Clifton Paramus Catholic students embark on European trip.

Sixty Paramus Catholic High School students and nine chaperones, led by PC President, James Vail, recently returned home from a 10-day tour of Europe, where they visited many historical sites in the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

Students departed from Paramus Catholic on Feb. 16. They arrived in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where they visited the Rijksmuseum, Diamond Museum, Anne Frank House, Dutch Royal Palace, and Dam Square. From there, they travelled to the medieval city of Ghent, Belgium, where they toured Gravensteen Castle, visited the Belfort Tower, viewed Van Eyck’s Mystic Lamb at St. Bavo’s Cathedral, and celebrated a private Mass at St. Jacob’s Church.

Students then went to Bruges, where they visited the Basilica of the Holy Blood and viewed the cloth with Christ’s blood from the crucifixion. Next, the students travelled to Brussels, where they viewed the Belgian Royal Palace, Cathedral of St. Michel and St. Gudele, Grand Place, Mannekin Pis, and the Galeries Royales St. Hubert, the world’s first indoor mall. Students also had the unique opportunity to tour Napoleon’s Waterloo Battlefield and walk to the top of the Butte du Lion.

Then, it was off to France, where students spent seven days enjoying French history and culture. They visited Reims, where they had guided tours of the Notre Dame Cathedral-Reims, as well as the Mumm Champagne Cellars. In Paris, they visited the Notre Dame Cathedral, Saint Chapelle, Pantheon, Invalides Military Museum, Napoleon’s Tomb, Eiffel Tower, Musee d’Orsay, Arc d’Triumph, Montmarte, Champs d’Elysee, and Place Concorde. They also enjoyed a walk on the Il de la Cite and a cruise on the Seine.

While in France, students also took day trips to Bayeaux and Caen, where they toured the Normandy Beaches and D-Day landing sites, seeing where the English, along with the Americans and Canadians, liberated France in 1944. They visited the American Cemetery above Omaha Beach in Colleville-Sur-Mer, where they saw the graves of the Niland Brothers, on whom the film, “Saving Private Ryan,” was based. They also visited a World War II museum.

The students also enjoyed trips to Chartres, the Versailles Palace, the Garnier Opera House, the Grevin Wax Museum, and the Louvre, before returning home on Feb. 26.

About Paramus Catholic High School

Paramus Catholic is a co-educational high school of the Archdiocese of Newark offering 124 college preparatory courses, including 27 honors and 16 AP classes, as well as many athletic, performing arts, and campus ministry programs. Graduates from the Class of 2011 earned about $32 million in scholarships and grants and are attending such prestigious colleges and universities as: Bentley, Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, Colgate, Columbia, Fairfield, George Washington, Marquette, New York University, Notre Dame, the United States Military Academy at West Point, Villanova, and Yale. More than 1,500 students from towns throughout North Jersey and Rockland County, N.Y. travel to the scenic 27-acre campus located at 425 Paramus Road, in Paramus. Bus service is provided from most towns.

History of Jan Pieterszoon Coen Coen Revised.

Jan Pieterszoon Coen was once a ruler of the Dutch East Indies under the title of Governor General. With his power, he was held responsible of the genocide in Banda Islands, Maluccas.

In his hometown in the city of Hoorn, the Netherlands, he is still considered a hero. His picture was displayed on guilder currency and his statue stands tall at the city square.

Until a few days ago, after months of discussion, the government of the city of Hoorn in Noord Holland Province decided to complete Pieterszoon Coen’s information on his statue.

As written on the Netherlands public broadcasting site, NOS, as mentioned in Radio Nederland (RNW) site, the decision was made because of the demands of a group of people who believed that “Coen’s violent trade policy in the archipelago is not praise worthy.”

Earlier, on the statue’s inscription, it’s written: “Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1587-1629). Born in Hoorn.  The Governor General of VOC and the founder of Batavia, now Jakarta. Statue placed on 1893.”

Later, on the inscription it will also mention that Coen’s success as a Governor General, under the VOC government, was obtained by violence. Moreover, it will also mention that this statue was not without controversy.

Actually the critics wanted to complete the information with the massacre done by Coen in 1621.  However, Hoorn Parliament considered that this measure is a little too far.

“Thanks to our idea, the government is willing to review this issue, too bad it’s not too satisfactory.  What else should I do?  Maybe the next generation can go further,” said one of the petition initiators.

Massacred Banda Residents

Coen’s role in Indonesia is historical yet also horrific. In 1621, Coen ordered a mass slaughter in Banda Island, the only place where nutmeg flourished at that time. Coen punished the people who refused to sell their crops to VOC and then killed the VOC officials.  The entire population in Banda Island was slaughtered.

Dozens of Banda local leaders were executed. Those who were still alive shipped off as slaves. The people who managed to escape to the mountains suffered from hunger.

On August 16, 2011, one day prior to Indonesia’s 66th anniversary, Coen’s statue had collapsed.  A tow truck hit it hard when installing streetlights. The damage was so severe that the statue had to be removed and repaired.

At that time, the general public already protested the presence of the statue. “It was a symbol of a tribute to one of the greatest slaughterer in the history of the Netherlands,” said Eric van de Beek, the initiator of Burgerinitiatief or the People’s Initiation that wanted the statue to be removed from the city square to a museum.

