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On 25 January 750, the Abbasid rebels crushed the Umayyad Caliphate at the Battle of the Zab and then killed almost every member of the ruling dynasty. Almost. One prince swam a river and didn't look back — and built medieval Spain.
On 13th January 532, chariot fans burned half of Constantinople and nearly toppled the Byzantine emperor Justinian. He survived because his wife refused to run. The Hagia Sophia we visit today was built on those ashes.
On 9 January 1127, Jin forces took Bianjing, the Song capital, and seized both Emperor Qinzong and his retired father Huizong - China's greatest painter and its worst tactician. The Northern Song dynasty ended. The humiliation never did.
On 8 January 1297, François Grimaldi dressed as a Franciscan friar, knocked on the gates of the fortress atop the Rock of Monaco, and stabbed the garrison once they let him in. His family has ruled the place ever since. Monaco's coat of arms celebrates the trick to this day.
On 5 January 1592, Shah Jahan was born in Lahore. He would build the most recognisable building on earth, preside over a quarter of global GDP, and spend his final eight years imprisoned in a tower with a direct view of the monument he had raised for his dead wife.