The Tang, an imperial dynasty of China, had been founded by the Li family, who had seized power in 618 during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire.

Gaozong, the third emperor of the Tang Dynasty in China, has ruled from 649, although from January 665 much of the governance has been in the hands of his second wife Empress Wu after a series of strokes had left him incapacitated.

During the first part of his reign, Tang territorial gains, which had begun with his father Emperor Taizong, continued, including the conquest of Baekje, Silla, and the Western Göktürks, but throughout the 670s, much of those gains had been lost to Tufan, Silla, Khitan, and Balhae.

Further, territory previously conquered that had belonged to both Eastern and Western Göktürks had been subjected to repeated rebellions.

Due to a culmination of major droughts, floods, locust plagues, and epidemics, a widespread famine breaks out in 682 in the dual Chinese capital cities of Chang'an (primary capital) and Luoyang (secondary capital).

The scarcity of food drives the price of grain to unprecedented heights, ending a once prosperous era under emperors Taizong and Gaozong on a sad note.

Gaozong dies in 683, having brought Japan and Korea into tributary relationship to the Chinese empire.

State power now falls completely into the hands of Empress Wu, who at first reigning in the name of puppet emperors (her son Emperor Zhongzong and then her younger son Emperor Ruizong), will subsequently become the first and only reigning Empress of China.

The repeated confrontations have taken their toll on the dwindling and ever-divided resources of the Exarchate, which, with assistance from its Berber allies of king Kusaila, has reached the peak of resistance.

Its victory over the forces of Uqba Ibn Nafia at the Battle of Biskra causes the Muslim forces to retreat to Egypt, giving the Exarchate what will prove to be a decade's respite.

Arab proselytizers for Islam arrive in Morocco in 683, winning additional converts among the indigenous Berbers.

The famous structures that stand today in Palenque probably represent a rebuilding effort in response to the attacks by the city of Calakmul and its client states in 599 and 611.

One of the main figures responsible for rebuilding Palenque and for a renaissance in the city's art and architecture is also one of the best-known Maya Ajaw, or lord, K'inich Janaab' Pakal, who has ruled from 615 to 683.

Also known as Pakal the Great, he is best known through his funerary monument, dubbed the Temple of Inscriptions after the lengthy text preserved in the temple's superstructure.

Tikal, one of the largest pre-Columbian Maya civilization cities of the period, is located in the Petén basin of the central Maya lowlands region of Mesoamerica.

The reign of one the most celebrated of Tikal's rulers, Jasaw Chan K’awiil, begins in 683, ending a one hundred and thirty-year long hiatus in Tikal's historical record.

The Muslim world, accustomed to choosing leaders by consultation rather than heredity, had been thrown into turmoil at the death of Mu'awiya I, the founder of the Umayyad Caliphate, in 680.

Although Mu'awiya had named his son, Yazid I, as his heir, this choice had not been universally recognized, especially by the old Medinan elites, who challenge the Umayyads' claim to the succession.

Among a group of companions of Muhammed (Sahaba), the two chief candidates for the caliphate were the Alid Husayn ibn Ali (the grandson of Muhammad), and Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr.

To avoid being forced to recant, on Yazid's accession the two men had fled from Medina to Mecca.

Husayn had at first attempted an outright revolt against the Umayyads, but this had resulted in his death at the Battle of Karbala in October 680, leaving Ibn al-Zubayr as the leading contender and rival for the Umayyads.

Ibn al-Zubayr has launched an insurgency in the Hejaz, the Islamic heartland, denouncing Yazid’s rule from the sanctuary of Mecca but not openly claiming the Caliphate, instead calling himself "the fugitive at the sanctuary" (al-‘a’idh bi’l-bayt) and insisting that the Caliph should be chosen in the traditional manner, by a tribal assembly (shura) from among all the Quraysh, not just the Umayyads.

Yazid and his governors in Medina had at first tried to negotiate with Ibn al-Zubayr, as well as the other dissatisfied Ansar families.

The Medinan aristocracy, however, who had felt their position threatened by Mu'awiya's large-scale agricultural projects around their city, and regard Yazid as unfit for the office of Caliph due to his reputed dissolute lifestyle, had led a public denunciation of their allegiance to Yazid, and had expelled the Umayyad family members, some one thousand in number (including the future Caliph Marwan ibn al-Hakam), from their city.

As a result, Yazid sends an army to subdue the province, and chooses Muslim ibn 'Uqba al-Murri to lead it.

Muslim's army of twelve thousand Syrians indeed overcomes the Medinans' resistance at the Battle of al-Harrah on August 26, 683, and proceeds to sack Medina—one of the impious acts for which later Muslim tradition will denounce the Umayyads.

Subsequent tradition will remember Muslim ibn 'Uqba as the "heathen incarnate" (J. Wellhausen) for his sack of Medina.

He had set out for Mecca after taking Medina but had fallen ill on the way and died at Mushallal; command had passed to his lieutenant Husayn ibn Numayr al-Sakuni.

Husayn's army arrives before Mecca in September.

Ibn al-Zubayr and his supporters refuse to surrender, and after they are defeated in a first engagement, a siege of the city begins, in which the Umayyad army employs catapults to bombard it with stones.

Ibn al-Zubayr establishes his command post on the grounds of the Grand Mosque.

On Sunday, October 31, the Kaaba, over which a wooden structure covered with mattresses had been erected to protect it, catches fire and burns down, while the sacred Black Stone bursts asunder.

Many later sources ascribe the fault to the besiegers, but more reliable accounts attribute the event to a torch borne by one of Ibn al-Zubayr's followers, which the wind had wafted onto the building.

The siege continues until November 26, when news of Yazid's death on the eleventh reaches the besiegers.

Husayn now enters into negotiations with Ibn al-Zubayr.

Although the Umayyad court at Damascus promptly declares Yazid's sickly young son, Mu'awiya II, as Caliph, Umayyad authority practically collapses in the provinces and proves shaky even in the Umayyads' home province of Syria.

Husayn is therefore willing to acknowledge Ibn al-Zubayr as Caliph, provided that he will issue a pardon and follow him to Syria.

Ibn al-Zubayr refuses the last demand, since this would place him under the control of the Syrian elites, and Husayn with his army departs for Syria.

Yazid had been succeeded by his son, Muawiya II, but he dies in early 684 later without ever having enjoyed any real authority outside the Sufyan family's traditional stronghold of Syria.

His death provokes a crisis, since his other brothers are too young to succeed.

As a result, Umayyad authority collapses across the Caliphate and Ibn al-Zubayr is accepted by most of the Muslims as their new leader: the Umayyad governor of Iraq, Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad, is evicted from the province, coins in Ibn al-Zubayr's name are minted in Persia, and the Banu Qays of northern Syria and the Jazira go over to his cause.

Even some members of the Umayyad family consider going to Mecca and declaring their allegiance to him; in contrast, the local tribes of central and southern Syria, led by the Banu Kalb under Ibn Bahdal and Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyan, uphold the Umayyad cause.

At their initiative, a shura of the loyal tribes is held at Jabiya, where Marwan ibn al-Hakam, a cousin of Mu'awiya I who had served under the Caliph Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644–656) but had played no role in Mu'awiya's Umayyad regime, is elected as the Umayyads' caliphal candidate.