October 17, 539 BCE – Cyrus the Great marches into Babylon and adds it to the Achaemenid Empire that he founded.

October 17, 539 BCE – Cyrus the Great marches into Babylon and adds it to the Achaemenid Empire that he founded. Cyrus the Great is famous for releasing the Jews from almost 70 years of exile in Babylon caused by the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II (Nabucco in Verdi’s opera), with a commission to rebuild the Temple. The Achaemenid Empire was at its time the largest empire the world had ever seen. At its zenith, it included the Near East, most of Southwest Asia, much of Central Asia and the Caucasus, and had about 50 million residents. Cyrus's conquests began a new era in the age of empire building, where a vast superstate, comprising many dozens of countries, races, religions, and languages, was ruled under a single administration headed by a central government that allowed people to continue to worship their own gods and retain their culture. Cyrus is the only Gentile in the Jewish Tanakh (the Christian Old Testament), in the Books of Ezra and Isaiah, called Moshiach, meaning savior or messiah. He is addressed as “…the one to whom "the LORD, the God of Heaven" has given…all the Kingdoms of the earth.” Xenophon wrote “those who were subject to him, he treated with esteem and regard, as if they were his own children,,,What other man but 'Cyrus', after having overturned an empire, ever died with the title of "The Father" from the people whom he had brought under his power? For it is plain fact that this is a name for one that bestows, rather than for one that takes away.” His own people, the Iranians, still refer to him as the Father. The famous Cyrus cylinder, which has sometimes (exaggeratedly) been called the oldest declaration of human rights describes how Cyrus had improved the lives of the citizens of Babylonia, repatriated displaced peoples and restored temples and cult sanctuaries. The Cyrus cylinder is owned by the British Museum; I had the honor of seeing it when it was on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art