The Assyrians began to convert to Christianity from Ashurism during the period between the early 1st and 3rd centuries AD.

During the 9th century BC the Assyrians began to reassert themselves against the incursions of the Aramaeans, and over the next few centuries developed into a powerful and well-organised empire.

Assyrians fared rather well under the five-year regime, but since Baathist rule began again in 1968, they fared much worse, according to Jonathan Eric Lewis.

The Ottoman Empire began massacring Assyrians in the nineteenth century, a time of friendly relations between the Ottomans and the British, who were defending the Ottomans from the Russian Empire's efforts to include under its protection the communities of Ottoman Orthodox Christians.

In October 1914, the Ottoman Empire began deporting and massacring Assyrians and Armenians in Van.

On friendly terms with the PUK, the PKK began attacking ethnic Assyrians and civilians who supported the KDP.

Unlike the Semitic Akkadians and their descendant Assyrians, whose Anatolian possessions were peripheral to their core lands in Mesopotamia, the Hittites were centred at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia by 2000 BC.

The Turkish language and the Islamic religion were gradually introduced as a result of the Seljuk conquest, and this period marks the start of Anatolia's slow transition from predominantly Christian and Indo-European and Semitic-speaking, to predominantly Muslim and Turkish-speaking ( Although some ethnic groups such as Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and Georgians retained Christianity and their native languages ).

Classical civilizations, notably the Assyrians, Persians, Parthians, Indians, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese and Turks fielded large numbers of archers in their armies.

The Assyrians fought successfully against overwhelming numbers for a time, until their Russian allies left the war and the Armenian line broke.

The Assyrians were prized by the British rulers for their fighting qualities, loyalty, bravery and discipline, and were used to help the British put down insurrections among the Arabs and Kurds.

In addition, there is no evidence whatsoever in Assyrian, Babylonian, Median, Persian, Greek or Egyptian records of the time mentioning deportations of Assyrians from their homelands

The ancient Assyrians also used the Sumerian language in their literature and liturgy, although to a more limited extent in the Middle-and Neo-Assyrian periods, when Akkadian became the main literary language.

" The prophet Jonah shows us where God shows concern for the people of Nineveh, while Nahum ’ s writing testifies to his belief in the righteousness / justice of God and how God dealt with those Assyrians in punishment according to " their cruelty " ( Nahum 3: 19 ).

The Assyrians had been used as God's " rod of [...] anger, and the staff in their hand indignation.

A stalemate ensued with Nabopolassar unable to eject the Assyrians despite their greatly weakened state, and Sin-shar-ishkun unable to unseat Nabopolassar.

Like the Assyrians, the Babylonians had to campaign yearly in order to control their colonies.

They would begin to substantially increase both the numbers and the training standards of the cavalry in their employ, just as nearly a thousand years earlier the first Iranians to reach the Iranian Plateau forced the Assyrians to a similar reform.

The Assyrians were also renowned for their beautiful gardens.

At their height, the Assyrians dominated all of Syria-Palestine, Egypt, and Babylonia.

By 1975, Lebanon was a religiously and ethnically diverse country with most dominant groups of Maronite Christians and Lebanese Sunni and Shia Arabs ; with significant minorities of Druze, Kurds, Armenians, Assyrians and Palestinian Arab refugees and their descendants.

Though the Assyrians and the Babylonians impressed their cuneiform on clay tablets, they also wrote on parchment from the 6th century BCE onward.

Egyptians, Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Hittites variously occupied the strategic ground of Syria during this period, as it was a marchland between their various empires.

The Talmud accounts for a people called " Cuthim " on a number of occasions, mentioning their arrival by the hands of the Assyrians.

The Assyrians fought their way back north and captured various cities, in the meanwhile a year had passed as it was now 693 BC.

The Assyrians finally left the world stage permanently when their capital Nineveh was destroyed in 612 BC.

Roman-style aqueducts were used as early as the 7th century BCE, when the Assyrians built an 80 km long limestone aqueduct, which included a 10 m high section to cross a 300 m wide valley, to carry water to their capital city, Nineveh.

Babylonians and Assyrians divided dreams into " good ," which were sent by the gods, and " bad ," sent by demons-They also believed that their dreams were omens and prophecies.

Following the collapse of the last Sumerian " Ur-III " dynasty at the hands of the Elamites ( 2002 BC traditional, 1940 BC short ), the Amorites, another Semitic people, gradually gained control over most of southern Mesopotamia, where they formed a series of small kingdoms, while the Assyrians reasserted their independence in the north.

After this Asuristan-Assyria was also dissolved as a geo-political entity, and the native Aramaic speaking and largely Christian populace gradually underwent a process of Arabisation and Islamification, with only the Assyrians / Chaldo-Assyrians of the north ( known as Ashuriyun by the Arabs ) and Mandeans of the south retaining their religions and a distinct Mesopotamian identity and language, which they still do to this day.

According to the Hebrew Testament, Hezekiah witnessed the destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel by Sargon's Assyrians in c 720 BC and was king of Judah during the invasion and siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib in 701 BC.

Since the invasion Mandaeans, like other Iraqi ethno-religious minorities ( such as Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidi, Roma and Shabaks ), have been subjected to violence, including murders, kidnappings, rapes, evictions, and forced conversions.

The location was never secure from invasion and attacks, since to the south it was exposed to the Moabites, and like the other tribes east of the Jordan was exposed on the north and east to Aram-Damascus and later the Assyrians.

The Nubian invasion into the Egyptian Delta was subsequently repelled by the Assyrians who proceeded to advance south into Upper Egypt and sack Thebes.

Since the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the resulting breakdown of law and order in that country, many Syriac speaking Assyrians and other Christians have fled the country, taking refuge in Syria, Jordan and further afield.

The Assyrians recorded that Sennacherib lifted his siege of Jerusalem after Hezekiah acknowledged Sennacherib as his overlord and paid him tribute .< ref >

Hezekiah was reduced to despair, and submitted to the Assyrians ().

Isaiah on that occasion encouraged Hezekiah to resist the Assyrians (), whereupon Sennacherib sent a threatening letter to Hezekiah, which he " spread before the LORD " ().

During the reign of Hezekiah, King of Judah, the Assyrians, under King Sennacherib, attempted to take Jerusalem, and, in that campaign, succeeded in taking Lachish ( see 2 Chronicles 32: 9 and Isaiah 36: 2 ).

In the event, Hezekiah ignored Isaiah and joined the rebels, and the prophet's warning came true: the Assyrians ravaged Judah and Hezekiah barely escaped with his throne.

According to the Bible the tunnel was built by King Hezekiah in preparation for a siege by the Assyrians, along with an expansion of Jerusalem's fortifications across the Tyropoeon Valley to enclose the hill today known as Mount Zion.

Hezekiah gathered the citizens in the square and encouraged them by reminding them that the Assyrians possessed only " an arm of flesh ", but the Judeans had the protection of Yahweh.

During the siege, Hezekiah clad himself in sackcloth out of anguish from the psychological warfare that the Assyrians were waging.

The Bible records that King Hezekiah, fearful that the Assyrians would lay siege to the city, blocked the spring's water outside the city and diverted it through a channel into the Pool of Siloam.