We are asked what negative historical events took place (reportedly) on Tish’ah BeAv.
We learn that both the First Temple (Solomon’s Temple - obviously it was not known then as the “First” Temple) and the Second Temple were destroyed on Tish’ah BeAv, by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and by the Romans in 70 CE, respectively.
The Mishnah tells us (at Taanit 4:6) that three other events also occurred on that date in varying years. It was the date that the twelve reconnoiterers sent by Moses to take an advance look at Canaan returned from their mission and ten of them dished dirt on the Promised Land, in the year 1313 BCE. Also on or around Tish’ah BeAv in 135 CE the Romans (them again!) squashed the revolt led by Bar Kokhba and destroyed Betar, killing over half a million Jewish residents of the city. Thereafter, Turnus Rufus, a Roman military leader, trashed the Temple site and its surroundings just for good measure.
Other horrors reported elsewhere include the beginning of the First Crusade in 1096 CE, the Jews being expelled from England in 1290, from France in 1306, and from Spain and Portugal in 1492 (a low point of the Inquisition), Germany entering World War I in 1914, Heinrich Himmler garnering approval for his “Final Solution” against the Jews which more or less officially began the Holocaust, and the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto beginning in 1942.
Some mention that in 1989 Iraq walked out of talks with Kuwait. Additionally, the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires was bombed in 1994, killing 85 and injuring 300.
There are those who believe that the first event - the spies scaring everyone about giants in the Promised Land - was the reason for the subsequent bad happenings.
Maybe even the great earthquake of 760 BCE, reported by a few of the Prophets and by Josephus, took place on Tish’ah BeAv, we would not be surprised. We note that that would have been the 9th of Av in the year 3000.