Lebanon becomes first Arab country to legalize cannabis farming for medical use
Cannabis has long been illegally farmed in the fertile Bekaa Valley and government now hopes to turn it into a legal billion-dollar trade
Lebanon
Lebanon declares independence from France
Lebanon gained independence in 1943, establishing confessionalism, a unique, Consociationalism-type of political system with a power-sharing mechanism based on religious communities.
Tughril Beg and Chaghri Beg found the Seljuk Empire
At its greatest extent, the Seljuk Empire controlled a vast area stretching from western Anatolia and the Levant to the Hindu Kush in the east, and from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf in the south.
Phoenician civilization flourishes in the eastern Mediterranean
Phoenicia was an ancient civilization composed of independent city-states located along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea stretching through what is now Syria, Lebanon and northern Israel.
The first settlement at Baalbek is founded in modern-day Lebanon
Inhabited as early as 9000 BCE, Baalbek grew into an important pilgrimage site in the ancient world for the worship of the Phoenician sky-god Baal and his consort Astarte, the Queen of Heaven.
The site of modern-day Beirut is settled for the first time
Several archaeological sites have been discovered in Beirut, revealing flint tools of sequential periods dating from the Middle Palaeolithic and Upper Paleolithic through the Neolithic to the Bronze Age.
Qaraoun culture flourishes in modern-day Lebanon
The Qaraoun culture is a culture of the Lebanese Stone Age around Qaraoun in the Beqaa Valley.
Humans develop agriculture for the first time ever, beginning the Agricultural Revolution
The beginning of this process in different regions has been dated from 10,000 to 8,000 BCE in the Fertile Crescent and perhaps 8000 BCE in the Kuk Early Agricultural Site of Melanesia.
Early humans settle Ksar Akil in modern-day Lebanon
It is assumed to be one of the earliest known sites containing Upper Paleolithic technologies including Ahmarian cultural objects.