Coen died at a relatively young age of 42. However, in his short time on earth, he was able to become a controversial figure.  He gained the title of ‘Ijzeren Jan’ or ‘Iron Jan’, because of his cruelty.

It was said that several days before his death, he still tortured his foster child, Sarah, who was caught having an affair with a sailor.  The sailor was sentenced to death.

Vagabond – the Fringe’s newest tent

LUC Brinkhoff fondly recalls his childhood playing in some of the best fairgrounds in Europe.

“I have grown up on festivals,” the 25 year old Dutchman says.

“We would have this big groups of kids who were all my age and, because we would camp on site, every morning when the parents were still sleeping we would run around looking for money from the night before.

“Every day we would find (up to) 15 Euros.”

Mr Brinkhoff, who is in town for the Adelaide Fringe, has travelled the world helping his father Terts run The Netherlands’ biggest travelling theatre festival.

“When he was 23 years old, he got a tractor from a guy in a pub and he bought a trailer and a small tent,” he says of his father.

The tent made do as a small stage for a band.

“It went really well so he bought a bigger tent and a theatre group came with him. That is how it all started.”

Mr Brinkhoff is in town with his “baby” – the 20m wide Vagabond, the newest venue in the Garden of Unearthly Delights.

The tent spent a day in quarantine before 10 workers spent four days erecting it in Rundle Park.

The Amsterdam-born building and engineering student was busy sketching designs for the tent during last year’s Fringe.

“We needed a new theatre tent,” he says.

“I was on my laptop every day making the drawings and designs for this tent so everything you see here happened here in this park last year.”

As soon as Mr Brinkhoff arrived back in The Netherlands, a team started work on building the aluminium, wood and steel tent.

“I did not sleep a lot in this time, it was so crazy,” he says.

“There was a moment when we had 20 people working at the same time.”

He wanted to name the tent De Reizende Schouwburg which means the travelling city theatre in Dutch.

“I was like ‘oh yeah, only Dutch people can pronounce it’,” he says.

He said Garden of Unearthly Delights producer Scott Maidment came up with the word Vagabond “which is a word for drifter and I liked it”.

The Netherlands won’t approve EU report on Israeli settlers.

The Netherlands is the only EU country to refuse to approve an EU report on the violence used by Israeli settlers against local Palestinians, the NRC reports on Wednesday.

The paper says the Dutch position is extremely unusual and has worried a number of other EU countries.

The secret report, drawn up by EU diplomats in Jerusalen and Ramallah in February 2012, talks of the ‘alarming’ increase in the use of violence by settlers and points out that the settlements are illegal under international law.

Reserve

However, at the bottom of the document is the phrase: ‘NL places a general reserve on the document’, the paper states.

Diplomats told the paper that all 21 EU representatives support the criticism of Israel’s position. ‘We are witnessing the toughest position the Netherlands has ever adopted,’ one EU diplomat told the NRC.

Website EUobserver, which has seen the report, says there were 411 assaults last year compared to 266 in 2010 and 132 in 2009.

‘The attacks varied from gunfire to throwing stones and garbage, including at Palestinian schoolchildren, as well as burning homes and mosques, killing livestock and uprooting olive trees,’ the website states.

This is not the first time foreign minister Uri Rosenthal has stood up for Israel in international circles. Last September, for example, Rosenthal reportedly managed to stop European diplomats at the UN reaching a common position on the status of human rights in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

HEINEKEN Holding NV: Six new Heineken Prizes 2012 Laureates.

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) has announced the names of the six recipients of the 2012 Heineken Prizes.

Every other year, five world-renowned researchers receive a prize of USD 150,000 each for their outstanding work in their field. A sixth prize of EUR 50,000 is awarded to an artist who lives and works in the Netherlands.

The winners of the 2012 Heineken Prizes were chosen by independent juries appointed by the Royal Academy. The prizes were funded by the Dr. H.P. Heineken Foundation and the Alfred Heineken Fondsen Foundation.

The laureates
Titia de Lange, professor at Rockefeller University in New York (United States).
Prof. De Lange is receiving the Dr. H.P. Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics for her research on telomeres, the protective DNA sequences located at the tips of chromosomes, which play an important role in such processes as ageing and cancer.

Hans Clevers, director of the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht (Netherlands).
Prof. Clevers is receiving the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Medicine for his unique understanding of how tissue growth is regulated, both in normal development and in cancer.

William Laurance, professor at James Cook University in Townsville (Australia).
Prof. Laurance is receiving the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences for his research on the effects of habitat fragmentation, deforestation, hunting and fire on the vulnerable Amazon region. He also plays a major role as a science communicator in the public debate on the preservation of the South American rainforest.

Geoffrey Parker, professor at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio (United States).
Prof. Parker is receiving the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for History for his outstanding scholarship on the social, political and military history of Europe between 1500 and 1650, in particular Spain, Philip II, and the Dutch Revolt; for his contribution to military history in general; and for his research on the role of climate in world history.

John Duncan, assistant director of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge (United Kingdom).
Prof. Duncan is receiving the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Cognitive Science for his remarkable innovative, multidisciplinary research into the relationships between psychology, behaviour and intelligence on the one hand and neural processes on the other. His concepts have become a cornerstone of cognitive neuroscience.

