Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"The nearly 500-year period of New Kingdom rulers (1539-1075 B.C.E.) brought ancient Egypt to the peak of its power and wealth. Vowing never to suffer foreign occupation again, these kings created a buffer zone of vassal states including Canaan, Edom, Moab, and Syria. Many of the New Kingdom rulers also built monumental works throughout Egypt and ordered elaborate tombs for themselves in the Valley of the Kings." [Isbouts: Biblical World, p. 112] "Among the greatest of Egypt's conqueror-kings was Thutmose III, who crushed the Canaanites at the Battle of Megiddo in 1483 B.C. . . . Pharaoh Ramses II, after battling the Hittites at Kadesh in Syria in 1285 B.C. and returning to Egypt with little to show for it, made peace with the Hittites by agreeing to take as one of his many wives the eldest daughter of the Hittite king. . . . After the death of Ramses II, who reigned 67 years and fathered more than a hundred children, the New Kingdom lost its luster." [National Geographic Almanac, p. 51-2] "By the time Ramses III came to the throne in 1184 BC, events were growing tumultuous. . . . He fought the battles against the Sea Peoples that we have been discussing here." [1177 BC, Kindle, Location 2690]