The Hanging Gardens of Babylon may not have been in Babylon at all. Oxford scholar Stephanie Dalley argues the legend describes the Assyrian king Sennacherib's gardens at Nineveh, over 400 km north, later credited to Nebuchadnezzar.

700 BC · 600 BC · apart: 100 years

◍ Show on the globe

The event

• Fall of Nineveh612 BC · Nineveh. Babylonian and Median forces under Nabopolassar and Cyaxares captured and destroyed Nineveh, the Assyrian capital. Its fall ended the Assyrian Empire and opened the way for the rise of Neo-Babylonian power.

7th century BC · 6th century BC

More amazing facts

• 776 BC · 753 BC The Olympic Games are older than Rome: the first were held in 776 BC, and by tradition the city was founded only 23 years later.
• 776 BC The first Olympic champion on record was a cook.
• 753 BC · 248 · 476 In 248 Rome celebrated its 1,000th birthday.
• 700 BC · 350 Sudan has twice as many pyramids as Egypt.
• 660 BC · 1873 Every 11 February Japan marks the accession of an emperor most scholars think never existed.
• 650 BC · 612 BC The fire that destroyed Nineveh in 612 BC baked the clay tablets of Ashurbanipal's library — helping them survive to the present day.

All amazing facts (1058) →