Peter Struycken, artist in Gorinchem (Netherlands).
Struycken is receiving the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Art for the methodical way in which he has used shapes, colours and processes in his innovative and appealing works of art for the past fifty years. Familiar examples are his arcade lighting for the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, his undulating Blue Waves pavement in Arnhem, and his design for a postage stamp bearing a portrait of Dutch Queen Beatrix constructed of shifted dots.

PresentationThe 2012 Heineken Prizes will be presented on Thursday 27 September 2012 during an extraordinary meeting of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences at the Beurs van Berlage Building in Amsterdam.

Netherlands producing radar for NATO.

The Netherlands plans to develop new radar as part of a NATO alliance project to build a missile defense system.

The new radar will be upgraded and extended Smart-L radar systems for deployment on anti-missile defense frigates.

The new radar will form a part of the missile defense architecture and will be able to detect and track missile threats at a distance of more than 600 miles, NATO said.

“All systems that are part of the ballistic missile shield are interconnected through networks,” said Dutch navy Cmdr. Onno Boshouwers, “so they will be able to pass information and track data.

“Once the ship with the modernized Smart-L radar detects this ballistic missile, all the other systems and participants would be aware of that missile.”

NATO is developing the system’s command and control arrangements. The system’s sensors and interceptors will later be provided by participants on a voluntary basis.

“From intelligence we know that now more than 30 countries have or are acquiring ballistic missiles,” a Dutch Defense Ministry official said.

“They do not pose an immediate threat, but in the long run it could become a threat and in order to be prepared for that, we think it is important that NATO develops ballistic missile defense capability and that the Netherlands participates in contributing to that capability.”

EP Wants Netherlands to Condemn Xenophobic Website.

Samsung loses bid to ban iPhone, iPad sales in Netherlands

Samsung Electronics Co said on Thursday a Dutch court rejected its 3G patent bid to ban sales of Apple’s iPhone and iPad in the Netherlands.

But Samsung said the court ruled that it could seek damages over the use of Intel chips, giving the South Korean firm a partial victory in the latest skirmish between the world’s biggest smartphone makers.

Samsung and Apple are locked in escalating global patent battle, as they jostle for the top position in the booming smartphone and tablet markets.

Apple first the fired salvo in April 2011, arguing Samsung had “slavishly” copied its iPad and iPhone and since then both have taken legal action against each other in several countries claiming patent infringements.

Samsung supplies mobile processors to power iPad and iPhone and counts Apple as its biggest customer.

The Hague court ruled on Wednesday that Samsung cannot assert 3G patents against Apple products using Qualcomm’s baseband chips, as Samsung has a licensing deal with the U.S. chipmaker.

But the court ruled that Samsung can claim such rights against products that use Intel chips, according to Samsung.

“(The) ruling by the Hague court provides Samsung with a legal basis to move forward with the protection of our patent rights,” the South Korean firm said in a statement.

“Samsung has and will continue to stand ready to meet its obligations in licensing its technology on fair and reasonable terms.”

The Dutch ruling comes as Apple returned to Samsung for the initial supply of touch-screen panels to make its latest iPad, which was unveiled last week and will hit store shelves on Friday, deepening their business ties, according to industry sources.

There are few places in the world where you can see ancient statues, imperial European jewellery, masterpieces by Pieter Bruegel, paintings by Picasso and sculpture by Henry Moore all under one roof.

But for a week starting Friday, you can see the finest examples of art from antiquity to the present day displayed at TEFAF, The European Fine Art Fair, in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

The highlights of this year’s fair include a necklace once owned by Emperor Maximilian II’s wife, an antique cabinet and mechanical organ playing Beethoven’s “Battle Symphony,” a painting of the Madonna and Child once owned by Napoleon III and a representation of Marilyn Monroe’s mouth in rubies and pearls by Salvador Dali.

Now celebrating its 25th year, the fair remains one of the most important events on the annual art calendar.

“It doesn’t compare to any of the other fairs” said dealer Dino Tomasso, who is exhibiting at the fair for the first time this year with a showcase of Renaissance and Neo-Classical sculpture.

“It’s talked about all year long, the quality is exceptional [and though] it’s not the easiest place to have a fair, people travel from all over the world to come to it,” he continued.

Fabrizio Moretti, a dealer and expert in Italian Old Master paintings who is also on the board of trustees for the fair, said: “The thing that [the fair organizers] really strive for is the quality, and a new buyer can buy with confidence.”

His gallery, Moretti Fine Art, is exhibiting a 1715 terracotta figure of a lion, thought to be the model for a commemorative monument to Queen Anne of England, and a painting by Pascualino Veneto of the Madonna and Child that was once owned by France’s Napoleon III.

It is this high quality of objects that makes TEFAF such an important event for art lovers, said Titia Vellenga, a spokesperson for the fair.

“What has created the fair’s reputation is primarily that from the beginning we had a very strict vetting procedure, which leads to dealers bringing pieces that are really exceptional and this in turn attracts the really serious collectors,” she said.

“So when you have a spiral like this, it continues to attract really exceptional works of art,” said Vellenga.

Richard Knight, Christie International Co-Chairman of Old Masters and 19th Century Art, was joint chairman of the fair for two years before moving on to Christie’s and was responsible for helping to set up the vetting system.

“One of the things I was responsible for was deciding that we would have no exhibiting dealers on the vetting committee, which now comprises all museum professionals,” he said.

“This is all designed to give confidence to the clients, who know that what they’re going to buy will have been vetted by the most professional people in the market today,” he continued.

