Stephen and Koppány eventually meet in battle…

Mansur sends the general Bektuzun to retake control of Khurasan, which has recently fallen into the possession of the Ghaznavids.

Nishapur is occupied, but Baktuzun is then attacked in 998 by Abu'l-Qasim Simjuri, the ruler of Kuhistan.

Abu'l-Qasim had been persuaded by Fa'iq to strike; the latter fears Bektuzun’s power.

Bektuzun is victorious, but he makes peace with Abu'l-Qasim and heads back to Bukhara.

Otto III and Pope Gregory V had begun the process of reviving the Diocese of Halberstadt after the death, in November 996, of its Bishop, who had been one of the masterminds behind the abolition of the bishopric of Merseburg.

Otto I had established the Diocese in 968 following his victory over the Hungarians in order to Christianize the Polabian Slavs but had been effectively destroyed in 983 with the Great Slav Rising following the death of Otto II in 983.

Abul Wafa Buzjani, a Persian astronomer born in about 940 in Buzhgan, (now Torbat-e Jam) in Iran, had in 959 moved to Iraq, where he has studied mathematics and worked principally in the field of trigonometry.

He has written a number of books, most of which no longer exist; also studying the movements of the moon.

The crater Abul Wáfa on the Moon is named after him.

He has devised a wall quadrant for the accurate astronomy measurement of the declination of stars.

He has also introduced the tangent function and improved methods of calculating trigonometry tables and developed novel ways of solving some problems of spherical triangles.

He has established various trigonometric identities and discovered the law of sines for spherical triangles.

Damian has engaged in operations against the amir Nazzal of Tripoli, and forced him to agree to terms.

Soon, however, Nazzan had been overthrown by the city's populace, forcing Dalassenos to resume operations along the northern Syrian coast.

He marches his troops to Apamea to seize the city after a catastrophic fire.

Here, he is killed on July 19 while pursuing a force of Bedouins under the command of the Fatimid general Jaush ibn al-Samsama, and is succeeded as doux by Nikephoros Ouranos.

Samuel launches a major campaign against the Serbian principality of Duklja in 998 to prevent an alliance between Prince Petrislav and Constantinople.

When the Bulgarian troops reach Duklja, the Serbian prince and his people withdraw to the mountains.

Samuel leaves part of the army at the foot of the mountains and leads the remaining soldiers to besiege the coastal fortress of Ulcinj.

In an effort to prevent bloodshed, he asks Petrislav to surrender.

After the prince refuses, some Serb nobles offer their services to the Bulgarians and, when it becomes clear that further resistance is fruitless, the Serbs surrender.

The Bulgarian troops proceed to pass through Dalmatia, taking control of Kotor and …

…journeying to Dubrovnik.

Although they fail to take Dubrovnik, they devastate the surrounding villages.

The Bulgarian army now attacks Croatia in support of the rebel princes Krešimir III and Gojslav and advances northwest as far as …

…Split, …

…Trogir and …

…Zadar, then …