Timeline Netherlands
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Maastricht's name derives from Mosae Trajectum, which in Latin means the crossing on the Mosa (Meuse, Maas) River.
(SFEM, 10/12/97, p.40)
Holland’s official second language is Frisian. The country was once called Zeeland.
(WSJ, 5/13/98, p.A20)(SFEC, 3/28/99, Z1 p.8)
160BC–220CE The Weerdinge Couple, 2 men dating to this period, were found in a Holland bog in 1904.
(AM, 7/97, p.66)
53BC Caesar claimed to have wiped out the Celtic Eburones after they conspired with other groups in an attack that killed 6,000 Roman soldiers. The Eburones lived in an area that later came be known as part of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.
(AP, 11/14/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eburones)
50BCE Maastricht, Netherlands, began as a Roman settlement.
(SSFC, 2/20/05, p.F2)
1-100AD A Teutonic tribe known as the Frisians (or Friesians) settled in what is now the Netherlands in the first century A.D.
(HNQ, 3/5/00)
180CE A Roman military transport ship was built about this time, as Marcus Aurelius passed the throne to the emperor Commodus. It later sank in the Rhine. In 2003 archeologists in the Netherlands unveiled the preserved ship.
(AP, 5/15/03)
600-700 In the seventh century the Frisians clashed with the Franks and resisted Christianity, but succumbed to Frankish rule and accepted Christianity a century later. Citizens of the Netherlands’s province of Friesland are still called Frisians and the Frisian language is still spoken there.
(HNQ, 3/5/00)
727 May 30, Hubertus (72), bishop of Tongeren-Maastricht, saint, died.
(MC, 5/30/02)
739 Nov 7, Willibrord (81), [Clemens], 1st bishop of Utrecht (695-739) and saint , died.
(MC, 11/7/01)
830 The Utrecht Psalter was produced in the Netherlands. Its 166 ink drawings illustrated passages in the psalms. In the eleventh century an English copy was made that became known as the Harley Psalter.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utrecht_Psalter)
918 Mar 1, Balderik became bishop of Utrecht.
(SC, 3/1/02)
953 Apr 21, Otto I, the Great, granted Utrecht fishing rights.
(MC, 4/21/02)
988 May 6, Dirk II, West Frisian count of Holland, died.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1010 May 3, Ansfried (~69), 9th bishop of Utrecht (995-1010), saint, died.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1076 Feb 22, Godfried III, with the Hump, duke of Lower Lorraine, was murdered. [see Feb 26]
(MC, 2/22/02)
1076 Feb 26, Godfried III with the Hump, duke of Netherlands-Lutheran, was murdered. [see Feb 24]
(SC, 2/26/02)
1099 Apr 14, Conrad, bishop of Utrecht, was stabbed to death.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1100 Wittem Castle in Limburg dates to this time.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.T13)
1121 Mar 2, Dirk VI became count of Holland.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1122 Mar 2, Floris II, the fat one, count of Holland, died.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1190 Emo of Friesland entered Oxford and was later remembered as Oxford’s first recorded foreign student.
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.13)
1219 Jan 16, Floods followed a storm in Northern Netherlands and thousands were killed.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1235 Sep 5, Henry I, duke of Brabant, died. Brabant was a duchy later divided between Netherlands and Belgium.
(WUD, 1994 p.177)(MC, 9/5/01)
1258 Mar 26, Floris the Guardian, count-regent of Holland, died.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1280 Muiden Castle, 10 miles east of Amsterdam, dates to this time.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.T13)
1287 Dec 14, The Zuider Zee seawall collapsed with the loss of 50,000 lives.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1294 May 3, Jan I, duke of Brabant (Belgium-Netherlands), Limburg, poet, died.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1299 The Count of Holland gained control of the County of Zeeland, which had been under contention between Holland and Flanders.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland)
1300 The Oude Kerk church in Amsterdam dates to this time.
(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.T9)
1301 Jul 4, Battle at Breukelen: Holland vs. Lichtenberg.
(Maggio)
1345 The Frisian victory over the Dutch on the beach at Warns was their last before the Dutch took over.
(WSJ, 5/13/98, p.A20)
1366 Records indicate that cheese was weighed in Alkmaar at this time.
(SFEC, 6/7/98, p.T10)
1400 Roger Van Der Weyden (d.1464), Flemish painter, was born.
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1624)(Econ, 10/3/09, p.107)
1404 Netherlands experienced a severe flood.
1421 Nov 18-1421 Nov 19, In the St. Elizabeth flood the Southern sea flooded 72 villages killing some 10,000 in Netherlands.