This comprehensive vetting system also helps insulate the fair from rumblings in the financial markets.

“One of the lovely things about the standard of the fair is that dealers vet themselves before they even go because they know that a fair that isn’t of the highest standard is not frankly in this present market going to suit their best interests,” said Knight.

And exhibiting a broad range of fine arts and antiquities from across the world guarantees an international roster of clients.

In 2011 alone, TEFAF drew over 70,000 visitors from 55 countries and the fair organizers are expecting to see more and more Chinese and Brazilian visitors to the fair in future.

“There is quite a positive mood in the art market,” said Vellenga.

“People are still buying art and they see it as an alternative asset but they really want high quality and that’s what they can find at TEFAF,” she said.

The word “tulip” recalls one of the strangest popular follies that has ever been seen in the world, which showed itself in Holland toward the middle of the seventeenth century. The country at that time had reached the height of prosperity; antique parsimony had given place to luxury; the houses of the wealthy, very modest at the beginning of the century, were transformed into little palaces; velvet, silk, and pearls replaced the patriarchal simplicity of the ancient costume; Holland had become vain, ambitious, and prodigal.

After having filled their houses with pictures, hangings, porcelain, and precious objects from all the countries of Europe and Asia, the rich merchants of the large Dutch cities began to spend considerable sums in ornamenting their gardens with tulips – the flower which answers best to that innate avidity for vivid colors which the Dutch people manifest in so many ways. This taste for tulips promoted their rapid cultivation; everywhere gardens were laid out, studies promoted, new varieties of the favorite flower sought for. In a short time the fever became general; on every side there swarmed unknown tulips, of strange forms, and wonderful shades or combinations of colors, full of contrasts, caprices, and surprises. Prices rose in a marvelous way; a new variegation, a new form, obtained in those blest leaves was an event, a fortune. Thousands of persons gave themselves up to the study with the fury of insanity; all over the country nothing was talked of but petals; bulbs, colors, vases, seeds.

The mania grew to such a pass that all Europe was laughing at it. Bulbs of the favorite tulips of the rarer varieties rose to fabulous prices; some constituted a fortune; like a house, an orchard, or a mill; one bulb was equivalent to a dowry for the daughter of a rich family; for one bulb were given, in I know not what city, two carts of grain, four carts of barley, four oxen, twelve sheep, two casks of wine, four casks of beer, a thousand pounds of cheese, a complete dress, and silver goblet. Another bulb of a tulip named “Semper Augustus” was bought at the price of thirteen thousand florins. A bulb of the “Admiral Enkhuysen” tulip cost two thousand dollars.

One day there were only two bulbs of the “Semper Augustus” left in Holland, one at Amsterdam and the other at Haarlem, and for one of them there were offered, and refused, four thousand six hundred florins, a splendid coach, and a pair of gray horses with beautiful harness. Another offered twelve acres of land, and he also was refused. On the registers of Alkmaar it is recorded that in 1637 there were sold in that city, at public auction, one hundred and twenty tulips for the benefit of the orphanage, and that the sale produced one hundred and eighty thousand francs.
Then they began to traffic in tulips, as in State bonds and shares. They sold for enormous sums bulbs which they did not possess, engaging to provide them for a certain day; and in this way a traffic was carried on for a much larger number of tulips than the whole of Holland could furnish. It is related that one Dutch town sold twenty millions of francs’ worth of tulips, and that an Amsterdam merchant gained in this trade more than 86,000 florins in the space of four months. These sold that which they had not, and those that which they never could have; the market passed from hand to hand, the differences were paid, and the flowers for and by which so many people were ruined or enriched, flourished only in the imagination of the traffickers. Finally matters arrived at such a pass that, many buyers having refused to pay the sums agreed upon, and contests and disorders following, the government decreed that these debts should be considered as ordinary obligations, and that payment should be exacted in the usual legal manner; then prices fell suddenly, as low as 50 florins for the “Semper Augustus,” and the scandalous traffic ceased.

Now the culture of flowers is no longer a mania, but is carried on for love of them, and Holland is the principal temple. She still provides a great part of Europe and North & South America with flowers. The country is encircled by gardens, which, toward the end of April and the beginning of May, are covered with myriads of tulips, hyacinths, carnations, auriculas, anemones, ranunculuses, camelias, primroses, and other flowers. Of late years the hyacinth has risen into great honor; but the tulip is still king of the gardens, and Holland’s supreme affection.

I should have to change my pen for the brush of Van der Huysem or Menedoz, if I were to attempt to describe the pomp of their gorgeous, luxuriant, dazzling colors, which, if the sensation given to the eye may be likened to that of the ear, might be said to resemble a shout of joyous laughter or a cry of love in the green silence of the garden; affecting one like the loud music of a festival. There are to be seen the “Duke of Toll” tulip, the tulips called “simple precocious” in more than six hundred varieties; the “double precocious”; the late tulips, divided into unicolored, fine, superfine, and rectified; the fine, subdivided into violet, rose, and striped; then the monsters or parrots, the hybrids, the thieves; classified into a thousand orders of nobility and elegance; tinted with all the shades of color conceivable to the human mind: spotted, speckled, striped, edged, variegated, with leaves fringed, waved, festooned; decorated with gold and silver medals; distinguished by names of generals, painters, birds, rivers, poets, cities, queens, and a thousand loving and bold adjectives, which recall their metamorphoses, their adventures, and their triumphs, and leave in the mind a sweet confusion of beautiful images and pleasant thoughts.

