The Danes, taking advantage of the Slavic…

The Zubu had begun paying tribute to the Khitan Empire after a campaign in 924 when the Khitan subdued the Zubu and other Turkic peoples in the region of what is now Eastern Mongolia or southeastern Russia.

Liao emperor Shengzong leads an expeditionary force against the Zubu in 983 after the Zubu killed their own khan and began to act in defiance of the Khitan.

Imperial authority in Slavic territory around the year 982 had extended as far east as the Lusatian Neisse River and as far south as the Ore Mountains.

Following Otto II's defeat at Stilo in 983, the Lutici Federation of Polabian Slavs revolt against their German overlords, sparking a great revolt known as the Slawenaufstand.

The Polabian Slavs destroy the bishoprics of Havelberg and …

…Brandenburg.

According the German chronicler Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg, the decades-long forced Germanization and Christianization of the Slavs associated with these two churches was the reason for their destruction.

Thietmar blames the uprising on maltreatment of the Slavs by the Germans: "Warriors, who used to be our servants, now free as a consequence of our injustices."

In the Obotrite territories along the Elbe River, the Luticians initiate a revolt aiming at the abolishment of feudal rule and Christianity, drawing on considerable support by the Obodrite populace and their leader Mstivoj.

In part, the Obrodite revolt is successful: the princely family, though in part remaining Christian, dissolves Christian institutions.

Soldiers from the Northern March, the March of Meissen, the March of Lusatia, as well as from the Bishop of Halberstadt and the Archbishop of Magdeburg, join forces to defeat the Slavs near Stendal.

Nevertheless, the Empire is forced to withdraw to the western banks of the Elbe river.

The successes of the Empire's Christianization policy towards the Slavs are nullified, and the political control over the Billung March and the Northern March (territories east of the Elbe) is lost.

Otto I's life work of converting the Slavs is thus undone a decade after his death.

The Slavic territories east of the Elbe will remain pagan for over a century before further missionary work resumes: it will not be until the twelfth century that the churches of Havelberg and Brandenburg will be reestablished.

Harald Bluetooth, king of Denmark from 935, is the first Danish monarch to become a Christian.

He ends the Saxons’ seven-year occupation of Hedeby in 983.

The defeat at Stilo had forced Otto II to flee north to Rome.

He now holds an Imperial Diet at Verona on Pentecost, 983.

He had sent his nephew Otto I, Duke of Swabia and Bavaria, back to Germany with the news of the defeat and to call the German nobles to the assembly, but he had died en route on November 1, 982, in Lucca.

News of the battle had crossed the Alps, however, reaching as far as Wessex in Britain, signifying of the magnitude of the defeat.

Duke Bernard I of Saxony had been heading south for the assembly when Danish Viking raids forced him to return to face the Viking threat.

At the assembly, Otto II appoints Conrad (a distant relative of Otto II) and Henry III as the new Dukes of Swabia and Bavaria respectively.

Henry III had previously been exiled by Otto II following his defeat as part of a two-year revolt against Otto II's rule.

The defeat at Stilo had cost the Empire many nobles, forcing Otto II to lift Henry III's banishment in order to stabilize domestic affairs in Germany while he campaigns against the Muslim and Eastern Romans in southern Italy.

Also, the appointment of Conrad I allows the House of the Conradines to return to power in Swabia for the first time since Emperor Otto I in 948.

Otto II and the assembled nobles agree on a strategy of naval blockade and economic warfare until reinforcement from Germany can arrive.

Otto II now prepares for a new campaign against the Muslims and obtains a settlement with the Republic of Venice, whose assistance he needs following the destruction of his army at Stilo.

However, Otto II's death the next year and the resulting civil war will prevent the Empire from appropriately responding to the defeat.

The most important action Otto II takes at the assembly is to secure the "election" of his son Otto III, who is now only three years old, as King of Germany and heir apparent to the Imperial throne.

Otto III thus becomes the only German king elected south of the Alps.

The exact reason for this unusual procedure has been lost to history.

It is possible that the conditions in southern Italy following the defeat required Otto II to act quickly in designating an Imperial heir to ensure connivence in the Empire's future.

It is also conceivable, however, that holding the election in Italy was a deliberate choice on the part of Otto II in order to demonstrate that Italy was an equal part of the Empire on the same level as Germany.

His election secured, Otto III and his mother, the Empress Theophanu, travel north across the Alps heading for Aachen, the traditional coronation site for the Ottonians, in order for Otto III to be officially crowned as king.

Otto II stays in Italy to further address his military campaigns.

'Adud al-Dawla dies in 983 and is buried in Najaf, where, in 977, he had built the first shrine over the tomb of ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib, the cousin of Muhammad, the fourth caliph (Sunni belief), the first Imam (Shia belief), in Najaf in 977.

The Imām ‘Alī Holy Shrine, also known as Masjid Ali or the Mosque of ‘Alī, is today the third holiest site for some of the estimated two hundred million followers of the Shia branch of Islam.

According to Shi'a belief, buried next to Ali within this mosque are the remains of Adam and Noah.

Longtime Ottonian supporter Pope Benedict VII, after having reigned for almost ten years, had died of natural causes in July 983.

Otto II had returned to Rome in September to name a new Pope, selecting the Bishop of Pavia Pietro Canepanova (who reigns as Pope John XIV) in November or early December.

While Otto II is in Rome overseeing the election of the new pope, a malaria outbreak in central Italy prevents the resumption of military activity in southern Italy.

The outbreak ultimately leads to the death of the Emperor himself: he dies in his palace in Rome at the age of twenty-eight on December 7, 983, after having reigned for just over a decade.

Otto II's money and possessions are divided among the Catholic Church, the poor of the Empire, his mother Adelaide and sister Matilda, and those nobles loyal to him.

Otto II is then buried in the atrium of St. Peter's Basilica, becoming the only German ruler to be buried in a foreign country instead of in Germany.

Otto II’s three-year-old son succeeds him, with only minor opposition, in December 983 as Otto III.

Young Otto’s guardians—his mother Theophanu, his grandmother Adelaide and Archbishop Willigis of Mainz—rule for him as co-regents.

The encyclopedia Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era, another of the Four Great Books of Song, is completed in one thousand volumes of 4.7 million written Chinese characters.

A massive encyclopedia compiled by a number of officers commissioned by the imperial court of the Song Dynasty with the lead editor being Li Fang from 977 to 983 during the era of Taiping Xingguon, it includes citations from about two thousand five hundred and seventy-nine different kinds of documents spanning from books, poetry, ode, proverbs, steles to miscellaneous works.

After the compilation, the Emperor Taizong of Song is said to have finished reading the book within a year with three volumes per day.

The Song Dynasty Chinese engineer Qiao Wei develops, in 984, the first known use of the double-gated canal pound lock for adjusting different water levels in segments of the Grand Canal of China.

This dramatically helps the passage of ships in segments with rougher waters leading slightly downhill.

Qiao also has roof hangers built over the segments where double gates are installed, increasing the amount of safety for passing ships.