• 689 BC—King
Sennacherib of
Assyria sacks
Babylon. (or
691 BC) • 688 BC—Traditional date for the founding of
Gela in
Sicily by
colonists from
Rhodes and
Crete. • 688 BC—
Greece's games of the 23rd
Olympiad are held at
Olympia;
boxing is added to the
Olympic Games that are more and more intended as preparation for
war.
Icarius of Hyperesia wins the
stadion race at the 23rd
Olympic Games. • 687 BC—
Gyges becomes king of
Lydia. • 687 BC—
Hezekiah succeeded by
Manasseh as king of
Judah, either this year or
next or about a decade earlier. • 685 BC—Traditional date of the foundation of
Chalcedon by
Megara or when it became a
Greek colony. • 684 BC—
Spring and Autumn period:
Duke Zhuang, ruler of the Chinese state of
Lu, defeats
Duke Huan of Qi in the
Battle of Changshao. • 684 BC—Cleoptolemus of
Laconia wins the stadion race at the 24th Olympic Games. • 682 BC—
Urtaki succeeds
Shilnak-Inshushinak as the king of
Elam. • 682 BC—Last year of the reign of
Sennacherib, king of the
Neo-Assyrian Empire. • 682 BC—
Ripunjaya, the last king of the
Brihadratha dynasty, is assassinated by his minister Punika, who puts his son
Pradyota on throne. • 681 BC—King
Sennacherib of
Assyria is
assassinated by one or two of his sons in the temple of the god
Ninurta at
Kalhu (Northern
Mesopotamia) after a 24-year reign in which he defeated the
Babylonians, made
Nineveh (modern
Iraq) a showplace, and diverted the waters of the
Tigris River into a huge
aqueduct to supply the city with
irrigation. • 681 BC—Sennacherib's second wife,
Naqi'a (Zakitu), uses her wiles and influences to have the imperial council appoint her son
Esarhaddon as her husband's successor in preference to the young man's two older brothers, who flee to
Urartu (
Armenia). Esarhaddon, unlike his father, is friendly toward
Babylon and orders her reconstruction. • 681 BC—
Xi of Zhou becomes king of the
Zhou Dynasty (
China). • 680 BC—
Esarhaddon succeeds
Sennacherib as king of
Assyria. • 680 BC—
Greece's games of the 25th
Olympiad is held at
Olympia with the first
equestrian event. A four-horse
chariot race is run at the nearby
hippodrome, slaves driving the
chariots in a fierce competition that not infrequently ends in death. Thalpis of Laconia wins the stadion race at the 25th Olympic Games. • 680 BC—A
meteorite hits the
Estonian island of
Saaremaa, forming the
Kaali crater (approximate date). ==Births==