Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January 18
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January 18: The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins.
- 1535 – Conquistador Francisco Pizarro founded Ciudad de los Reyes, present-day Lima, Peru, as the capital of the lands he conquered for the Spanish Crown.
- 1778 – English explorer James Cook became the first known European to reach the Sandwich Islands, now known as the Hawaiian Islands.
- 1871 – Unification of Germany: A number of independent German states unified into the German Empire, with King Wilhelm I of Prussia (pictured) being proclaimed as its first Emperor.
- 1977 – The mysterious Legionnaires' disease was found to be caused by a novel bacterium now known as Legionella.
- 2003 – The 2003 Canberra bushfires: Bushfires burning out of control began blazing through residential areas of Canberra, Australia, eventually killing four people, and damaging or destroying more than 500 homes.
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