Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
Defeats Medes in 550 BC; Captures Babylon in 539 BC--Jewish people return to Jerusalem;
“'In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia,' begins the book of Ezra, meaning the first year of Cyrus’s domination in Babylon, 'the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation: ‘The Lord, the God of Heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel. . . . For this, he earned himself the title from the Jews “Anointed of the Lord.” . . . Unlike the Assyrians, he did not try to destroy national loyalties or identities. Instead he portrayed himself as the benevolent guardian of those very identities." [Bauer, Ancient World, p. 466-8] " . . . but it's interesting that the Persians developed the ideas of a last judgment, of paradise and hell, and an emphasis on ethical conduct, similar to the three great monotheistic faiths we know today." [Persian Empire, p. 108] Darius I [son-in-law of Cyrus] established Zoroastrianism as the state religion. [National Geographic Concise History, p. 78]