Lived: Approximately 620-540 BC
Three Jewish teenagers ripped from their homes in Jerusalem and relocated to Babylon—roughly 900 miles east, near modern-day Baghdad, Iraq. They arrived as captives but rose to become government officials in the most powerful empire on earth.
Their Hebrew names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Their Babylonian captors renamed them to erase their identity. It didn’t work.
During their lifetime, the ancient Greeks were establishing the Olympic Games, and philosophers like Thales were laying groundwork for Western science. In China, Confucius was being born.
These three are remembered for a single moment of defiance—standing when everyone else bowed, and surviving what should have killed them. Their story appears in Daniel chapter 3.