The following "timeline" is divided into periods that make sense from an internal Jewish perspective.  For a comparative timeline (between Jews, Christians, and Muslims) click here

Significant terms are in small caps/bold.

I.  THE BIBLICAL PERIOD (circa 2000-1000 BCE)
The ancestors (circa 2000?-1400? BCE)
The dawn of the Jewish people, characterized by individual religious pacts ("covenants") between god and the family of Abraham, his son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob (also known as Israel).  A mostly legendary history (our only source is the narrative of the bible) recounts the promises of land, descendants, and loyalty that are central to these stories of wandering herdsmen moving east and west across the near east.

The exodus (circa 1300? 1200? BCE)
The historical and religious foundations of Jewish identity:  the liberation of the children of Israel (descendants of the twelve sons of Jacob) from slavery in Egypt, their reception of the full covenant through Moses (including laws, regulations, restrictions, and ritual duties), and the entry into the "promised land" of Canaan.  The exodus (literally, "outgoing") from Egypt became a central symbol of Jewish identity, unity in their patron God, and the dual obligations of religious covenant.  again, our main sources are the legends of the bible.

The nation of Israel (circa 1300/1200-1000 BCE)
The systematic elimination (by warfare or assimilation) of the Canaanite population, and the habitation of the "land"; the slow development from federation of twelve tribes (named after the sons of Jacob) forming occasional coalitions to drive off local and foreign enemies into unified ancient nation-state under a king.

II.  FIRST TEMPLE PERIOD (circa 1000-586 BCE)
United Kingdom (circa 1000-900 BCE)
The unified kingdom under David and his son Solomon, who built a centralized temple to the god of Israel in the city of Jerusalem and consolidated power and wealth through military conquest and diplomatic alliances.

Divided Kingdom (circa 900-722 BCE)
After the death of Solomon, his kingdom split into two political entities:  Israel (in the north) and Judah (in the south), both of whom claimed loyalty to the god of Israel; only Judah (the southern kingdom, named after one of the sons of Jacob and one of the original twelve tribes) worshiped at the temple in Jerusalem, Israel (the northern kingdom) built their own shrines to God.  The royal dynasties of each kingdom occasionally intermarried and acted as military allies, but also often warred with each other over territorial and religious primacy.

Fall of the kingdoms (circa 722-586 BCE)
First Israel and then Judah fell to the military might of neighboring superpowers:  Israel, around 722 BCE, was conquered by the Assyrians, and its inhabitants disappeared from Jewish history (known to legend as the ten lost tribes of Israel); Judah, around 586 BCE, was conquered by the Babylonians:  the first temple was destroyed, and the leaders of Judah were taken into exile to Babylon.

III.  EXILE (586 BCE-538 BCE)
The generation that shaped Judaism:  here what may have originally been regional customs (circumcision, dietary restrictions, agricultural festivals) evolved into religious duties that set the Jews apart from "the nations" (gentiles or goyim, i.e., non-Jews); the sacred tales of the Jews were edited into the first Scriptures (the torah, or the "law"); the god of Israel was also now conceived of as the God of the universe and creation, manipulating foreign armies to punish Israel for her covenant disloyalty.

During this period, Jews also began to believe that their communal unity transcended territory or genealogical descent, and centered primarily on their shared historical relationship with the God of Israel. They conceived of a unified cultural, religious Jewish existence outside of the land, which they called Diaspora (literally, "scattering") or galut (literally, "exile").

The exile of the leaders of Judah ended when the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians; the Persians allows the Judahites (or "Jews") to return to their capital in Jerusalem and rebuild their city as subjects of the Persian Empire.

IV.  SECOND TEMPLE PERIOD (circa 538 BCE-70 CE)
Persian province:  Yehud (circa 530-330 BCE)
Leaders of Judah returned from exile and rebuilt the temple and the city of Jerusalem, which was the heart of the new province of yehud:  the Jews slowly rebuild an economy and a community centered on the Scriptures (torah) and worship of their God at the second temple.

Alexander the Great (330s BCE)
A Macedonian (northern Greek) general who conquered most of the known world east of Greece before he turned thirty; he conquered Egypt, the near east and Persia, got as far as India, and died in Babylon; Alexander insisted that all of the provinces under his control share a common elite culture based on Greek language and literature (Hellenism); after his death, his kingdom was split into three parts (centered on Greece, Egypt, and Syria)

Hellenistic province:  Ioudaia (circa 300-165)
The Hellenistic kingdoms descended from Alexander's empire ruled the inhabitants of Judah in turn:  the Egyptian Greeks (Ptolemies) ruled from circa 300-200; the Syrian Greeks (Seleucids) from about 200-165.  Both Hellenistic kingdoms continued Alexander's program of imposing Greek literature, language, and culture on their subject populations, including the province now called Ioudaia.  During this period, the collection of sacred history and prophecies known as the prophets was edited and compiled.

Independent kingdom:  Hasmonean period (circa 155-63 BCE)
Spurred from within by cultural resistance against Hellenism, a group of Jewish guerilla fighters (called the Maccabees, or "hammers") managed to wrest control of Ioudaia away from the Greek Syrians and founded an independent kingdom.  Their dynasty was known as the Hasmonean dynasty; under the reign of the Hasmoneans, the boundaries of Ioudaia expanded north and south; the Hasmoneans acted as both political leaders and high priests of the temple in Jerusalem.

