babylonian exile that much of the text later forming the Jewish canon took shape.
Some of the exiled Jews settled in Babylon and remained there even after being permitted to return.
The Buddha's birth was, by tradition, accompanied by many miraculous omens.
By tradition, Siddhartha was born in the Lumbini grove, in present-day Nepal.
In his lifetime, Confucius was not considered especially successful — fame came only after his death.
Confucius came from an impoverished aristocratic family and worked as a minor official in his youth.
The Edict of Cyrus is one of the oldest surviving examples of state-sponsored religious tolerance.
The Edict of Cyrus survives in two versions — on a clay cylinder and in the biblical text.
Gautama's enlightenment is considered the central event of the entire Buddhist tradition.
After his enlightenment, the Buddha spent about seven more weeks in contemplation before beginning to teach.
The Second Temple stood for nearly 600 years — longer than the First.
The Second Temple was more modest in its adornment than the First, which saddened elders who remembered the earlier one.
The varna system evolved over time into a far more rigid and elaborate caste hierarchy.
The varna system originally described four broad occupational groups, not a rigid caste hierarchy.
Confucius's teachings were recorded not by himself but by his students, after his death.
During his lifetime, Confucius's teachings failed to win acceptance at the courts he tried to persuade.
The traditional Buddhist calendar is dated from the Buddha's parinirvana.
After his death, the Buddha's body was cremated and his relics divided among several communities.
Canonization fixed the text of the Torah, which remains unchanged in Judaism to this day.
Ezra also introduced the practice of publicly reading the Torah before an assembly of the people.
The First Council was convened shortly after the Buddha's death to fix his teachings from the monks' memory.
The First Council was convened in a cave near the city of Rajagriha, just months after the Buddha's death.
Ashoka sent Buddhist missionaries as far as the Hellenistic Mediterranean.
The council under Ashoka helped systematize the canon and dispatch missionaries beyond India.
By tradition, the 'burning of books' also involved burying many Confucian scholars alive.
By tradition, the persecution included the execution of several hundred Confucian scholars.
The 'Bhagavad Gita' remains one of the most widely read philosophical texts of Hinduism in the world.
The 'Bhagavad Gita' is structured as a dialogue between the warrior Arjuna and his charioteer, an incarnation of the god Krishna.
The Maccabean victory is commemorated at the festival of Hanukkah.
The Maccabean victory led to the founding of the independent Jewish Hasmonean dynasty.
Confucianism remained China's official ideology for nearly two millennia after the Han era.
The official recognition of Confucianism was accompanied by the establishment of state exams on the classics.
Judea's status as a vassal state persisted for nearly a century before direct Roman rule.
Judea retained formal autonomy under Roman control for several more decades.
The calendar used almost worldwide today is dated from the birth of Jesus.
The exact birth date of Jesus is unknown — today's calendar system was only introduced by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century.
The cross became Christianity's central symbol specifically after this event.
The crucifixion site, Golgotha, translates from Aramaic as 'skull' or 'place of the skull.'
Paul's letters make up nearly half the books of the New Testament.
Paul undertook three separate missionary journeys across Asia Minor and Greece.
The Pali Canon is the oldest fully surviving collection of Buddhist texts.
The Pali Canon is written in Pali, a language closely related to the vernacular dialects of the Buddha's era.
The Theravada-Mahayana split largely determined whether personal or universal salvation would take center stage.
The Theravada-Mahayana split was not a single event but a gradual process unfolding over centuries.
Over time, Buddhism in China blended with local Daoist and Confucian traditions.
The earliest Buddhist texts in China were translated mainly by Central Asian missionary monks.
The story of Rama and Sita underlies many theatrical and dance traditions across South and Southeast Asia.
The 'Ramayana' is narrated and performed as theater throughout South and Southeast Asia.
Nero's persecution was the first in a series of Roman persecutions of Christians lasting nearly 300 years.
By tradition, Peter asked to be crucified upside down, considering himself unworthy to die as Christ had.
With the destruction of the Second Temple, animal sacrifice in Judaism ceased forever.
After the Temple's fall, the center of Jewish religious life shifted to synagogues and houses of study.
The Temple's destruction widened the gap between nascent Christianity and Judaism.
After 70 CE, Judaism and Christianity continued to exist as closely related but increasingly diverging traditions.
Forming the final New Testament canon took about three more centuries after these texts were written.
