What happened on 18 January?

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

1. 1871 German unification Bismarck welds the German states into a single empire under Prussian leadership.
2. 1871 Founding of the German Empire Wilhelm I proclaimed Kaiser at Versailles; unifies Germany.
3. 1701 Kingdom of Prussia proclaimed Elector Frederick III crowns himself King in Prussia at Königsberg; rise of Brandenburg-Prussia as a kingdom begins.
4. 1919 Paris Peace Conference Allied powers convene to draft the post-war peace treaties.
5. 1992 Deng Xiaoping's southern tour Deng Xiaoping's 1992 tour reaffirms economic reforms.
6. 1689 Born: Charles-Louis de Montesquieu Author of The Spirit of the Laws; theorist of the separation of powers.
7. 1918 The Constituent Assembly lasts one day Russia's first freely elected parliament — in which the Bolsheviks won under a quarter of the seats — meets for thirteen hours before Red Guards lock the doors and Lenin dissolves
8. 1486 Henry VII marries Elizabeth of York Lancastrian Henry Tudor marries Yorkist heiress; symbolically ends the Wars of the Roses.
9. 1991 Scud missiles hit Israel Saddam answers the air war by firing Scuds at Tel Aviv and Haifa, gambling that Israeli retaliation will shatter the Arab members of the coalition. Washington begs Israel to sit st
10. 1535 Pizarro founds Lima Turning his back on Cusco in the mountains, Pizarro plants his City of Kings on the coast, facing Spain — a capital for shipping silver home, not for ruling Andeans. For three cent
11. 1994 Gin and Juice (Snoop Doggy Dogg) Doggystyle's breezy party anthem.
12. 1654 Treaty of Pereyaslav Khmelnytsky's Cossacks swear allegiance to the tsar in return for protection against Poland — the moment Moscow's claim over Ukraine begins, disputed ever since.
13. 1951 Picasso's Massacre in Korea Picasso, by now a Communist Party member, paints soldiers executing naked women and children in a protest against the Korean War, echoing Goya's Third of May.
14. 1958 Young People's Concerts Bernstein's televised New York Philharmonic concerts explain music to children — 'What does music mean?' — and run for fifteen years on CBS.
15. 1983 Jim Thorpe's Olympic medals restored Seventy years after he was stripped of his 1912 golds for having played minor-league baseball, the IOC returns replica medals to Thorpe's family.