Help with Loading JSON into PHP with ajax/jquery

[mbulfair]

I am trying, as a new developer, wrap my head around the best approach to load a JSON file, create some sort of template with variables or placeholders, without using jquery to build DOM elements, since its a complex div.
To make it more complicated I would like to have a onClick event to a set of tabs in this case dates (since this is a event calendar) and have it load 5 events for each date, without reloading the page, which is where ajax comes in.

Here is my JSON function:

 function getEvents()
    {
    $foo['events'] = 
		array(
		array('id'=>'1', 'title'=>'My Title'),
		array('id'=>'2', 'title'=>'My Title2'),
		array('id'=>'3', 'title'=>'My Title3'),
		array('id'=>'4', 'title'=>'My Title4'),
		array('id'=>'5', 'title'=>'My Title5')
		);
		echo json_encode($foo);
		}

Any help in getting this working or some way help me understand the best way to do this, would be greatly appreciated.

[rnd me]

that's php, not javascript.
if $foo is a global, tell php so, otherwise, delclare $foo first, then assign the events array to foo...