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A Sports Dispute Started the Cuban Missile Crisis and Other Odd Facts

Khalid Elhassan October 28, 2019 31 min

23. The First Steppe Nomads To Terrorize the Civilized World

The 6^th century BC Scythian King Idanthyrsus ruled a nomadic Iranian-speaking tribal confederacy that inhabited the Steppe between the Carpathians and central China. His territory lay astride an overland trade network that connected the Greeks, Chinese, Persians, and Indians, and milking its resources, the Scythians created the first of the Steppe empires that terrified the neighboring settled lands for millennia.

Starting in the 7th century BC, the Scythians began raiding the Middle East. Their first major disruptive role occurred in 612 BC, when they played a leading part in the destruction of the Assyrian Empire, forever extinguishing a nation that had existed for over a millennium and had dominated the Middle East for centuries. The region was eventually taken over by the Persians, and in 513 BC Darius I of Persia sought to end Scythian raids on his empire by conquering them. It did not turn out well.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.