History of the Netherlands

By allenz
  • Nov 3, 1578

    Amsterdam abandons the Catholic cause

    Calvinists take over in what is called the Alteration. Public Catholic worship is outlawed and churches are confiscated. See Museum Amstelkring, Begijnhof and Lorhorstkerk.

  • Dutch West India Company chartered

  • Dutch become first to officially recognize nationhood of the United States

  • The country becomes the kingdom of the Netherlands, a constitutional monarchy headed by Willem I of the House of Oranje-Nassau, and incorporating Belgium.

  • Despite Dutch neutrality in World War I (1914-18), the Netherlands suffers from severe food shortages, triggering street riots.

  • Amsterdam Olympics.

  • The Great Depression leads to shortages and riots; the government calls out the army to maintain public order.

  • World War II: Nazi Germany invades on May 10. Holland surrenders 4 days later after the aerial bombardment of Rotterdam. Queen Wilhelmina goes into exile in London.

  • Anne Frank and her family, along with other Jewish friends, go into hiding in Amsterdam. Dutch East Indies occupied by Japan.

  • The Frank family refuge is betrayed and its occupants are transported. Anne dies the following year at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp

  • The Diary of Anne Frank is published.

  • The Netherlands joins NATO. The Dutch East Indies' wins independence, as Indonesia, after a bitterly fought liberation struggle

  • The Netherlands joins the European Economic Community, the forerunner of today's European Union (EU).

  • Amsterdam's 700th anniversary. Cannabis use is decriminalized. The Netherlands grants independence to Surinam.

  • The world's first real same-sex marriage, husband and husband, with a legal status identical to that of heterosexual matrimony, takes place in Amsterdam (by 2004, around 8% of marriages in Holland are same-sex).

  • The former Queen Juliana dies. Vermeer's painting Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (ca. 1670) is sold at auction for more than $30m by Sotheby's in London. Controversial film director Theo van Gogh, 47, is stabbed and shot to death on the streets of Amste