British economist John Maynard Keynes publishes The Economic Consequences of the Peace.

Siegfried Sassoon publishes War Poems. Sassoon, who was awarded the Military Cross for his service in combat in 1917, has thrown his medal into the sea.

German architect Walter Gropius founds the Bauhaus school in Weimar, Germany, to promote modern ideas of home construction, furnishings, and design.

5 Jan.

Soviet troops occupy Vilnius, Lithuania, and two weeks later capture the city of Kaunas.

16 Jan.

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, who led a Sparticist (communist) uprising against the German government on 5 January, are murdered by German soldiers in Berlin.

18 Jan.

The Paris Peace Conference begins as representatives of the so-called Big Four — Vittorio Emanuele Orlando of Italy, Woodrow Wilson of the United States, David Lloyd George of Great Britain, and Georges Clemenceau of France — gather at Versailles. Representatives of the defeated Central Powers are excluded from the conference.

21 Jan.

An...