The New Testament canon in its current form was only firmly settled by the end of the 4th century.
After crushing the Bar Kokhba revolt, the Romans renamed the province Syria Palaestina.
Many contemporaries regarded Bar Kokhba as a possible messiah.
The 'Five Pecks of Rice' school required followers to donate grain.
The school's name refers to the mandatory donation of five pecks of rice upon joining the community.
British colonial authorities used the 'Laws of Manu' for centuries as the basis for judicial practice regarding Hindus.
The 'Laws of Manu' cover matters of law, ritual, daily life, and social order.
Passing an exam on the Confucian 'Five Classics' was, for centuries, a prerequisite for an official career in China.
The 'Five Classics' included the 'Book of Changes,' the 'Book of Songs,' the 'Book of History,' and two other canonical texts.
The Mishnah was written down after the oral tradition had been passed on from memory for centuries.
The Mishnah is divided into six sections, covering various areas of Jewish law.
By tradition, Sri Lanka preserves a cutting from the very Bodhi tree under which the Buddha meditated.
By tradition, Buddhism was brought to Sri Lanka by the monk Mahinda, son of Emperor Ashoka.
The syncretism of the three teachings gave rise to the phrase 'three teachings, one family,' widespread in Chinese culture.
This syncretism was especially vivid in folk temples, where deities from different traditions were worshipped side by side.
The Edict of Milan was the first in Roman history to enshrine the principle of religious tolerance.
The edict was jointly issued by emperors Constantine and Licinius.
The creed formulated at Nicaea is still recited in liturgies today.
Estimates suggest between 250 and 318 bishops attended the council.
Buddhism became the state religion of several Korean kingdoms.
Buddhism reached Korea via the northern Chinese state of Former Qin.
The 'Mahabharata' is one of the longest epics in world literature.
The 'Mahabharata' is roughly seven times longer than the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey' combined.
The Gupta period is often called the 'golden age' of classical Indian culture and science.
The Gupta period also saw a flourishing of mathematics, including the early use of the concept of zero.
Mencius argued that human nature is inherently good, contrary to other schools of thought of the time.
Mencius also developed an early concept of the people's right to rebel against an unjust ruler.
The 'Dao De Jing' is one of the most translated philosophical texts in the world.
The text is traditionally divided into 81 short, aphoristic chapters.
Within half a century, Christianity went from a persecuted sect to the religion of the Roman Empire.
The decree was issued by Emperor Theodosius I, who also banned pagan cults.
The Latin Bible (Vulgate) remained the Catholic Church's official text for over 1,500 years.
Jerome's translation was criticized by contemporaries for departing from the familiar Septuagint text.
The Nestorian schism gave rise to the Church of the East, which reached China via the Silk Road.
The council condemned Nestorius's teaching, which separated the human and divine natures of Christ.
The Puranas made complex Hindu philosophy accessible through mythological stories.
The Puranas combine mythology, cosmology, royal genealogies, and religious instruction.
The Council of Chalcedon gave rise to the Oriental Orthodox churches — Coptic, Armenian, Ethiopian — which still exist today.
The council's decisions were not accepted by the churches of Egypt, Ethiopia, Armenia, and Syria, which formed a separate tradition.
Clovis's baptism made the Franks the only major Germanic people to be Catholic at the time.
Clovis's baptism is traditionally linked to a vow he made before a decisive battle.
The Babylonian Talmud became the primary source of religious law (halakha) for most branches of Judaism.
The Babylonian Talmud is considerably larger than the earlier Jerusalem version.
The Benedictine Rule became a model for nearly all Western monasticism for centuries to come.
Benedict's Rule was built on the principle of 'pray and work,' which became the foundation of Western monasticism.
Buddhism's arrival in Japan sparked fierce disputes between clans supporting and opposing the new religion.
Japan's first official Buddhist temple was built by the powerful Soga clan.
The Shramana movement gave rise not just to Buddhism and Jainism but to numerous ascetic schools of Hinduism.
The Shramana movement encompassed many ascetic schools, of which only a few have survived to the present day.
Laozi's very existence as a historical figure remains debated among scholars.
In Daoist tradition, Laozi is sometimes revered as an incarnation of the divine principle of the Dao.
In Korea, the Confucian civil service examination system lasted until the early 20th century.
In Korea, Confucian and Buddhist institutions long coexisted with state support.
