the Netherlands
-
Someone tried to convince me that Santa Claus is a mythical figure.Well if that’s the case who puts my presents under the Christmas tree? Anyhow! Santa Claus has many names but they all come from the same historical figure,Nikolaos of Myra(aka Nicholas of Bari) The true story of Santa Claus begins with Nicholas, who was born…
-
This blog is about one of the best known scientists in the history of the world,Jan Ingenhousz. Jan Ingenhousz or Ingen-Housz (8 December 1730 – 7 September 1799) was a Dutch physiologist, biologist and chemist. He is best known for discovering photosynthesis by showing that light is essential to the process by which green plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. He also discovered that…
-
The Dutch have always been in constant war with the sea. Most people know about the 1953 flood but there have been floods throughout the centuries with higher casualties. I specified the year in the title because today is the 597th of the St Elizabeth’s flood, but technically this is the 2nd flood with that…
-
I have been doing blogs on the holocaust now for about 18 months. I did consider giving it a break for a while, not because I didn’t find the stories important but because at times my emotions were getting the better of me, and they were having an impact. However I then realised I…
-
In September 1740, as unrest rose among the Chinese population in Batavia(nowadays Jakarta in Indonesia), spurred by government repression and declining sugar prices, Governor-General Adriaan Valckenier declared that any uprising would be met with deadly force. On 7 October, hundreds of ethnic Chinese, many of them sugar mill workers, killed 50 Dutch soldiers, leading Dutch troops to confiscate all weapons from the Chinese…
-
Although the majority of Dutch citizens hated the German occupiers, many saw an opportunity in the situation they found themselves in. This is the story of approximately 7000 cowards who found it more favorable to pledge allegiance to an evil regime than to the country in which they were born and raised, the Nederlandsche SS…
-
To most of you the names of these 2 towns will mean virtually nothing but it is where my roots are. I was born and raised in Geleen. Sittard-Geleen is a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It was formed in 2001 from the former municipalities Sittard, Geleen and Born. The Netherlands was a neutral country, during WWI this neutrality had not been breached,…
-
Lange Jan(Long John) was the name of the 135 meter(442ft) tall chimney of the former coal mine “Oranje Nassau 1” in Heerlen in the province of Limburg in the south east of the Netherlands. It had been erected in 1937/1938 and had been dominating Heerlen’s skyline. To put it in perspective the Big Ben tower…
-
Dutch hero Marion Pritchard-Van Binsbergen died at the age of 96 in Washington on December 11th, 2016. Marion Pritchard, (née van Binsbergen; was a Dutch-American social worker and psychoanalyst, who distinguished herself as a savior of Jews in the Netherlands during the Second World War. Pritchard helped save approximately 150 Dutch Jews, most of them children, throughout the German occupation of the Netherlands.In…
-
In the early hours of 10 November 1944, 8,000 German soldiers flooded the streets of Rotterdam. They lay a cordon around the city, took up position on the bridges and squares and shut down the telephone service. They distributed pamphlets ordering all men ages 17 to 40 years to report for tewerkstelling (employment in the…
You must be logged in to post a comment.