"Akkadian" is the name of a language group, cultural group, and civilization that predates the Babylonian Empire. The Babylonian Empire arose in the Fertile Crescent of land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Its main rival to the North was another Akkadian civilization known as the Assyrian Empire. The two fought for centuries for control over the Fertile Crescent and each reigned as hegemonic powers for a period of time.

Cyrus the Great was the founded of the Achaemenid Empire, the progenitor of the Persian Empire. Justinian I is the most famous ruler of the Byzantine Empire. Hammurabi was the most influential ruler of the old Babylonian Empire that reached it's apex almost four thousand years ago. Nebopolassar was an early ruler of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. But, it was during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (605-561 B.C.E.) that the Neo-Babylonian Empire reached the height of it's powers. It is useful at this juncture to draw a distinction between the old Babylonian Empire of Hammurabi (circa eighteenth century B.C.E.) and the Neo-Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar II (more than a millennium later).

Hammurabi's Code of Laws is the earliest known written-down legal system. Hammurabi was a Babylonian king circa 1800 BCE. The Babylonian civilization existed in various forms for roughly 1500 years from 2000 BCE to 500 BCE.

The Ancient civilization of Babylon existed in the modern-day state of Iraq. Although you might not have known this immediately, you should know that Babylon was a Mesopotamian kingdom and that Iraq is the only modern country on this list which falls in the region of Mesopotamia.

The Babylon Captivity is a period of Jewish history when many Jewish citizens of the Kingdom of Judah were captured and forced into exile in ancient Babylon by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar.

The "Babylonian Captivity" of the sixth century BCE involved the forced imprisonment of much of the population of the Kingdom of Judah within the city of Babylon. It ended when Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon in 539 BCE and founded the Achaemenid Dynasty of Persia. Cyrus freed the Jewish people and they mostly returned to Judaea.

The Sack of Babylon occurred in approximately 1530 BCE, when the Hittite ruler, Mursili I, marched his army into the heart of Mesopotamia and lay waste to Babylon. It brought about the demise of the Amorite Dynasty of Hammurabi and ushered in a new era of civilizations in the Mesopotamian region.