Zwolle is the capital of the province of Overijssel. With about 110,000 inhabitants, the city is situated on the Zwarte Water, a small river which falls into the river IJssel. In 1230 the bishop of Utrecht granted Zwolle city rights.

Zwolle was founded around 800 A.D. by merchants from Friesland from the North and troops of Charles the Great (Charlemagne). The name of Zwolle has its origin from the word Suolle, which means “hill”. It was situated on a hill between the three rivers surrounding the city, the rivers IJssel, Vecht, and Zwarte Water. This was the only area that would remain dry during the frequently occurring floodings of the rivers.

Approaching the city centre from the train station, we observe the Sassenpoort, an old Gothic gateway of brick, with four towers, to the right, beyond the broad Stadsgracht (canal), which is surrounded by fine trees.

In the Grote Markt rises the spacious Grote of Sint Michaëlskerk (Church of Saint Michael), build in 1406.

The Roman Catholic Onze Lieve Vrouwe ten Hemelopneming-basilica (Our Lady Ascension basilica), build in the 15th century, in the Ossenmarkt, has a massive tower, 298 ft. in height.

The tower, called the Peperbus (pepperbox), is one of the tallest and most famous church towers in the Netherlands. Closeby to the East, in the Melk Markt, is the Historical museum, in a private mansion of the 16th century.

Zwolle was in the 14th and 15th century, with the city of Deventer, one of the centers of the Brethren of the Common Life, a monastic movement. Nearby Zwolle, on a slight eminence called the Agnietenberg (hill of Saint Agnes), once stood the Augustinian convent (monastery) in which Thomas à Kempis lived for nearly 64 years and died in 1471.

Thomas à Kempis or Thomas van Kempen was the author of “De imitatio Christi” (Imitation of Christ), this book is after the Holy Bible the most translated and sold book in the world. The relics of Thomas à Kempis are situated since 2006 in the Onze Lieve Vrouwe ten Hemelopneming-basilica (Our Lady Ascension basilica).

Besides the Grote of Sint Michaëlskerk, The Roman Catholic Onze Lieve Vrouwe ten Hemelopneming-basilica (Our Lady Ascension basilica) and its church tower, the Peperbus (Pepperbox) there are several other historic monuments in Zwolle.

The Sassenpoort is one of the oldest city gates dating from the 15th century, the old city walls, the Mosterdmakerstoren (at the Mosterdmakerstoren mustard used to be made), the old town hall built in 1448, a guild-house (1571) and a Dominican monastery.

The city of Utrecht is the 4th largest city in the Netherlands, it is located, and capital of, in the province of Utrecht.

The city was founded by the Romans around 50 AD and was named Traiectum Romanum. In the Middle Ages it was the most important city in the nothern and eastern part of the country.

In 1579 the 7 nothern provinces in The Netherlands signed the “Unie van Utrecht” (Union of Utrecht), where the provinces declared to fight against the Spanish rule. This was the beginning of the Republic of The Netherlands (Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden).

Utrecht has the highest church tower of The Netherlands, the Dom.

The Hague (the official Dutch name is ’s-Gravenhage, the city is also known as Den Haag). The city is one of the largest in the Netherlands (3rd largest, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam). The city has a population of about 500,000 and is located in Zuid Holland (South Holland).

The Dutch government seats in The Hague, but it is not the capital of the Netherlands, that is the city of Amsterdam. The Queen also lives and works in The Hague.

The city was founded in 1248 by Willem II. He built a castle in a forest near the sea in Holland, where he intended to live, but he died in a battle before he could be crowned. The castle was never finished, but parts of it remain and are now called the Ridderzaal (the Knights’ Hall).

The city of Nijmegen lies in the eastern part of The Netherlands, near the German border in the province of Gelderland. The city has around 160,000 inhabitants.

Nijmegen is considered the oldest city in The Netherlands, it had its 2000 years existance in 2005. The Romans founded a military stronghold on the grounds, and that was the first mention of Nijmegen around the year 0.

After the Roman Empire crumbled down Nijmegen became part of the Frankish kingdom. In the 8th century the Emperor Charlemagne build a castle in Nijmegen.

In 1230 Nijmegen was given cityrights, and became part of the Hanseatic League in 1364. During the Hanseatic period the city florished and prospered, also because of the city lies at the Waal river.

In 1585 the city became part of the Dutch Republic of United Provinces.

The city of Maastricht is the capital of the province Limburg in the southern part of Holland. The river Maas (Meuse) runs through the city, and it’s very close to Germany and Belgium. Maastricht is one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands.

Maastricht was the first with Medieval city rights in the Netherlands, a system which evolved to the current system and, thanks to the Romans, the first settlement with city allure.

The Maastricht treaty was signed here in 1992, the first step to one European currency, the Euro.

The city of Leiden is located in South Holland, close to The Hague and Haarlem.

Leyden or Leiden, in the middle ages Leithen, one of the most ancient towns in Holland (although probably not the Lugdunum Batavorum of the Romans), is situated on the so-called Old Rhine, the sluggish waters of which flow through the town in several canal­like arms.

Leiden received its city rights in 1266 and became the centre of the Dutch textile industry when the “Yperlinge” (weavers from Ypres) settled here after the great plague (1347-1350).

