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680| 200–700 | Central America [statistics and demography] | The Zapotec site of Monte Albán in Central America is at its peak in this period. It may have had 30,000 or more inhabitants. It is the centre of a complex of public buildings, temples, and dwellings that cover 40 sq km/15 sq mi. | | 680 | Arab Caliphate [wars] | Following the death of the caliph Muawiya, a war of succession once again breaks out among the Arabs. Husein, a son of the murdered 4th caliph, Ali (ibn Abi Talib), responds to an appeal to seize the leadership but is to be defeated and killed (at Karbala in modern Iraq) by supporters of Muawiya's son Yazid, who becomes caliph. Husein is regarded as a martyr by those who believe that the caliphate can only rightly be held by a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and they break away to form the minority Shiite movement of Islam. | | 680 | Arab Caliphate, Syria [births and deaths] | Mu'awiyah I (also Moawiyah), caliph 661–80, founder of the Umayyad dynasty, who assumed the caliphate after the assassination of Ali (ibn Abi Talib), who reunified the Arab empire and transferred the capital to Damascus, dies in Damascus (c. 78). | | c. 680 | India [maths] | Indian mathematicians develop what is now known as the Hindu-Arabic decimal place–value system. Using a multiplicative system to base ten, and employing the number zero, this becomes the basis of the modern Western number system. | | 17 November 680 | Northumbria [births and deaths] | St Hilda of Whitby, one of the leading abbesses of Anglo-Saxon England, founder of Whitby Abbey, dies in Whitby, Northumbria, England (c. 66). |
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