Hittite Empire Collapses

Hattusa, the Hittite capital, was burned and abandoned around 1180 BCE. This empire had been running the ancient Near East for centuries, even forcing Egypt into the world's first recorded peace treaty. But between internal civil wars, disrupted trade routes, and Sea Peoples raids, they went from superpower to nothing. Their Neo-Hittite successor states survived in pockets of Syria, but the empire was lowkey finished.