In the 16th century Leiden sustained a terrible siege by the Spaniards, which lasted from October 31st, 1573, to March 21st, 1674, and then, after a short and partial relief by Count Louis of Nassau, was continued as a blockade down to October 3rd of the same year. William the Silent at last caused the South dykes to be pierced, and the country being thus inundated, he relieved the besieged by ship.

According to a popular tradition Willem, the Prince of Orange offered to reward the citizens for their gallant conduct in the defence of 1574 by exempting them from the payment of taxes for a certain number of years, or by the establishment of a university in their city. The latter alternative is said to have been preferred; at all events, the prince founded the Leiden University in 1575. Its fame soon extended to every part of Europe.

The greatest scholars of their age, Scaliger, Hugo Grotius, Dodonaaus, Salmasius, Ruhnken, Wyttenbach, and Boerhaave (who founded the fame of the medical faculty in the 18th century), resided and wrote here, and Arminius and Gomarus were professors at the university. Lord Stair (died 1695), the celebrated Scottish jurist, spent several years in exile at Leiden, whence he accompanied his future sovereign, William of Orange, to Great Britain in 1688.

Leiden was the birthplace of several of the painters of the 16th and 17th centuries: Lucas van Leyden, Joris van Schooten, Jacob van Swanenburgh, the great Rembrandt van Ryn, Jan Steen, Gerard Dou, Gabriel Metsu, Jan van Goyen, Frans van Mieris, Pieter van Slingelandt, etc. It possesses, however, but few specimens of their works.

In the seventeenth century the Pilgrims lived in Leiden, the first settlers of New Amsterdam, nowadays New York, before they departed by ship to the New World.

The city of Haarlem is the capital of the province Noord Holland (North Holland) in the west of the Netherlands. It is famous for being the centre of the flower-growing region of Holland, exporting flowers and bulbs, especially tulips.

In the 11-13th century Haarlem was the residence of the Counts of Holland. Its hasty participation in the rising against the Spaniards resulted in a most calamitous siege; after a heroic resistance of seven months (1572-1573), in which the women shared, the town was taken by the Spaniards under Frederick of Toledo, son of the Duke of Alva. The commandant, the entire garrison, the Protestant clergy, and 2000 of the townspeople were executed.

Four years later the Spaniards were again expelled. Haarlem attained the height of its prosperity in the 17th century, when its school of art also was of some importance. Hendrik Goltzius, Frans Hals, Jacob van Ruysdael, Allart van Everdingen, the three Wouvermans, Adriaen and Isaac van Ostade, and other painters dwelt here at that period; and at the same time there flourished a school of architecture, founded by Lieven de Key (ca. 1560-1627), the city-mason of Haarlem, which was responsible for many of the old gabled houses as well as the public buildings of Haarlem.

Haarlem is famous for its Horticulture and supplies bulbs to every country in Europe, North America and the rest of the world. About the end of April and the beginning of May whole fields of hyacinths, tulips, crocuses, anemones, lilies, etc., grouped in every variety of colour and diffusing the most delicious perfumes, are seen around the town.

In 1636 and 1637 the flower-trade in Holland assumed the form of a mania, and tulips became as important an object of speculation. Capitalists, merchants, and even private individuals entirely ignorant of floriculture, traded extensively in bulbs, and frequently amassed considerable fortunes. The rarer bulbs often realized enormous prices. It is recorded, for example, that a “Semper Augustus” was sold for 13,000 florins, an “Admiral Liefkens” for 4500 florins, a “Viceroy” for 4200 florins, etc.

A single Dutch town is said to have gained upwards of 10 million florins by the sale of tulip-roots in one year, and a speculator at Amsterdam realised 68,000 florins in four months in the same manner. At length, however, a corresponding reaction set in. Government declared that the contracts made were illegal, and the mania speedily subsided. The prices fell so rapidly that many of the bolder speculators were totally ruined, and before long a root of the highly­prized “Semper Augustus” might be purchased for 60 florins. Read more about tulips and holland: tulip history. About a century later a similar phenomenon occurred in the trade in hyacinths, and an official list of 1734 prices a “Bleu Passe non plus ultra” at 1600 florins.

In the 17th century’s Golden Age Haarlem’s linen and silk became world famous and the city flourished. In that period Haarlem’s cultural life also prospered, with famous Dutch painters like Frans Hals and Jacob van Ruisdael.

In the middle of the town, reached from the handsome railwaystation in about 10 minutes, by a route crossing the Park Laan and the Nieuwe Gracht, is the Groote Markt, in which stand the Saint Bavo Church, the Stadhuis, and the Meat Market.

The city of Groningen lies in the north of The Netherlands in the province with the same name, Groningen. The city is capital of this province. The city has a population of about 180,000 inhabitants.

The city houses the Groningen University and has a large student population, making it a vibrant city with a good nightlife.

In 1994 the “Groninger Museum” was opened, designed by the famous architects Mendini, Himmelblau and Starck. It is a modern building and the museum houses expositions of mostly modern art.

The city of Delft is located in Zuid Holland (South Holland) close to Rotterdam and Den Haag (The Hague). Around 100,000 people live in Delft. The city received its city rights in the 13th century.

