Conflicts among the Muslim leaders had hindered…

Emperor Temmu issues a decree in 682 forbidding the Japanese-style cap of ranks and garments, and changing them into Chinese ones.

He also makes a decree forbidding men to wear leggings and women to let down their hair on their backs.

It is from this time that the practice begins of women riding on horseback like men.

He issues an edict prescribing the character of ceremonies and language to be used on ceremonial occasions.

Ceremonial kneeling and crawling are both abolished, and the Tang Court’s ceremonial custom of standing is practiced instead.

A widespread famine in China, due to a culmination of major droughts, floods, locust plagues, and epidemics, breaks out in the dual capital cities of Chang'an (primary capital) and …

…Luoyang (secondary capital).

The scarcity of food drives the price of grain to unprecedented heights, ending a once prosperous era under emperors Taizong and Gaozong on a sad note.

A critical time in the history of Visigothic Spain begins toward the end of the seventh century.

A sign of future troubles is the deposition, through deception, of King Wamba, a capable ruler who has tried to reform the military organization.

As agitation continues, his successors make scapegoats of the Jews, compelling them to accept the Christian religion and threatening them with slavery.

Erwig, or Euric, II, who had succeeded Wamba in 680, had begun his reign by enacting twenty-eight anti-Jewish laws, decreeing that all converts must be registered by a parish priest, through whom all travel permits must be obtained.

He had also ruled that all holidays, Christian and Jewish, must be spent in the presence of a priest to ensure piety and to prevent “backsliding”.

The church councils of Toledo have become the main force in the government, and the royal power has been accordingly weakened.

The twelfth Council of Toledo in 681 had burned the Talmud and other Jewish writings.

Erwig presses in 682 for the “utter extirpation of the pest of the Jews” and makes it illegal to practice any Jewish rites.

…northern Morocco, reaching the Atlantic Ocean and penetrating south to …

…the areas of the Sus (Sous) and Drâa rivers in southern Morocco.

The Tang, an imperial dynasty of China, had been founded by the Li family, who had seized power in 618 during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire.

Gaozong, the third emperor of the Tang Dynasty in China, has ruled from 649, although from January 665 much of the governance has been in the hands of his second wife Empress Wu after a series of strokes had left him incapacitated.

During the first part of his reign, Tang territorial gains, which had begun with his father Emperor Taizong, continued, including the conquest of Baekje, Silla, and the Western Göktürks, but throughout the 670s, much of those gains had been lost to Tufan, Silla, Khitan, and Balhae.

Further, territory previously conquered that had belonged to both Eastern and Western Göktürks had been subjected to repeated rebellions.

Due to a culmination of major droughts, floods, locust plagues, and epidemics, a widespread famine breaks out in 682 in the dual Chinese capital cities of Chang'an (primary capital) and Luoyang (secondary capital).

The scarcity of food drives the price of grain to unprecedented heights, ending a once prosperous era under emperors Taizong and Gaozong on a sad note.

Gaozong dies in 683, having brought Japan and Korea into tributary relationship to the Chinese empire.

State power now falls completely into the hands of Empress Wu, who at first reigning in the name of puppet emperors (her son Emperor Zhongzong and then her younger son Emperor Ruizong), will subsequently become the first and only reigning Empress of China.

The repeated confrontations have taken their toll on the dwindling and ever-divided resources of the Exarchate, which, with assistance from its Berber allies of king Kusaila, has reached the peak of resistance.

Its victory over the forces of Uqba Ibn Nafia at the Battle of Biskra causes the Muslim forces to retreat to Egypt, giving the Exarchate what will prove to be a decade's respite.

Uqba ibn Nafi, on his way back to Al-Qayraw'n, is attacked near Biskra (in present-day Algeria), on orders from Kusaila, by Berbers supported by imperial contingents.

Uqba is said to have offered to unchain Abu al-Muhajir so that he might have a better chance to fight, but Abu al-Muhajir said that he would rather die fighting wearing his chains.

Both men are killed in this battle.

Uqba, through his death in this battle and his extended campaign, will become the legendary hero of the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb.

Arab proselytizers for Islam arrive in Morocco in 683, winning additional converts among the indigenous Berbers.