Muhammad was born in what Islamic tradition calls the 'Year of the Elephant.'
Muhammad was orphaned early and was raised first by his grandfather, then by his uncle.
Augustine's mission led to the conversion of Anglo-Saxon Britain to Christianity.
Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury, a title still held today.
The 'Seventeen-Article Constitution' is one of the oldest surviving sets of governing principles in East Asia.
The document also introduced principles of harmony and respect for authority, inspired by Chinese philosophy.
The first revelation, by tradition, was received in the cave of Hira near Mecca.
By tradition, the revelation began with the word 'Recite!,' addressed to the illiterate Muhammad.
The Islamic lunar calendar is dated from the Hijra.
'Hijra' literally means 'migration' or 'severing of ties' in Arabic.
Xuanzang's journey inspired the classic Chinese novel 'Journey to the West.'
Xuanzang's journey took about 17 years in total and covered dozens of states across Central and South Asia.
The conquest of Mecca took place with almost no bloodshed.
On taking Mecca, Muhammad declared a general amnesty for his former opponents.
Sunnis regard the first four caliphs of the Rashidun Caliphate as exemplary rulers.
After Muhammad's death, his close companion Abu Bakr was elected caliph.
In Tibet, Buddhism merged with the local Bon religion, giving rise to a unique Tibetan tradition.
Tibetan Buddhism later developed its own distinct schools, including Gelug, Kagyu, and Nyingma.
The Sunni-Shia split following the First Fitna remains the largest in Islamic history.
The split began over a dispute about Muhammad's rightful successor — Ali, or the previously appointed caliphs.
The Umayyads turned the caliphate from an elected office into a hereditary monarchy.
The Umayyads ruled for nearly a century before being overthrown by the Abbasids.
The death of Husayn at Karbala is mourned every year on the Day of Ashura.
Shia Ashura observances include mourning processions and dramatic reenactments of the tragedy.
The Dome of the Rock is one of the oldest surviving monuments of Islamic architecture.
The Dome of the Rock is the oldest surviving major work of Islamic architecture.
Arab-Berber forces advanced from Gibraltar to the Pyrenees in under a decade.
Conquering Spain took Arab-Berber forces less than ten years.
The 'Kojiki' is the oldest surviving Japanese chronicle of myth and history.
The 'Kojiki' was compiled by court storyteller Hieda no Are from memorized oral tradition.
The 'Nihon Shoki' is considered a more official and detailed account of Japanese history than the 'Kojiki.'
The 'Nihon Shoki' was written in classical Chinese, unlike the more vernacular style of the 'Kojiki.'
The dispute over icon veneration lasted over a century and ended with icons being restored.
Iconoclasm was twice interrupted by periods of restored icon veneration before being finally abolished.
The Karaites rejected the Talmud, recognizing only the text of the Tanakh.
The Karaite movement still survives today in small communities in Crimea, Lithuania, and Israel.
At the House of Wisdom, Greek philosophical works were translated into Arabic, later returning to Europe.
The House of Wisdom attracted scholars of different faiths — Muslims, Christians, and Jews — for joint translation work.
The Abbasid Revolution was accompanied by one of history's first mass social movements under Islamic banners.
The Abbasid Revolution drew support from both Arabs and Persian converts to Islam dissatisfied with the Umayyads.
Padmasambhava is revered in Tibetan Buddhism as the 'second Buddha.'
Padmasambhava is venerated as an embodiment of enlightened consciousness, not merely as a historical teacher.
At its height, Baghdad became the largest city in the world outside China.
Baghdad was designed in the shape of a perfect circle with four main gates.
By tradition, Adi Shankara lived only 32 years but managed to found four monasteries across India.
By tradition, Adi Shankara walked the length of India, founding monasteries in its four corners.
Charlemagne's coronation is seen as a symbolic revival of the Western Roman Empire.
By legend, Charlemagne did not know the coronation was planned in advance and was surprised by the pope's action.
The Tendai school trained many future founders of other Japanese Buddhist traditions.
The Tendai school later gave rise to several major branches of Japanese Buddhism, including Zen.
The Shingon school brought esoteric tantric practices to Japan.
Shingon's founder, Kukai, is also credited with inventing the Japanese kana syllabary.
The persecution of Buddhism was accompanied by the destruction of thousands of monasteries across China.
Alongside Buddhism, Zoroastrian and Manichaean communities in China were also persecuted at the same time.