The city is situated on the Schie, which flows into the Meuse at Delfshaven. The town was almost totally destroyed by fire in 1536, and in 1654 it was seriously damaged by the explosion of a powder-magazine; but it still possesses numerous interesting buildings of the 16th century, especially at the Wynhaven and in the Koornmarkt and Voorstraat.

Delft was the birthplace of: Hugo de Groot (also known as Grotius; 1583-1645), the statesman and scholar, who laid the foundations for international law. The painters M. van Mierevelt (1567-1641) and Jan Vermeer van Delft (1632-1675). One of Vermeer’s most famous paintings is called “View of Delft”, depicting his home town. Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, inventor of the microscope.

In the 17th and 18th century, “Delft’s Blauw” (Delft Blue, Delft pottery), made in imitation of Chinese and Japanese porcelain, was celebrated throughout Europe. This industry afterwards fell into decay but some of it has been revived.

A melancholy celebrity attaches to the Prinsenhof, on the Oude Delft, as the scene of the death of Prince Willem van Oranje (William of Orange), the founder of Dutch independence, who was assassinated here on the 10th July, 1584. The Prinsenhof, previously a monastery, was fitted up in 1575 as a residence for the princes of Orange and was afterwards long used as a barrack. The building has been restored and is open to the public.

By passing through the door opposite the tower of the Oude Kerk and crossing the court, we reach the spot where the tragedy took place, on the first floor, to the right by the stair­case. It is marked by an inscription. The murderer, a Burgundian named Balthasar Gerards, who was prompted by a desire to gain the price set upon the hero’s head by Alexander Farnese, took up his position in front of the spot thus indicated, and when he discharged his pistol was quite close to his victim, who was ascending the staircase with his friends.

Opposite the Prinsenhof, on the site of an earlier church, is situated the Gothic Oude Kerk, erected after 1250, with a somewhat leaning tower and wooden vaulting of 1574.

The choir of the Nieuwe Kerk, formerly the Church of St. Ursula, in the Groote Markt, another Gothic edifice, built in 1396-1496, contains a magnificent monument by Hendrik de Keyser (1608-19), erected by the United Provinces to the memory of William of Orange. The tower is 375 ft. in height.

In the market-place, in front of the church, is a bronze statue of Hugo Grotius, by Th. Stracké, erected in 1886.

The Stadhuis, on the west side of the Market-place, restored in the Renaissance style by H. de Keyser after a fire in 1618, has an ancient Gothic belfry.

Rotterdam Netherlands

Rotterdam is the second largest city in the Netherlands. It is located in the west of Holland, in the province Zuid Holland (South Holland).

In the 17th century Rotterdam was one of the 6 chambers of the V.O.C, the Nederlandse Oostindische Compagnie (Netherlands East India Company). The city was until a few years ago the largest sea port in the world. The city was build at the river Rotte, where a dam was built, hence the name Rotterdam.

The greater Rotterdam area has about 1.1 million inhabitans.

Arnhem is the capital of the province of Gelderland, located in the eastern part of The Netherlands. The city has about 150,000 inhabitants. Arnhem gained its city rights in 1233.

The old city centre got mostly destoyed in the Second World War during Operation Market Garden. In September 1944 fierce fightings between the Allied forces (British and Polish forces) and the German occupier took place to secure the bridge across the Lower Rhine river at Arnhem.

The Groote of St. Eusebius Kerk (Big or St. Eusebius church) is a late-Gothic church built 1452–1560. The church lost most of its tower during World War II, and is partly reconstructed after the Second World War.

In the year 1514 Arnhem became part of the Hanseatic League, an alliance of trading guilds that established and maintained a trade monopoly over the Baltic Sea and most parts of northern Europe.

In 1579 Arnhem joined the “Unie van Utrecht” (Union of Utrecht), a treaty signed in the city of Utrecht, unifying the northern provinces of the Netherlands to resist against the Spanish occupation.

In 1585 the city became a part the Dutch Republic of the 7 United Provinces.

The Nederlands Openluchtmuseum (National Heritage Museum) is situated in the woods just outside of Arnhem. The Openluchtmuseum is an open air museum with real, old Dutch houses, farms, mills and factories from diffent parts of Holland. The buildings are from various places in the Netherlands and date from different historical time periods. The park was founded in 1912 and is nearly 44 hectares in area.

Amsterdam museums

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

The Rijksmuseum is the largest museum in the Netherlands. It is built by the Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers, combining gothic and renaissance styles. The museum is located on the Museumplein and houses a large art collection. Part of the collection are paintings of famous Dutch painters like Rembrandt, Vermeer, Frans Hals, Hobbema and Ruysdael. The world famous Night Watch by Rembrandt draws over 1 million visitors to the museum each year. More information on the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Van Gogh museum Amsterdam

The Van Gogh museum houses the largest collection of paintings by Van Gogh in the world. Including the world famous painting “Sunflowers” and the paintings “The Potato Eaters” and “Bedroom in Arles”. The museum itself was designed by the Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld. More information on the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam Historical Museum

The Amsterdam Historical Museum is located close to the Kalverstaat, one of Amsterdam’s busiest shopping streets, right in the heart of Amsterdam. The museum is housed in the former city orphanage, dating from the 17th century. More information on the Historical Museum in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is famous for its old canals and its old Dutch paintings. It has been called the Venice of the North; but very different is its sombre quietude from the sunny Italian city among the waters. There is a beauty of gaiety and a beauty of gravity; and Amsterdam in its older parts — on the Heerengracht and the Keizersgracht — has the beauty of gravity.