(www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/SK-A-3147-B?lang=en)
1432 Zeeland became part of the Low Countries possession of Phillip the Good (1396-1467) of Burgundy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland)
1433 Apr 14, Liduina van Schiedam (53), Dutch mystic (Christ's Bride), saint, died.
(MC, 4/14/02)
c1450-1516 Hieronymus Bosch, painter was born. Hieronymus van Aken was born in the small Dutch Brabant city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch in Flanders.
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.172)(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 10/11/01, p.A19)
1451 Sep 21, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa ordered the Jews of Holland to wear a badge.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1459 Mar 2, Adrian VI [Adriaan F Boeyens], Pope (1522-23), was born in the Netherlands.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1460 May 9, In the Netherlands the courtyard Episcopal palace at Atrecht had witch burnings.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1464 Jun 18, Roger Van Der Weyden (b.1400), Flemish painter, died. He had mastered the new technique of oil painting and served as the official painter to the city of Brussels.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogier_van_der_Weyden)(Econ, 10/3/09, p.107)
1466 Oct 26, Desiderius Erasmus (d.1536), scholar and author (In Praise of Folly), was born in Rotterdam. He was of illegitimate birth, but became a priest and a monk. He excelled in philology, the study of ancient languages, namely Latin and Greek and worked on a new translation of the New Testament. The more he studied it, the more he came to doubt the accuracy of the Vulgate, St. Jerome's translation into Latin, dating from around 400. "In Praise of Folly" is his most famous work... In it Erasmus had the freedom to discourse, in the ironic style of Lucian (the Greek author whose works he translated), concerning all the foolishness and misguided pompousness of the world.
(V.D.-H.K.p.159-160)(MC, 10/26/01)
1477 Future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, a member of the Habsburg family of Austria, married Mary of Burgundy, heiress of all the Netherlands. Maximilian had given Mary a diamond engagement ring, a practice that soon spread. In 1996 Andrew Wheatcroft wrote a history of the Habsburgs: "The Habsburgs."
(WSJ, 1/19/96, p.A-12)(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.6)(SFC, 5/28/08, p.G2)
1477 The Seventeen Provinces, a personal union of states in the Low Countries in the 16th century, became the property of the Habsburgs. They roughly covered the current Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, a good part of the North of France (Artois, Nord) and a small part of Germany.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland)
1483 Apr 6, Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, d.1520), Dutch painter (Sistine Madonna) , was born to an unremarkable painter in the Duchy of Urbino. He went on to paint famous works in the Vatican. After an apprenticeship in Perugia, he went to Florence, having heard of the work da Vinci and Michelangelo were doing. His last 12 years were spent on numerous commissions in Rome. He died on his 37th birthday, his funeral mass being celebrated in the Vatican. .
(HN, 4/6/98)(HNQ, 11/17/00)
1487 Hans Memling (c.1440-1494), Flemish painter, painted the diptych “Virgin and Child" and “Maarten van Nieuwenhove" (1463-1500), who was his patron.
(SFC, 10/18/05, p.D2)(SFC, 12/23/06, p.E12)
1489-1490 The plague ravaged the Netherlands.
(WSJ, 10/12/98, p.A17)
1492 May 15, Cheese and Bread rebellion: German mercenaries killed 232 Alkmaarse.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1496 Oct 20, Spain’s Juana of Castile (1479-1555) married Philip the Handsome, the Duke of Burgundy, in Lier (later a part of Belgium). Philip's parents were Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and his first wife, Duchess Mary of Burgundy. Juana had sailed from Spain with 15,000 men to the Habsburg Netherlands. Between 1498 and 1507, she gave birth to six children: two emperors and four queens.
(Econ, 4/13/13, p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_of_Castile)
1500s Holland and Saxony began to protect the rights of inventors to their creations.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1507 Margaret of Austria was appointed Regent by the States-General (parliament) of the Netherlands until the Archduke Charles came of age.
(TL-MB, p.9)
1510 Jun 9, Nicolaas van Nieuwland, corrupt 1st bishop of Harlem, was born.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1511 Portuguese traders reached the Banda Islands, including Run, and broke the Venetian monopoly over nutmeg. Over the next century the Dutch muscled in an almost cornered the nutmeg market. The history of the nutmeg trade was documented in 1999 by Giles Milton in his: "Nathaniel's Nutmeg."
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W7)
1512 Nov 16, Jemme Herjuwsma, Fries rebel, was beheaded.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1512 Nov 17, Kempo Roeper, Frisian rebel, was quartered.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1517 Jul 1, The 1st burning of Protestants at stake in Netherlands.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1517 Archduke Charles left the Netherlands for Spain and entered Valladolid in triumph.
(TL-MB, p.11)
1519 Jul 6, Charles of Spain was elected Holy Roman emperor in Barcelona. The Catholic heir to the Hapsburg dynasty, Charles V, was elected Holy Roman Emperor, combining the crowns of Spain, Burgundy (with the Netherlands), Austria and Germany. He was the grandson of Ferdnand and Isabella of Spain.
