Fall of Nineveh

In 612 BCE, a combined army of Babylonians under Nabopolassar and Medes under Cyaxares besieged and destroyed Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The city was so thoroughly devastated that within a few generations, people forgot where it had been. The Babylonian Chronicle records the event in matter-of-fact detail. The fall stunned the ancient world — Assyria had dominated the Near East for centuries.