In Daniel 5, Belshazzar gets the "handwriting on the wall" (that's where the modern phrase comes from) and Darius the Mede conquers him without hardly a fight. Having drunk soldiers for gate guards will do that. This is the end of Babylon as far as reigning kings. Then Darius takes over and the Medes and Persians reign (as noted in Daniel 2). However, archaeologists could not find Belshazzar if their life depended on it. Outside the Bible, that is. The Book of Daniel was the only historical reference for this king. We had, from archeaology, a complete list of the last kings of babylon and the kings of Persia who took over. Belshazzar was absent from the list. In fact, Nabonidus was the last king of Babylon.
So the archaeologists said that Daniel had to be wrong. He was historically inaccurate. In doing this, they made two mistakes: 1) They attacked the champion on a lack of evidence (the bible has always been right and will always be right and is eventually vindicated); 2) they discounted the Bible as history.Well for twenty-five hundred years this went on. Then the archaeologists found a reference to Belshazzar! Nabonidus was his father. On a prayer cylinder to the false god Sin (what a "great" name for your god), Nabonidus had written a prayer for his son Belshazzar. Come to find out, Nabonidus was away all the time because he had a love of archaeology. So Belshazzar was ruling in his stead. (This explains why Belshazzar offered Daniel the THIRD place in the kingdom.)
Well, why couldn't archaeologists find this out? Because when Darius had come in and killed Belshazzar, he had ordered Belshazzar's name stricken from the record on everything they could find. So for 2500 years only the Bible believers were right, and the archaeologists were wrong.
One additional note. In 450 B.C. Herodotus did not know about Belshazzar. He had passed from history. Only someone who was living at the time this happened could have known about Belshazzar. This means that Daniel was not written in 160 B.C. as the skeptics say. He was writing when he said he was--somewhere between 607 and 534 B.C. THIS means that the prophecy in Daniel (Daniel 2--the kingdoms of the world; Dan. 8--Alexander the Great, Daniel 11 --Selucian wars, Daniel 9--the day Christ would be crucified, etc) was all written between 607 and 534 B.C. Proof positive that the old King James Bible is always right. Never doubt it.