The four Sunni schools of law (madhhabs) recognize each other as mutually legitimate.
Besides the Sunni schools, there are separate Shia schools of law, including the Jafari madhhab.
The writing system created by Cyril and Methodius underlies modern Cyrillic alphabets.
Cyril and Methodius were brothers, born in the Greek city of Thessaloniki.
Sunnis regard al-Bukhari's hadith collection as the second most authoritative source after the Quran.
By tradition, al-Bukhari selected about 7,000 authenticated hadiths from more than 600,000 he collected.
Saadia Gaon was the first to translate the Tanakh into Arabic.
Saadia Gaon also wrote one of the first philosophical treatises reconciling Judaism with Greek philosophy.
The Fatimids were the only major Shia dynasty to rule in the caliph's own name rather than as an emirate.
The Fatimids claimed descent from the Prophet's daughter Fatima and his son-in-law Ali.
The baptism of Rus shaped the cultural and religious orientation of the Eastern Slavs for a millennium to come.
According to chronicle tradition, the baptism took place in the Dnieper River in Kyiv.
The Somnath temple was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the centuries.
The temple's first destruction is linked to the conqueror Mahmud of Ghazni in the 11th century.
Rashi's commentaries are still printed in the margins of traditional Talmud editions today.
Rashi's commentaries are written in a special typeface, designed specifically for the purpose, still used today.
Ramanuja set his philosophy against Shankara's strict monism, insisting on a personal relationship with the divine.
Ramanuja's teaching underlies the Vaishnavism tradition, which venerates the god Vishnu.
The Khajuraho temples are famous for their explicit erotic sculptures adorning their walls.
The Khajuraho temples are adorned with thousands of sculptures, including scenes of everyday and spiritual life.
Neo-Confucianism became the official ideology of China, Korea, and Vietnam for centuries to come.
Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism became the official ideology of the imperial exams for centuries to come.
The schism between Catholicism and Orthodoxy has never been formally resolved.
The formal trigger for the schism was a dispute over adding the word 'Filioque' to the Creed.
The 1096 massacres are considered one of the first major waves of anti-Jewish violence in medieval Europe.
Some Rhineland Jewish communities chose mass suicide over forced conversion.
The Crusades lasted nearly two centuries and involved millions of people.
Depending on how they're counted, there were between seven and nine separate Crusades in total.
The Crusader capture of Jerusalem was accompanied by a massacre that long shaped memory of these wars in the East.
The city's capture is considered one of the bloodiest episodes in the entire history of the Crusades.
The temple was originally dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu, later becoming a Buddhist shrine.
Angkor Wat remains the largest religious structure in the world by built area.
Maimonides formulated 13 principles of faith, still recited in synagogues today.
Maimonides's 'Guide for the Perplexed' was written in Arabic for an educated Jewish audience.
Becket's murder made Canterbury one of medieval Europe's chief pilgrimage sites.
Becket was murdered right inside Canterbury Cathedral during evening prayers.
Unlike the Crusaders in 1099, Saladin spared the residents of Jerusalem when he took the city.
Saladin was Kurdish by origin, not Arab or Turkic.
Rinzai Zen emphasized meditation over textual study.
Rinzai Zen emphasizes sudden enlightenment through paradoxical questions — koans.
The destruction of the Bihar centers is considered one reason for Buddhism's decline in its Indian homeland.
The devastation included the destruction of libraries and centers of learning, including the famed Nalanda university.
By tradition, the Nalanda monastery's library burned for several months.
By tradition, the Nalanda monastery library held about nine million manuscripts.
A vow of poverty made the Franciscan order one of the largest in church history.
Francis of Assisi renounced his family's considerable wealth in favor of a life of poverty.
The institution of the Papal Inquisition persisted in various forms into the 19th century.
The Inquisition was originally created to combat the Cathar heresy in southern France.
The Mamluk state was ruled by a caste of former slave-soldiers.
'Mamluks' originally referred to military slaves purchased and trained for army service.
Nichiren taught that salvation is achieved by repeatedly chanting the title of the Lotus Sutra.
Nichiren was repeatedly persecuted and exiled for his sharp criticism of other Buddhist schools.
When they took Baghdad, the Mongols destroyed the city's famous libraries.
It's said the waters of the Tigris ran black in those days from the ink of drowned manuscripts.
The typhoons that scattered the Mongol fleet gave rise to the belief in Japan's divine protection.
