What happened on 5 January?

13 events from the Ever-When timeline, ranked by how much they mattered.

1. 1968 Prague Spring Czechoslovak liberalisation under Dubček; crushed by Warsaw Pact invasion.
2. 1769 Watt's separate-condenser steam engine patent James Watt's redesigned steam engine — the machine that powers industrialisation.
3. 1592 Born: Shah Jahan Mughal emperor who built the Taj Mahal and the Peacock Throne.
4. 1066 Edward the Confessor dies without an heir England's saintly king dies at Westminster leaving no son and a poisoned legacy: Harold Godwinson says the crown was granted on the deathbed, William of Normandy says it was promis
5. 1968 Dubček takes the helm The Czechoslovak party quietly replaces its Stalinist first secretary with a mild Slovak apparatchik nobody in the West has heard of. Alexander Dubček proves to be something new: a
6. 1895 The degradation of Captain Dreyfus Convicted of treason in secret on a forged bordereau — and because he is the only Jewish officer on the General Staff — Alfred Dreyfus has his braid torn off and his sword broken b
7. 1876 Born: Konrad Adenauer First Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (1949-1963). Anchored West Germany in the Western alliance, secured Franco-German reconciliation, and oversaw the Wirtschaftswun
8. 1762 The Miracle of the House of Brandenburg With Prussia scraping its last recruits, the Tsarina Elizabeth — Frederick's implacable enemy — dies, and her successor Peter III, a worshipful Frederick fan, instantly makes peace
9. 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine US pledges to defend Middle East allies from communist threat.
10. 1953 Beckett's Waiting for Godot Two-act tragicomedy in which two tramps wait for someone who never arrives.
11. 1477 Fall of Burgundy Charles the Bold dies at Nancy; the rich Burgundian state is partitioned between France and the Habsburgs, shaping European geopolitics.
12. 1919 Spartacist uprising Communist revolt in Berlin under Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg crushed by Freikorps; both leaders murdered.
13. 1920 Babe Ruth sold to the New York Yankees Boston sells its best player to fund a Broadway show; Ruth remakes baseball around the home run and the Red Sox wait 86 years for a title.