Muslim Arab forces overrun Cilicia in the early 700s, then turn northward to invade …

…Pontus; both are imperial dependencies.

The reign of Aripert II is a troubled one.

aroald, duke of Spoleto in 703, attacks the Exarchate of Ravenna, but Aripert refuses to assist him, for he wants good relations with papacy and empire.

He tries nevertheless to assert his authority over Spoleto and Benevento in the Mezzogiorno.

He nurses friendship with Pope John VI by donating vast tracts of land in the Cottian Alps to the Holy See, returning them to their former status as a papal patrimony.

This friendship helps him little, for he has many rebellions to deal with and many Slovene raids into Venetia.

Chinese Chancellor Zhang Jianzhi executes the Zhang brothers in a coup d'état and restores Emperor Zhongzong.

This marks the end of the short-lived Zhou Dynasty in China.

Tiberios proceeds to invade and for a period hold territory in Armenia, while Arab reprisals in 703 and 704 are repelled from Cilicia with heavy Arab losses.

Constantinople’s Armenian provinces east of the Euphrates, recently conquered by Muhammad ibn Marwan, have risen in a revolt that spreads out over much of Armenia.

Repeated campaigns in 703 and 704 by Muhammad and Abdallah ibn 'Abd al-Malik crush the revolt.

Sisium, besieged by the Arabs in 704, is relieved by an imperial army under Heraclius.

Coenred's father Wulfhere had come to the throne of Mercia in 658 as the result of a coup, ending a three-year period of Northumbrian control.

Wulfhere had been succeeded on his death (in 675) by his brother Æthelred, Coenred's uncle, possibly because Coenred was too young to rule.

Coenred's mother, Ermenilda, had become a nun sometime after Wulfhere's death.

Æthelred's decisive victory over the Northumbrians at the Battle of the Trent in 679, followed by the Picts' destruction of the Northumbrian army at the Battle of Dun Nechtain in 685, had reduced Northumbrian power and influence.

There is evidence of Mercian activity in the southeast as well.

Æthelred had invaded Kent in 676, and charters survive in which he confirmed land grants made by Swæfheard and Oswine, kings of west and east Kent.

Another charter of Æthelred's, dated between 693 and 704, grants land to Waldhere, the bishop of London.

However, Æthelred does not appear to have sought expansion further south.

The growing strength of the West Saxons under Cædwalla and Ine would have limited Mercian opportunities in that direction.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in 702 Coenred succeeded to the kingdom of the Southumbrians and that in 704 he became king of Mercia.

As the "Southumbrians" were those who lived south of the Humber, Mercia's northern boundary, the two annals have proved difficult to interpret: Coenred and Æthelred may have ruled jointly for two years before Æthelred abdicated, or the chroniclers may have recorded the same event twice, once from a source that was two years in error.

According to the eighth-century life of St Guthlac, Æthelred appointed Coenred as his heir despite having at least one son of his own, Ceolred.

Æthelred appears to have retained influence during his nephew's reign: the Life of St Wilfrid relates how he summoned Coenred and made him swear to support Wilfrid in his conflict with the church hierarchy.

Qutayba ibn Muslim was born in 669 CE in Basra, where his family was influential.

His father, Muslim ibn ʿAmr, had enjoyed the favor of the Umayyads, and fell at the Battle of Maskin at the close of the Second Islamic Civil War.

Qutayba had risen at first as the protégé of Anbasa ibn Sa'id, but had been noticed by the powerful governor of Iraq and the East, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, during the suppression of the revolt of Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath in 700/701.

Under al-Hajjaj's patronage, he had taken Rayy from the rebel Umar ibn Abi'l-Salt in 701, and became the city's governor.

Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan appoints Qutayba as governor of Khurasan in late 704 or early 705.

The choice of Qutayba, who hails from the relatively weak Bahila tribe, is intended by al-Hajjaj to heal the destructive feud between the South Arab or "Yemeni" (Azd and Rabi'ah) and North Arab (Qaysi) tribal confederations in Khurasan by providing a governor who belongs to neither faction.

The Bahila are neutral between the two groups, but generally ally themselves to the Qays, thus furthering al-Hajjaj's policy of emasculating Azdi power, which had been dominant in Khurasan during the governorship of Yazid ibn al-Muhallab.

Furthermore, as Qutayba lacks a strong tribal base of his own, he could be expected to remain firmly attached to his patron.

Qutayba will spend the next ten years of his life in Central Asia, consolidating and expanding Muslim rule there.

In this endeavor, both his military and diplomatic and organizational abilities stand him in good stead; most importantly, he is able to enlist the support of the local Iranian population and the powerful dihqan (the Iranian "gentry") class.

The Arabs had reached Central Asia in the decade after their decisive victory in the Battle of Nahavand in 642, when they completed their conquest of the former Sassanid Empire by seizing Sistan and Khurasan.

The first Arab attacks across the Oxus had ranged as far as Shash (Tashkent) and Khwarizm, but they had been little more than raids aiming at seizing booty and extracting tribute, and had been interrupted by the intertribal warfare that had broken out in Khurasan during the Second Islamic Civil War (683–692).

Subsequent governors, most notably Sa'id ibn Uthman and al-Muhallab ibn Abi Suffrah, had made attempts to conquer territory across the river, but they had failed.

The native princes, for their part, have tried to exploit the Arabs' rivalries, and with the aid of the Arab renegade Musa ibn Abdallah ibn Khazim, who in 689 seized the fortress of Tirmidh for his own domain, they managed to eject the Arabs from their holdings.

Nevertheless, the Transoxianian princes remain riven by their own feuds, and fail to unite in the face of the Arab conquest, a fact that Qutayba will suitably exploit after 705.

Justinian, restored to the imperial throne, presides over the public humiliation of his predecessors Leontios and Tiberios III and their chief associates in the Hippodrome of Constantinople, after which they are executed.

Patriarch Callinicus I is also deposed, blinded and exiled; he is succeeded by Cyrus.