The term 'kamikaze' was later also applied to Japanese suicide pilots of World War II.
England remained without a legal Jewish population for about 350 years after the expulsion.
The official ban on Jews living in England lasted until the mid-17th century.
From a modest frontier principality, the Ottomans grew into an empire that lasted more than 600 years.
Osman I gave his name to an entire dynasty that would rule for over six centuries.
In Thailand, monastic life became part of the traditional path to manhood.
Before Theravada's arrival, earlier forms of Buddhism and local cults predominated in Thailand.
The restoration of Ming rule was accompanied by a revival of traditional rituals after Mongol rule.
Under the Ming, Daoist and Buddhist temples were also actively built and restored across the country.
At the height of the Great Schism, three rival claimants simultaneously claimed the throne of St. Peter.
The crisis was resolved only at the Council of Constance, which deposed all claimants and elected a single pope.
Jan Hus was burned despite having been granted a safe conduct by the emperor.
The Hussite Wars lasted about 15 years and included several failed crusades against Bohemia.
Bhakti poets wrote not in Sanskrit but in vernacular languages, making religious poetry accessible to ordinary people.
Bhakti poems and songs were passed down orally and sung in temples for centuries.
The fall of Constantinople is considered one of the conventional markers of the end of the Middle Ages.
Mehmed II was only 21 years old when he took Constantinople.
Sikhism combined elements of Hinduism and Islam but developed as an independent religion.
Guru Nanak traveled widely, including pilgrimages to Mecca and Tibet, before founding the Sikh community.
Chaitanya's movement underlies the tradition later brought to the West by the Hare Krishna movement.
Chaitanya introduced the practice of publicly chanting Krishna's names as a form of religious ecstasy.
The expulsion decree from Spain was not formally repealed until 1968.
Some of the Jews expelled from Spain (Sephardim) found refuge in the Ottoman Empire.
The Safavids made Persia the only major Shia power in the region.
The Safavids made Shia Islam the state religion, shifting the region's religious balance for centuries.
The word 'ghetto' likely comes from the name of this Venetian district.
According to one theory, the word 'ghetto' derives from a Venetian foundry located nearby.
By legend, Luther's theses were nailed to the church door, though historians debate the details of the episode.
Luther's action coincided with the mass spread of the printing press, letting the theses circulate across Europe within weeks.
At its height, the Mughal Empire ruled over roughly a quarter of the world's population.
Babur, the Mughal Empire's founder, was descended from both Genghis Khan and Timur.
Under Muslim Mughal rulers, Hindu culture nonetheless experienced a flourishing of the arts.
Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire, came from Central Asia rather than India itself.
The formal trigger for the Anglican split was the pope's refusal to annul the royal marriage.
The Act of Supremacy made the English monarch head of the church instead of the pope.
Calvin's teaching underlies the Presbyterian and Reformed traditions.
Calvin revised the 'Institutes' several times, significantly expanding the original text.
The Council of Trent met, with interruptions, over 18 years.
The council affirmed the seven sacraments and the authority of church tradition alongside Scripture.
The Jesuits in Japan were initially welcomed before Christianity was later banned.
The Jesuit mission in Japan was led by Francis Xavier, one of the order's founders.
The 'Shulchan Aruch' remains the operative code of Orthodox Judaism.
The code's author, Joseph Karo, compiled it after his own expulsion from Spain.
'Dalai Lama' means 'ocean [of wisdom]' in Mongolian.
The word 'Dalai' comes from a Mongolian word meaning 'ocean.'
The East India Company began as a trading organization but grew into the subcontinent's de facto ruler.
The East India Company was originally established purely as a commercial venture, not a colonial one.
The Thirty Years' War is considered one of the most destructive religious conflicts in European history.
The war killed an estimated quarter to a third of the population of the German lands.
The Fifth Dalai Lama built the Potala Palace, which became a symbol of Tibet.
The Potala Palace became the Dalai Lama's residence; its construction took several decades.
The Manchus, outsiders to China, used Chinese ideology to legitimize their own rule.
The Manchus also preserved and patronized Tibetan Buddhism as a distinct religious tradition of the empire.
The Khmelnytsky Uprising is estimated to have killed tens of thousands of Eastern European Jews.
The uprising also triggered a mass migration of Jews to Western Europe.
Unlike many of his predecessors, Aurangzeb pursued religious policies that heightened tensions with Hindus.
