Timeline

Dated entries, in order.

782 BC Yerevan · Place The capital of Armenia, founded as the Urartian fortress of Erebuni in 782 BC and capital of the Republic of Armenia from 1918.
330 BC Ayrarat · Place The central province of historic Armenia, which held the Ararat Plain and most of the kingdom's ancient capitals, from Armavir to Dvin.
95 BC Tigranes the Great · Person King of Armenia from 95 to 55 BC, who conquered northern Mesopotamia and Syria, took the title King of Kings and founded Tigranakert.
AD 40 Thaddeus · Person The apostle Thaddeus, who the Armenian Church holds was, with Bartholomew, the first to preach Christianity in Armenia, and who was put to death in Artaz.
AD 52 Bartholomew · Person The apostle Bartholomew, who the Armenian Church holds was, with Thaddeus, the first to preach Christianity in Armenia, and who was flayed at Aghbak in 66.
AD 301 Armenian Apostolic Church · Institution The national church of the Armenians and one of the Oriental Orthodox churches, headed by the Catholicos of All Armenians at Etchmiadzin.
AD 301 Conversion of Armenia to Christianity · Event The adoption of Christianity as the state religion of Armenia in 301, when King Tiridates III and his court were baptized by Gregory the Illuminator.
AD 301 Gregory the Illuminator · Person The saint who converted King Tiridates III and baptized the Armenian nation, and the first head of the Armenian Church.
AD 301 Tiridates III · Person King of Armenia in 301, under whom Christianity became the state religion.
AD 301 Vagharshapat · Place Town west of Yerevan, the site of the cathedral of Etchmiadzin and the center of the Armenian Church.
AD 303 Etchmiadzin · Institution The mother cathedral of the Armenian Church and the seat of the Catholicos of All Armenians, built in Vagharshapat in 301 to 303.
AD 312 Holy Apostles Monastery · Place The monastery of Arakelots near Mush in Taron, a major center of medieval Armenian learning and writing, said to have been founded by Gregory the Illuminator in 312 and destroyed in 1915.
AD 400 Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem · Institution The Armenian Church’s patriarchate in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, seated at the Cathedral of St. James, where Armenians have lived since the fourth century.
AD 405 Armenian alphabet · Concept The writing system created around 405 by Mesrop Mashtots for the Armenian language, still used by Armenians today.
AD 405 Mesrop Mashtots · Person Armenian monk and scholar who created the Armenian alphabet in the early fifth century and founded the schools and translations that made Armenian a written language.
AD 440 Eznik of Koghb · Person Armenian churchman and pupil of Mesrop Mashtots, translator of the Bible and author of the Refutation of the Sects.
AD 450 Movses Khorenatsi · Person The author of the History of the Armenians, called the Father of Armenian History, who traces the nation from its ancestor Hayk to the death of Mesrop Mashtots.
AD 451 Battle of Avarayr · Event The battle of June 451 in which the Persian army defeated the Armenians under Vardan Mamikonian, who died defending the Christian faith against Persian rule.
AD 451 Vardan Mamikonian · Person Commander of the Armenian army who died leading the revolt against Persian rule at Avarayr in 451, and is honored by the Armenian Church as a saint.
AD 460 Yeghishe · Person The author of the History of Vardan and the Armenian War, the account of the Armenian revolt against Persia that ended at the Battle of Avarayr in 451.
AD 475 Agathangelos · Person Author of the History of the Armenians, the account of how Gregory the Illuminator converted King Tiridates III and brought Christianity to Armenia.
AD 489 Amaras · Place Monastery in the Martuni region of Artsakh, founded by tradition by Gregory the Illuminator and linked to the first Armenian school.
AD 500 Ghazar Parpetsi · Person Armenian historian of the late fifth century, the author of the History of the Armenians, which covers the years 387 to 485 and the war of Vardan Mamikonian.
AD 647 Anania Shirakatsi · Person Armenian mathematician and geographer of the seventh century, the author of the Book of Arithmetic and the Ashkharhatsuyts, called the father of science in Armenia.
AD 830 Van · Place The city on the eastern shore of Lake Van, once the Urartian capital Tushpa and the center of Armenian Vaspurakan, where Armenians held out against the Ottoman army in the spring of 1915.