In the main Amsterdam is a city of trade, of hurrying business men, of ceaseless clanging tramcars and crowded streets; but on the Keizersgracht and the Heerengracht you will find the old essential Dutch gravity and peace. No tide moves the sullen waters of these canals, which are lined with trees that in spring form before the narrow, dark, discreet houses the most delicate green tracery imaginable; and in summer screen them altogether. These houses are for the most part black and brown, with white window frames, and they rise to a great height, culminating in that curious stepped gable (with a crane and pulley in it) which is, to many eyes, the symbol of the city.

For the greatest contrast to these black canals, you must seek the Kalverstraat. The Kalverstraat, running south from the Dam, is by day filled with shoppers and by night with gossipers. Damrak is of course always a scene of life, but Damrak is a thoroughfare — its population moving continually either to or from the Amsterdam train station (Centraal Station). But those who use the Kalverstraat may be said almost to live in it. To be there is an end in itself.

For the principal cafés, as distinguished from restaurants, you must seek the Rembrandt’s Plein, in the midst of which stands the master’s statue.

Amsterdam may be a city builded on the sand; but none the less will it endure. Indeed the sand saves it; for it is in the sand that the wooden piles on which every house rests find their footing, squelching through the black mud to this comparative solidity. Some of the piles are as long as fifty ft., and watching them being driven in. I have seen somewhere the number of piles which supported the the Central Station; but I cannot now find them. The Royal Palace on the Dam square stands on 13,650.

The advice to any one visiting Amsterdam is first to study a map of the city and thus to begin with a general idea of the lie of the land and the water. With this knowledge, and the assistance of the trams, it should not appear a very bewildering place. The Dam is its heart: a fact the acquisition of which will help very sensibly. All roads in Amsterdam lead to the Dam, and all lead from it. The Dam gives the city its name — “Amstel dam”, the dam which stops the river Amstel on its course to the IJsselmeer. Almost every tram sooner or later reaches the Dam: that is another simplifying piece of information. The course of each tram may not be very easily acquired, but with a common destination like this you cannot be carried very far wrong. One soon learns that the trams stop only at fixed points, and waits accordingly.

On the Dam also is the Royal Palace, which once was the stadhuis, but around 1800 (when Amsterdam was the 3rd city of the French Empire) was offered to Napoleon for a residence. It is interesting to have Amsterdam at one’s feet. Only thus can its peculiar position and shape be understood: its old part an almost perfect semicircle, with canal-arcs within arcs, and its northern shore washed by the IJ.

Also on the Dam is the New Church, which is to be seen more for the tomb of De Ruyter than for any architectural graces. The old sea dog, whose dark and determined features confront one in Bol’s canvases again and again in Holland, reposes in full dress on a cannon amid symbols of his victories.

To return to Amsterdam’s sights, the church which I remember with most pleasure is the Church, which many visitors never succeed in finding at all, but to which I was taken by a Dutch lady. You seek the Spui, and enter a very small doorway on the north side. It seems to lead to a private house, but instead you find yourself in a very beautiful little enclosure of old and quaint buildings, exquisitely kept, each with a screen of pollarded chestnuts before it; in the midst of which is a toy white church with a little spire that might have wandered out of a fairy tale. The enclosure is called The Begijnenhof, or Court of the Begijnen, a little sisterhood named after St. Begga, daughter of Pipinus, Duke of Brabant, — a saint who lived at the end of the 7th century.

The church was originally the church of these nuns, but when the old religion was overthrown in Amsterdam, in 1578, it was taken from them, although they were allowed to retain possession of the court around it.

In 1607 the church passed into the possession of a settlement of Scotch weavers who had been invited to Amsterdam by the merchants, and who had made it a condition of acceptance that they should have a conventicle of their own. One may leave the Begijnenhof by the other passage into Kalverstraat, and walking up the busy shopping street towards the Dam.

The name, “History of Holland,” is given to this website because the Netherlands are also known as “Holland”, named after the maritime province of Holland that took a predominant part in the War of Independence and throughout the whole of the subsequent history of the Dutch state and people. However officially the name of the country is the Netherlands.

In every language the country, comprising the provinces of Groningen, Friesland, Drenthe, Overijssel, Gelderland, Utrecht, Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland, Limburg, Noord-Brabant, Zeeland and the newest province Flevoland, has, from the close of the 16th century to our own day, been currently spoken of as Holland, and the people as “Hollanders.” It is only rarely that the terms the Republic of the United Provinces, or of the United Netherlands, and in later times the Kingdom of the Netherlands, are found outside official documents.

The character, however, of the people of the province of Holland, its qualities of toughness, of endurance, of seamanship and maritime enterprise, spring from the peculiar amphibious nature of the country, which differs from that of any other country in the world. The age-long struggle against the ocean and the river floods, which has converted the marshes, that lay around the mouths of the Rhine (Rijn), the Meuse (Maas) and the Scheldt (Schelde), by toilsome labour and skill into fertile and productive soil, has left its impress on the whole history of this people.

Nor must it be forgotten how largely this building up of the elaborate system of dykes, dams and canals by which this water-logged land was transformed into the Holland of the closing decades of the 16th century, enabled her people to offer such obstinate and successful resistance to the mighty power of the Spanish Philip II.