Under Aurangzeb, the jizya tax on non-Muslims, abolished by his predecessors, was reinstated.
Confucian hierarchy under the Tokugawa Shogunate reinforced a rigid class structure in Japanese society.
Samurai officially occupied the highest of the four class ranks established by this system.
The Sabbatai Zevi movement collapsed when its leader converted to Islam under Ottoman pressure.
The Sabbatai Zevi movement spread across Jewish communities from Yemen to the Netherlands.
The Great Awakening laid the foundations of American evangelical Protestantism.
The Awakening helped spread ideas of religious freedom that later influenced the US Constitution.
Hasidism grew from a small circle into one of the largest movements within Orthodox Judaism.
Hasidism emphasized the joy of worship and a personal connection with God, not just scholarship.
The Wahhabi alliance with the House of Saud laid the foundation for the modern Saudi state.
The alliance with the House of Saud was based on mutual support — religious and military-political.
India became the 'jewel in the crown' of the British Empire, its largest colony.
By the mid-19th century, the Company controlled territories with a population of around 200 million people.
The Pale of Settlement lasted in Russia until 1917.
The Pale of Settlement covered territory in present-day Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and part of Poland.
Napoleon's campaign first introduced the Islamic Middle East to modern European printing technology.
Napoleon's campaign was accompanied by a scholarly expedition that laid the foundations of modern Egyptology.
Reform Judaism was the first to abandon many ritual requirements in favor of the ethical content of the faith.
Reform Judaism was the first to hold services accompanied by organ music.
The Brahmo Samaj campaigned against widow-burning and child marriage.
The movement was founded by Bengali reformer Ram Mohan Roy.
State Shinto was used to ideologically justify Japanese nationalism and expansion.
The Restoration was also accompanied by a temporary separation of Shinto and Buddhism, which had coexisted for centuries.
The infallibility dogma applies only to the pope's official doctrinal pronouncements (ex cathedra).
The dogma was adopted after prolonged debate among the bishops themselves at the council.
The Burma council was convened to codify the canon after decades of colonial rule.
The council in Burma was convened with the support of the British colonial authorities.
The lifting of the ban on Christianity in Japan came under pressure from Western powers.
The ban on Christianity in Japan had been in effect for more than two centuries, since the 17th century.
The Mahdist movement united scattered Sudanese tribes under a religious banner against colonial rule.
The uprising's leader, Muhammad Ahmad, declared himself the Mahdi, the awaited redeemer of Islam.
The Arya Samaj called for a return to 'pure' Vedic Hinduism, rejecting later accretions.
The movement also actively campaigned for spreading education among women.
The society was founded in New York but eventually moved its headquarters to India.
The society was founded by Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott in 1875.
The Parliament of Religions in Chicago was the first major gathering of world religious leaders in the West.
The Parliament of Religions took place as part of the World's Columbian Exposition.
Vivekananda's Chicago address is seen as the moment Hinduism announced itself as a world religion.
Vivekananda's Chicago speech opened with 'Sisters and brothers of America,' which drew thunderous applause.
Herzl wrote in his diary that he would found a Jewish state within 50 years — and came close to guessing the timeline.
The Congress gathered about 200 delegates from 17 countries in the Swiss city of Basel.
Participants in the uprising were called 'Boxers' in the West for their practice of martial arts.
The uprising targeted foreign influence, including Christian missionaries in China.
The coalition that suppressed the uprising included European countries as well as Japan and the US.
An international coalition of eight powers, including Russia and Japan, took part in suppressing the uprising.
In a single year, China lost a system that had shaped the elite's careers for nearly 1,300 years.
The abolished exam system had determined the careers of China's elite for nearly 1,300 years.
The end of state Confucianism coincided with the fall of China's last imperial dynasty.
The empire's fall was accompanied by the proclamation of the Republic of China in 1912.
Gandhi called his movement 'satyagraha' — 'insistence on truth.'
Gandhi worked as a lawyer in South Africa before returning to India to lead the independence movement.
Abolishing the caliphate left the Islamic world without a universally recognized caliph for the first time in nearly 1,300 years.
Abolishing the caliphate was part of Atatürk's sweeping secular reforms in the new Republic of Turkey.
The Muslim Brotherhood became one of the most influential Islamist movements of the 20th century.
The movement's founder, Hassan al-Banna, was a schoolteacher by profession.
