A prince of Zhou, the rebel ruler…

…control over China shifts to Zhou territory to the west.

Shalmaneser II, King of Assyria from 1031 BCE, had succeeded his father, Ashurnasirpal I, and in 1019 BCE  is succeeded by his son, Ashur-nirari IV, but beyond this little is known of his reign.

The Israelites’ desire for a king arises because their loosely organized tribal league in the hill country of Canaan is unable to meet the military threat posed by the Philistines inhabiting the coast.

The united kingdom of the Israelites forms, according to the Hebrew scriptures, in about 1020, comprising the territories of Israel, in the north, and Judah, in the south.

The Israelites supposedly clear the Canaanites or Philistines from the central hill country and extend their authority into southern Judah and northern Transjordan.

Power is consolidated, following a civil war, in Jerusalem, which becomes the political and religious capital of the kingdom.

The pro-monarchical source and the anti-monarchical source are the most prominent sources in the early parts of the first book of Samuel.

The anti-monarchical source describes Samuel (thought by a number of scholars to be a cipher for God himself) to have thoroughly routed the Philistines, yet begrudgingly accepting that the people demanded a ruler, and thus appointing Saul by cleromancy.

The pro-monarchical source describes the divine birth of Saul (a single word being changed by a later editor so that it referred to Samuel instead), and his later leading of an army to victory over the Ammonites, which resulted in the people clamoring for him to lead them against the Philistines, whereupon he is appointed king.

Mu, the fifth sovereign of the Chinese Zhou, or Chou, Dynasty, comes into power in about 1023 BCE after the death of his father King Zhao during his tour to the South.

King Ashur-nirari IV of Assyria had succeeded his father Shalmaneser II in 1019 BCE, and reigned for six years, until 1013 BCE, when he is succeeded by his uncle Ashur-rabi II.

Almost nothing is known about his brief reign beyond this.

Saul, the son of Elkanah, from the tribe of Ephraim, is identified in the Books of Samuel as having been appointed the first king of the Kingdom of Israel.

According to the Hebrew scriptures, David, a son of Jesse, from the tribe of Judah, enters the army of Saul and rises quickly to the rank of commander, becoming close friends with Saul’s son Jonathan.

Saul’s judgment has begun to self-destruct due to the lack of religious support coupled with Saul's growing envy and suspicion of his brilliant young commander.

The original purpose of the Biblical story of David and Goliath was to show David's identity as the true king of Israel.

Goliath or Goliath of Gath is a giant Philistine warrior defeated by the young David in the Bible's Books of Samuel (1 Samuel 17).

The earliest Bible manuscripts, such as the fourth-century CE Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209, narrate that Goliath challenges the Israelites to combat, the Israelites are afraid, and David, already with Saul, accepts the challenge.

The oldest manuscripts—the Dead Sea Scrolls text of Samuel, the first century historian Josephus, and the fourth century Septuagint manuscripts—all give his height as "four cubits and a span" (six feet nine inches or 2.06 meters).

The victory of an unarmored slinger and his five stone bullets against an armored swordsman of superior size and strength illustrates the utility of the slingshot as a combat weapon.

Saul's jealousy finally forces David to flee.

He seeks refuge first as a bandit leader, then as a Philistine mercenary.

The Solomonic Israel of the Hebrew scriptures, untroubled by major wars or internal revolts, builds a strong military and forms a number of foreign alliances, especially with Egypt and the Phoenicians, to fully exploit the economic possibilities of empire.

Jerusalem is at this time is known as Jebus and its independent Canaanite inhabitants at this time are known as Jebusites, according to the Hebrew scriptures; the Israelite history of the city begins in about 1000 BCE, with King David's sack of Jerusalem, following which Jerusalem becomes the City of David and capital of the United Kingdom of Israel.

The Jebusites, according to the Books of Samuel, managed to resist attempts by the Israelites to capture the city, and by the time of King David were mocking such attempts, claiming that even the blind and lame could defeat the Israelite army.

The Masoretic Text (the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Tanakh for Rabbinic Judaism) for the Books of Samuel states that David managed to capture the city by stealth, sending his forces through a "water shaft" and attacking the city from the inside.

Archaeologists now view this as implausible, as the Gihon spring—the only known location from which water shafts lead into the city—is now known to have been heavily defended (and hence an attack via this route would have been obvious rather than secretive).

There was another king in Jerusalem, Araunah, during, and possibly before, David's control of the city, according to the biblical narrative, who was probably the Jebusite king of Jerusalem.

The city, which at that point stood upon the Ophel, was, according to the biblical account, expanded to the south, and declared by David to be the capital city of the Kingdom of Israel.

David also, according to the Books of Samuel, constructed an altar at the location of a threshing floor he had purchased from Araunah; a portion of biblical scholars view this as an attempt by the narrative's author to give an Israelite foundation to a preexisting sanctuary.

King Solomon, according to the biblical narrative, built a more substantive temple, the Temple of Solomon, at a location which the Book of Chronicles equates with David's altar.

The Temple became a major cultural center in the region; eventually, particularly after religious reforms such as those of Hezekiah and of Josiah, the Jerusalem temple became the main place of worship, at the expense of other, formerly powerful, ritual centers, such as Shiloh and Bethel.

Solomon is also described as having created several other important building works at Jerusalem, including the construction of his palace, and the construction of the Millo (the identity of which is somewhat controversial).

However, archaeologists have found no major building works at Jerusalem dating from this era (except perhaps the Large Stone Structure—the name given to the remains of a large public building in the City of David neighborhood of central Jerusalem, south of the Old City, tentatively dated to tenth to ninth century BCE—which is the subject of some controversy), and some have suggested that Solomon's building program was somewhat mythical—being based on the building program of the later Omrides.

David finally defeats the Amalekites, a nomadic tribe, listed in Genesis 36:12 as descended from Esau, who have been more or less constant enemies of Israel.

Numerous revolts, two led by his own sons, plague the latter part of David's reign.

In one of them, his son Absalom raises a rebel army against him, forcing David to take refuge in the rugged and fertile highlands of Gilead, east of the Jordan and northeast of the Dead Sea.

Absalom fails in his attempt and, while fleeing, is caught by his long hair in a tree, then killed by Joab, the commander of David’s loyalist forces.

David’s counselor Ahithopel, who had joined Absalom’s revolt, hangs himself.