Roman province: Judea (63 BCE-72 CE)
Infighting among the Hasmonean royal and priestly family led to the intervention of a rising superpower in the Mediterranean world, the Romans.  the Roman general Pompey entered Jerusalem in 63 BCE and settled the dispute by making Ioudaia a Roman political holding, now called Judea.  During this period, sometimes a roman governor ruled the province; from roughly 37 BCE-54 CE a series of half-Jewish "client kings" ruled Judea on behalf of the Romans.  the most successful of these, Herod the great, substantially rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem.

This period ended with the first Jewish revolt against the Romans, from 66-72 CE. The Jewish rebels lost, and the Romans destroyed the second temple in Jerusalem, ending centuries of Temple-based worship of the God of the Jews.  This was followed by a second Jewish revolt in 132-35 CE, in which the city of Jerusalem was destroyed and rebuilt as a Roman colony.

V.  RISE OF RABBINISM (circa 150 CE-1600 CE)
Period of the first sages (circa 150-250 CE)
Jews rebuilt their religious and cultural lives based not on Temple worship but on a series of expanded daily procedures that they grounded in their written and oral Jewish tradition.  The leaders of this movement were called sages (later, rabbis).  Starting as a small movement north of Judea, they rose to prominence in the second and third centuries.  One of their leaders, Judah the prince, codified their oral traditions into the Mishnah, a set of legal and procedural guidelines to Jewish life.  During the period, the final section of the Hebrew bible, the writings, was also codified.

Period of the second sages (circa 300-550 CE)
The next generation of sages, operating both in the former province of Judea and in Babylon, expanded on the Mishnah.  They produced further oral commentaries on the procedure of the sages (halakhah) and also produced complex and ingenious interpretations of the bible (Midrash). The crowning achievement of these sages was a massive set of commentaries on the Mishnah, called the Talmud.  The sages began to function as religious and community leaders in the meeting-houses of the Jews, the synagogues.  During this time, Christianity also rose to prominence in the roman empire.

Period of the rabbinic court:  East (circa 600-1000 CE)
Under the political protection of the new Islamic empire in the east (centered in Baghdad after the eighth century), the Jewish sages of Babylon became the religious leaders for all Jews living under Islamic rule.  Their version of rabbinic oral law, the Babylonian Talmud, became the authority of Jewish life and ritual from Asia to North Africa and western Europe.  The sages of the eastern Jewish academies acted as the living mediators of Jewish custom, training and approving of leaders (rabbis) to serve local communities throughout the eastern and southern Mediterranean worlds.

Rise of the rabbinic leaders:  West (circa 800-1200 CE)
Through trade and cultural interaction the Jews of Christian Europe adapted the Babylonian Talmud as the religious guide for their own communities, and developed their own academies to train rabbis.  Both eastern and western rabbis also began developing sophisticated methods of legal and biblical interpretation, and complex systems of philosophical education and mystical speculation.

European exile and resettlement:  Ashkenaz and Sepharad (1300-1600 CE)
Political upheaval and religious reform among Christian and Islamic kingdoms led to a massive shift of Jewish populations in the Diaspora.

Most central European countries expelled the Jews, who drifted eastward to settle in what is now Russia and Poland. There they flourished and continued to develop their rabbinic, philosophical, and mystical religious practices.  Communally, they were known as Ashkenazi.

Likewise, the Jews of western Europe and some western Islamic kingdoms were expelled, and resettled in the Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey and surrounding areas).  There they too flourished, developing a distinct Jewish culture and known as Sephardi.

VI.  THE MODERN PERIOD (circa 1600 CE-present)
The modern period, from the perspective of Jewish history, was characterized by the integration of Jews into society on the political and cultural levels.  This integration took several different forms throughout this period, and moved in many different directions.

Jews reenter Europe (circa 1600s CE)
Jews expelled from European nations were allowed re-entry, and integrated more fully into Christian European society (although they were still not considered full members of these societies).  Some nations allowed them greater latitude in profession, education, and social advancement.

European Enlightenment (circa 1700-1800 CE)
Much of the European world reevaluated the rigidly dogmatic foundations of culture and society, and sought to construct a universal human identity out of "rationalism" and enlightened philosophy.  This led to an increasing critique of European Christian tradition, and the subsequent reevaluation of Christian perceptions of Jews and Judaism as foreign and non-European.

Political emancipation (circa 1780-1870 CE)
Many "enlightened" European nations began experimenting with the political integration of Jews into society by granting them partial or full citizenship (emancipation).  This was a slow, halting, sometimes reversible process, often intertwined with internal political upheaval among modern European nation-states.  By the end of the nineteenth century, Jews had achieved full citizenship in most European nations for the first time since the middle ages.

Religious reform (circa 1780-present)
Internally inspired by cultural Enlightenment and the prospect of political emancipation, many European (and, later, American) Jews began attempting to "modernize" or reform the foundations of Jewish religious worship and belief.  Some modeled their reformed religion on  European Protestant churches:  rational, moderate, proper, and grounded in universal religious concepts.  Others attempted to retain the framework of medieval rabbinic Judaism, but "updated" for living in the modern world.  Still others resisted all attempts at reform, and retreated into an often anachronistic form of separate living.

Zionism (circa 1880-present)
One further modern development came in the form of modern nationalist movements, attempts to define Judaism less as an abstract religion or archaic culture, and more as a nation-state like Germany or France:  united by common descent, culture, language, and history.  The most successful branch of this nationalist movement, Zionism, eventually succeeded in founding an independent political state on the site of ancient Judah/yehud/Ioudaia/Judea, called the state of Israel.