The country is named after the ruling Saud dynasty, a rare case of a nation bearing its ruling family's name.
Before unification, the country consisted of several separate regional emirates and sultanates.
About six million European Jews perished in the Holocaust.
The death toll of the Holocaust amounted to roughly two-thirds of Europe's prewar Jewish population.
State Shinto was abolished by the US occupation administration after Japan's surrender.
The abolition of State Shinto was carried out at the initiative of the US occupation administration.
The name 'Pakistan' is formed from the initial letters of the regions that made up the new state.
The country became independent as a result of the partition of British India that same year.
The Partition of India involved one of the largest migrations in human history.
Partition affected several provinces, including Punjab and Bengal, which were split between the two new states.
The State of Israel was proclaimed just three years after the end of the Holocaust.
The proclamation took place just hours before the British mandate over Palestine was due to expire.
Gandhi was killed by a Hindu nationalist angered by his stance on the partition of the country.
Gandhi was shot during an evening prayer walk in Delhi.
Persecution in Maoist China involved closing temples and persecuting clergy of all religions.
Persecution in Maoist China affected not only Buddhism and Daoism but also Christian and Muslim communities.
The occupation of Tibet led to the destruction of thousands of monasteries in the following decades.
Many Tibetan religious leaders and monks have lived in exile outside Tibet ever since.
The Sixth Council was the first Buddhist council in history to be recorded on magnetic tape.
The Sixth Council was broadcast on radio and recorded on tape for posterity.
An estimated half a million Indian Dalits converted to Buddhism in a single day.
Ambedkar himself came from the Dalit caste and received his legal education abroad.
The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in the Indian town of Dharamsala ever since.
The Dalai Lama crossed into India on foot, over the high mountain passes of the Himalayas.
Zen strongly influenced 1960s counterculture and the later popularity of mindfulness practices.
Books on Zen Buddhism by authors such as D.T. Suzuki became bestsellers in English.
The Second Vatican Council first allowed Mass to be celebrated in national languages instead of Latin.
The council was the first to proclaim a principle of dialogue with other religions and Christian denominations.
ISKCON made the 'Hare Krishna' mantra recognizable around the world.
ISKCON's founder, Prabhupada, sailed to the US with almost no money, carrying only a suitcase of religious texts.
During the Cultural Revolution, countless monuments of religious architecture and art were destroyed.
During the Cultural Revolution, many architectural monuments were destroyed, including parts of the Great Wall of China.
Today the organization comprises 57 member states across four continents.
The organization's headquarters is located in the Saudi city of Jeddah.
The revival of traditional teachings began almost immediately after Mao Zedong's death and the start of economic reforms.
The revival of traditional teachings coincided with the start of Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms.
The Iranian Revolution overthrew a monarchy tracing back to more than 2,500 years of Persian royal tradition.
Ayatollah Khomeini, who led the revolution, returned to Iran from years of exile in France.
Modern popular yoga differs considerably from the classical spiritual practices described in Hindu texts.
International Yoga Day is observed annually on June 21 at the initiative of the United Nations.
Shinto shrines became some of the most visited tourist sites in Japan.
The restoration of Shinto shrines was accompanied by growth in domestic tourism in Japan.
The prize recognized his commitment to a nonviolent resolution of the Tibet question.
The 14th Dalai Lama became the first Buddhist monk ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
'Confucius Institutes' are a network of Chinese cultural centers abroad, named after the philosopher.
'Confucius Institutes' operate today in dozens of countries as centers for studying Chinese language and culture.
The complex was built without using any steel — only traditional stone and marble.
Construction was carried out by thousands of volunteers and took about five years.
The 'Saffron Revolution' is named for the saffron color of the robes worn by the monks who took to the streets.
The revolution's name refers to the saffron color of monastic robes, not to any political slogan.
Honoring the war dead at Yasukuni, including convicted war criminals, regularly sparks diplomatic disputes with China and Korea.
The controversy over the shrine stems from the fact that among the venerated souls are convicted war criminals.
The Dalai Lama explained the decision as an effort to separate spiritual leadership from political power.
Following this step, the post of political head of Tibetans in exile was, for the first time, held by an elected rather than appointed leader.
Mindfulness practices, rooted in Buddhist meditation, have entered secular stress-reduction programs worldwide.
Mindfulness-based stress reduction programs were developed in the 1970s by physician Jon Kabat-Zinn.