CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

720

year

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ23539
Source-derived summary

Year 720 (DCCXX) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 720 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

Byzantine Empire

Summer – Emperor Leo III secures the Byzantine frontier, by inviting Slavic settlers into the depopulated districts of the Thracesian Theme (western Asia Minor). He undertakes a set of civil reforms, and reorganizes the theme structure in the Aegean region. Leo's 2-year-old son Constantine V is associated on the throne, and married to Tzitzak, daughter of the Khazar ruler (khagan) Bihar.

Europe

Umayyad conquest of Gaul: Governor Al-Samh continues his campaign; he makes Narbonne the capital city of Muslim Septimania (Southern France), and uses it as a base for razzias. King Ardo is killed, and becomes the last ruler of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania. Some Visigoths refuse to adopt the Muslim faith, and flee north to Aquitaine. This marks the end of the Visigothic Kingdom.

Muslim forces under Al-Samh begin the prolonged siege of Carcassonne, a fortified Visigothic town located in the Languedoc-Roussillon.

Editorial summary

“720” enters the record as year. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what year can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 192-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around year.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“720” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, year provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q23539. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “720”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 720 primary sources, 720 archive and year research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “720”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from 720” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.