Construction on the site of Fujiwara-kyo had begun as early as 682, near the end of the reign of Emperor Temmu, as revealed by ongoing excavations from 2006.

With a brief halt upon Emperor Temmu's death, construction had resumed under Empress Jitō, who officially moved Japan's capital from Asuka to Fujiwara-kyo in 694.

Fujiwara is Japan's first capital built in a grid pattern on the Chinese model; recent investigation has revealed that the city covered an area of roughly five kilometers, much larger than previously thought.

The palace occupies a plot measuring about one square kilometer, and is surrounded by walls roughly five meters high.

Each of the four walls has three gates; Suzakumon, the main gate, stands at the center of the south wall.

The Daigokuden and other palace buildings are the first palace structures in Japan to have a tile roof in the Chinese style.

The area had previously been the domain of the Nakatomi clan, who oversee the observation of Shintō rituals and ceremonies on behalf of the Imperial court.

Heraclius, appointed by his brother Tiberios III as patrikios and commander-in-chief (monostrategos) of the Anatolian themes, crosses with his army the mountain passes of the Taurus Mountains into Cilicia in autumn 698, and thence heads to northern Syrian.

After defeating an Arab army from Antioch, …

…Heraclius raids as far as Samosata before returning safely to the Empire in the spring of 699.

This success only serves to provoke a massive Arab response: over the next few years, the Caliphate's generals Muhammad ibn Marwan and Abdallah ibn Abd al-Malik will launch a series of campaigns that will conquer what remains of Roman Armenia, without Heraclius being able to respond effectively.

Umayyad troops invade Armenia in 699 and secure the submission of Smbat VI Bagratuni.

The Lombards take the whole of northern Italy following the departure of the imperial presence in the western Mediterranean.

Papal resistance has, by the end of the seventh century, induced the Lombards to consolidate their power in northern and central Italy, where they achieve a high degree of political unification.

A Roman ford across the River Avon, about ninety miles (one hundred and forty-five kilometers) northwest of London, is the nucleus of the Anglo-Saxon village of Stratford, first mentioned in 699.

Ine of Wessex pushes the Dumnonii, or southern Welsh (as the Britons become known) further into Cornwall.

Knowledge of the opium poppy reaches China in about the late seventh or early eighth century when Arab traders first introduce Opium thebaicum from the Egyptian fields at Thebes.

The Khagans of the Yenisei Kyrgyz claim descent from the Chinese general Li Ling, grandson of the famous Han Dynasty general Li Guang.

Li Ling had been captured by the Xiongnu and defected in the first century BCE, and since the Tang royal Li family also claims descent from Li Guang, the Kyrgyz Khagan is therefore recognized as a member of the Tang Imperial family.

Emperor Zhongzong of Tang had said to them that "Your nation and Ours are of the same ancestral clan (Zong). You are not like other foreigners." (Michael Robert Drompp (2005). Tang China and the collapse of the Uighur Empire: a documentary history. Brill's Inner Asian library. 13. Brill.)

Diplomatic communication between the Khazar Khanate, the Danubian Bulgar Khanate, and Constantinople is so effective that the Bulgar khan, Tervel, is second only to the emperor and becomes the first foreigner in Eastern Roman history to receive the title of Caesar.