Sasanian Persia ends
On February 28th, 628 CE, Khosrow II was killed by his son Sheroye. This marked the apex of Sasanian Persia, whose glory and strength had reached levels unseen since Darius I and Xerxes I (a thousand years before). It was a rapid decline. Plague killed Sheroye and in four years nine rulers disappeared through assassination, flight, or abnormally natural death. Exhausted and in chaos, the Persian Empire called the attention of the Arabs who were ready for conquest. In 636, through four bloody days, one of the most crucial battles in Asiatic history was fought in Al-Qadisiyyah—where 30,000 men led by general Saad fought an army of 120,000 Persians. On the fourth day a sandstorm blew into the faces of the Persians; the Arabs seized the opportunity, and overwhelmed their blinded enemies. Saad led his unresisted troops to the Tigris, crossed it, and entered Ctesiphon. For five years the Persians planned their revenge, raising an army of 150,000 under their king Yazdegerd III. They met at Nahavand, where superior tactics won the "Victory of Victories" for the Arabs; 100,000 Persians, caught in narrow defiles, were massacred. Yazdegerd III fled to Balkh, begged aid of China and was refused, begged aid of the Turks and was given a small force; but as he started out on his new campaign some Turkish soldiers murdered him for his jewelry (652). Sasanian Persia had come to an end.
Source: Durant, Will, 1885-1981, The Age of Faith: A History of Medieval Civilization, Christian, Islamic, and Judaic, From Constantine to Dante, A.D. 325-1300. Simon and Schuster, 1950.
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!