Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
The Book of Isaiah claims the 185,000 Assyrian soldiers were massacred by an angel before they could attack Jerusalem. But the Greek Historian, Herodotus, somewhat similarly claimed that, while fighting the Egyptians, the Assyrians' leather shield straps and bow-strings were eaten through a by a huge pack of hungry mice. The Egyptians were able to clobber the Assyrians, killing them by the thousands. To commemorate the occasion, they later built a statue of the Pharaoh holding a mouse. (Source.)
Isaiah says that the Assyrian army was destroyed by God before it could break into Jerusalem, but what did the Assyrians themselves say about this? Interestingly enough, archeologists discovered an Assyrian artifact called "Sennacherib's Prism." In it, King Sennacherib boasts about his various victories, including shutting Hezekiah up in Jerusalem and exacting tribute from him. But Sennacherib silently passes by whatever happened after that. He "yada yada yadas" over it, you could say. (Source.)
According to the Talmud, Isaiah was finally punished for calling the people of Israel a "nation of unclean lips" when King Manasseh (Hezekiah's son) martyred him. Manasseh was trying to bring the worship of multiple gods back to the temple, and (supposedly) attacked Isaiah for remaining a staunch worshipper of one God. But Isaiah, trying to escape, said the secret name of God, and was able to jump magically inside the trunk of a tree, which then closed up. However, this didn't save him. Manasseh's henchmen sawed the tree in half, killing Isaiah. (Source.)