Frederick I Crowns Himself in Prussia

January 18, 1701

In frost-bitten Konigsberg, the Elector of Brandenburg lifted a crown from a cushion and placed it on his own head, then another on his wife. The Holy Roman Emperor had grudgingly agreed: Brandenburg could now call itself a kingdom. A small, sandy, ambitious state had become Prussia. Its army would, within two generations under his grandson Frederick the Great, terrify Europe.