Babylonian Empire

A New Year’s resolution is a tradition, most common in the West but found around the world, in which a person makes a promise on New Year’s Eve to make certain changes or self-improvements in the year ahead. It is believed that the Babylonians were the first to make New Year’s resolutions around 4,000 years ago, and people all over the world have been breaking them ever since!

In the ruins of Babylon, in modern-day Iraq, the Cyrus Cylinder was discovered in 1879. It tells, in Babylonian script, the story of how Cyrus II, also called Cyrus the Great, conquered Babylon and freed its people from the city’s despotic ruler.

A Saudi man was sentenced to paralysis for a stabbing crime committed a decade ago, which was condemned by rights groups and Western governments.