The process of compiling a written history of Japan begins in the seventh century.

According to the Nihonshoki, from the end of the reign of Empress Suiko to that of Empress Kōgyoku, Soga no Emishi enjoys influence in the court.

After the death of Empress Suiko, Emishi had succeeded in installing Prince Tamura on the throne as Emperor Jomei by citing the will of Empress Suiko.

Although Prince Yamashiro had been another candidate, Emishi murders the uncle who nominated Oe no Ou, paving the way for his favorite.

After the death of Emperor Jomei in 641, Emishi supports Empress Kōgyoku.

His daughter, Soga no Tetsuki no Iratsume, was a wife of Emperor Jomei and bore Emperor Jomei one daughter, Princess Yata.

The Chinese imperial Tang court and the Indian kingdom of Kannauj establish friendly diplomatic relations in 641.

The Rashidun Caliphate in 641 annexes the Thebaid region.

The Muslim Arab conquerors establish on the site of the fallen imperial fortress called Babylon a military camp called al-Fustat.

A city, called Cairo, will soon grow up around the camp.

Caliph Umar had entered Jerusalem and (according to Muslim historians) discovered the Temple Mount in utter decay and disrepair.

He had immediately set about repairing the site, and in 641 designates Jerusalem as the third holiest place in Islam, second only to Mecca and Medina.

Umar had agreed to a demand by the late Christian Patriarch Sophronius not to permit Jews to return to Jerusalem, but he soon allows seventy Tiberian families to settle in the city.

Thus, a small permanent Jewish population returns after a five hundred-year absence to Jerusalem.

The Lombards under king Rothari conquer Genoa and all remaining imperial territories in the lower Po Valley, including …

…Oderzo (Opitergium), a mainland imperial possession in the Veneto.

Political authority is shifted to …

…one of the islands in the Venetian lagoon.

Arechis I, duke of Benevento, had conquered Capua and Venafro in the Campania and areas of the Basilicata and Calabria.

He had failed to take Naples after a siege (his predecessor Zotto had failed likewise), but he took Salerno by the late 620s.

He has spent the last years of his reign establishing good relations with the Roman Catholics of his duchy and making his son his successor.

He dies after a fifty-year reign and is succeeded by his son Aiulf I, who is, however, mentally unstable; his adoptive brothers Radoald and Grimoald, the younger sons of the late Gisulf II of Friuli, are regents for him.

Prince Oswiu of Bernicia conquers Gododdin or "The Old North" as far north as Manaw Gododdin, the narrow coastal region on the south side of the Firth of Forth, on behalf of his half-brother, king Oswald.