Tisha b'Av

The ninth day in the Jewish month of Av.

It is a day of many calamities in Jewish history (from OU.org):

1. 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;

2. The first Temple was destroyed;

3. The second Temple was destroyed;

4. Betar, the last fortress to hold out against the Romans during the Bar Kochba revolt in the year 135, fell, sealing the fate of the Jewish people.

5. One year after the fall of Betar, the Temple area was plowed.

6. In 1492, King Ferdinand of Spain issued the expulsion decree, setting Tisha B'Av as the final date by which not a single Jew would be allowed to walk on Spanish soil.

7. World War I – which began the downward slide to the Holocaust – began on Tisha B’av.