Year 665 (DCLXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 665 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.

Events

By place

Europe

• Kubrat, ruler (khagan) of Great Bulgaria, dies after a 33-year reign. He is succeeded by his son Batbayan, who rules from Poltava (modern Ukraine), the lands north of the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azov.

Britain

• Conflict erupts between King Sighere of Essex and his brother Sæbbi, as they struggle for overlordship between Mercia and Wessex.

Arabian Empire

• Muslim Conquest: An Arab army (40,000 men) advances through the desert, and captures the Byzantine city of Barca (Libya).

Asia

• The city of Seongnam (South Korea) is renamed Hansanju (approximate date).
• Wu Zetian, the wife of the Chinese emperor, unofficially becomes an absolute ruler by eliminating her political rivals.

By topic

Religion

• Wilfrid, Anglo-Saxon abbot, refuses to be consecrated in Northumbria as bishop, and travels to Compiègne (France) to be consecrated by Agilbert, archbishop of Paris.^[1]
• Jaruman, bishop of Mercia, is dispatched with Christian missionaries to reconvert Saxon tribes, which have returned to paganism.^[2]
• According to the Annales Cambriae, the Anglo-Saxons convert to Christianity after the Second Battle of Badon.
• Sighere encourages his subjects to reject Christianity and return to their indigenous religion (approximate date).

Science

• Brahmagupta writes his Khandakhadyaka.^[3]

Births

• Ōtomo no Tabito, Japanese poet (d. 729)
• Sa'id ibn Jubayr, Muslim scholar (d. 714)

Deaths

• April 16 – Fructuosus of Braga, French archbishop
• Féchín of Fore, Irish monk and saint
• Hafsa bint Umar, wife of Muhammad
• Kubrat, ruler (khagan) of Great Bulgaria
• Li Zhong, prince of the Tang dynasty (b. 643)
• Yu Zhining, chancellor of the Tang dynasty (b. 588)