AD 915 Aghtamar · Place The island in Lake Van with the Church of the Holy Cross, built between 915 and 921 for King Gagik I Artsruni of Vaspurakan and famous for its stone reliefs.
AD 915 Vaspurakan · Place The historic Armenian province around Lake Van, a kingdom of the Artsruni family until 1021, with the city of Van and the island of Aghtamar.
AD 952 Ashot III the Merciful · Person Bagratid king of Armenia from 952 to 977, who moved the capital to Ani and began its golden age.
AD 961 Ani · Place The medieval capital of the Bagratid kingdom of Armenia, a walled city on the Akhuryan River, now an archaeological site in Turkey on a World Heritage List.
AD 977 Gregory of Narek · Person Armenian monk, poet and mystic of the tenth century, author of the Book of Lamentations, and a Doctor of the Catholic Church since 2015.
AD 987 Syunik · Place The historic Armenian province in the far south, now a province of Armenia, home of the monastery of Tatev and an independent kingdom from 987 to 1170.
AD 989 Gagik I · Person Bagratid king of Armenia from 989 to 1020, in whose reign Ani reached the height of its power and wealth and its cathedral was completed.
AD 989 Trdat the Architect · Person The Armenian architect of the late tenth century who built the cathedral of Ani and rebuilt the dome of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople after the earthquake of 988.
1080 Cilician Armenia · Place The Armenian principality and kingdom on the southeast coast of Anatolia, founded in 1080 and ruled by Armenian dynasties until it fell to the Mamluks in 1375.
1100 Khaz notation · Concept The system of signs, called khazes, in which medieval Armenian church music was written; its meaning was lost by the modern era and is only partly recovered.
1175 Mkhitar Gosh · Person Armenian scholar and cleric of the twelfth century, the author of the Armenian Law Book and the Fables, who founded the monastery of Nor Getik, later called Goshavank.
1199 Levon the Great · Person The first king of Cilician Armenia, who ruled from 1199 to 1219, received his crown with the approval of the pope and the German emperor and allied his kingdom with the Crusaders.
1293 Catholicosate of Cilicia · Institution The Holy See of Cilicia, one of the two Catholicosates of the Armenian Church, seated at Sis until 1921 and at Antelias in Lebanon since 1930.
1753 Sayat-Nova · Person Armenian ashugh, or minstrel, of eighteenth-century Tiflis, a weaver and court singer known for his love songs, who was killed by Persian invaders in 1795.
1869 Hovhannes Tumanyan · Person Armenian poet and writer, born in the village of Dsegh in Lori in 1869 and called the Poet of All Armenians, the author of Anush, Maro and the retelling of David of Sassoun.
1869 Komitas · Person Armenian priest, composer and musicologist, born in 1869 in Kütahya, who collected thousands of folk songs and was arrested in 1915 and died in Paris in 1935.
1885 Armenakan Party · Institution The Armenian party founded at Van in 1885 under Mkrtich Portukalian, the first Armenian political party, which joined the Democratic Liberal Party in 1921.
1887 Hnchak Party · Institution The Social Democrat Hunchakian Party, a Marxist Armenian party founded at Geneva in 1887 that sought the freedom of Ottoman Armenia through revolution.
1890 Armenian Revolutionary Federation · Institution The Armenian political party, also called Dashnaktsutyun, founded at Tiflis in 1890, the leading party of the First Republic and a major party of the diaspora.
1918 Battle of Sardarabad · Event The battle of late May 1918 at Sardarabad, in which the Armenians stopped the Ottoman army and made possible the First Republic of Armenia.
1918 First Republic of Armenia · Event The independent Armenian state of 1918 to 1920, proclaimed on 28 May 1918 and ended by the Turkish invasion and Sovietization in December 1920.
1921 Armenian Democratic Liberal Party · Institution The Armenian party, also called Ramgavar, formed on 1 October 1921 by the union of four parties, which has held to the Church of Etchmiadzin in the diaspora.
1991 Artsakh · Place The Armenian name of the historic region known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh, and of the Armenian republic that governed it from 1991 until its dissolution in 2024.