TIL of 1177 BC: The year that civilization collapsed. In a short period of time all empires along the Mediterranean collapsed violently;including the Egyptian, Hittite, and Mycenaean empires.Almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, and historians don't know why

Most historians agree that a mysterious group of people known as the "Sea Peoples" were partially (but certainly not fully) responsible for this collapse

This is not at all supported by the wikipedia article. "Sea Peoples" is mentioned 7 times in the article.

  1. Cyprus: "two waves of destruction in c. 1230 BC by the Sea Peoples and c. 1190 BC by Aegean refugees have been proposed" (unsourced, unclear who proposed this) for the destruction of some towns.

  2. Syria: "Prior to and during the Bronze Age Collapse, Syria became a battle ground between the empires of the Hittites, Assyrians, Mitanni and Egyptians, and the coastal regions came under attack from the Sea Peoples." Only coastal regions came under attack, and you neglected to mention the 4 empires battling it out. "Sea Peoples" was mentioned twice in this section.

  3. Mesopotamia: "The Arameans and Phrygians were subjected, and Assyria and its colonies were not threatened by the Sea Peoples."

  4. Reasons for collapse: Sea Peoples are mentioned as only part of one part of one possible factor for this collapse (migrations and raids). The other possible reasons are climate change, volcanoes, drought, ironworking, other changes in warfare, and "general systems collapse".

/r/todayilearned Thread Parent Link - en.wikipedia.org