(V.D.-H.K.p.162)(NH, 9/96, p.18)(HN, 7/6/98)
1520 Oct 7, The 1st public burning of books took place in Louvain, Netherlands.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1521 May 28, Willem van Croij (~62), duke of Soria, died.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1521 Oct 25, Emperor Charles V banned wooden buildings in Amsterdam.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1522 Apr 29, Emperor Charles V named Frans van Holly inquisitor-gen of Netherlands.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1523 Nov 30, Amsterdam banned the assembly of heretics.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1523 Hans Holbein completed the first of several portraits of Erasmus. He also began the design of 51 plates on the "Dance of Death," which reflected ideas of the Reformation.
(TL-MB, p.12)
1524 Apr 19, Pope Clemens VII fired the Netherlands inquisitor-general French Van de Holly.
(MC, 4/19/02)
1524 Dec 11, Henry Van Zutphen, Dutch Protestant martyr, was burned at stake.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1525 May 10, Church reformer John Pistorius was caught in the Hague.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1525 Sep 15, Jan de Bakker (26), Roman Catholic priest also known under the name Pistorius, was burned during the Reformation in the Netherlands.
(http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/p/pistorius_joh.shtml)
1527 Nov 20, Wendelmoet "Weyntjen" Claesdochter, became the 1st Dutch woman to be burned as heretic.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1528 Nov 30, Great Wierd, Dutch Gelderland army commander, was beheaded.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1530 In Antwerp William Tyndale published his translation into English of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, and shipped copies to England.
(WSJ, 12/22/94, A-20)(ON, 11/04, p.2)
1530 Erasmus (1469-1536), Dutch Renaissance humanist, authored “On Good Manners for Boys" (De civilitate morum puerorum).
(Econ, 10/8/11, p.102)
1531 May 31, "Women's Revolt" in Amsterdam: wool house in churchyard.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1531 Dec 6, John Volkertsz Trimaker, Dutch Anabaptist leader, was beheaded.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1534 Feb 26, Pope Paul III was affirmed George van Egmond as bishop of Utrecht.
(PTA, 1980, p.440)(SC, 2/26/02)
1534 Mar 26, Lübeck, Hanseatic League port in the Baltic, accepted free Dutch ships into East Sea.
(SS, 3/26/02)(WUD, 1994 p.851)
1535 Feb 10, 12 nude Anabaptists ran through the streets of Amsterdam. [see 1534]
(MC, 2/10/02)
1535 May 21, Imperial authorities in Antwerp captured and imprisoned William Tyndale for heresy over his translation of the Bible into English.
(WSJ, 12/22/94, A-20)(www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b2tyndalew.htm)
1535 Jun 24, Francis of Waldeck overcame the Anabaptists of Munster. Fanatic leader John of Leyden and others were tortured and executed in Jan 1536.
(MC, 6/24/02)(PC, 1992, p.179)
1535 Jul 10, Jacob Van Campen, Anabaptist bishop of Amsterdam, was beheaded.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1536 Jul 12, Desiderius Erasmus (b.1469 in Rotterdam) died, humanist, priest (Novum instrumentum omne), died. His most famous works included "In Praise of Folly" and a Greek text of the New Testament. In 1999 Prof. Charles Trinkaus published "Collected Works of Erasmus: Controversies," an examination of the religious conflict between humanism and the Reformation.
(V.D.-H.K.p.159-160)(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A26)(WSJ, 1/31/03, p.W13)(MC, 7/12/02)
1540 Feb 14, Emperor Charles V entered Ghent without resistance and executed the rebels. He brutally beat down an uprising against taxes for an expansionist war. Nine leaders were beheaded and another hanged. City burgers were forced to walk the streets barefoot with rope hanging round their necks. The "Gentse Feesten" annual festival re-enacts this event every mid-July.
(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.T10)(MC, 2/14/02)
1550 Apr 28, Powers of Dutch inquisition were extended.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1550 Apr 29, Emperor Charles V gave inquisitors additional authority.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1555 Oct 25, Emperor Charles V put his son Philip II in charge of Netherlands, Naples, and Milan.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1556-1620 Adriaen de Vries, sculptor. He was born in The Hague and worked in Florence under the sculptor Giovanni Bologna. His work included "Juggling Man" (c1610-1615), a bust of Emp. Rudolf II (1603), and the Neptune Fountain (1615-1618).
(WSJ, 1/6/98, p.A20)(WSJ, 12/7/99, p.A24)
1557 Pieter Breughel the Elder created his painting "The Drunkard Pushed Into the Pigsty." [see Flanders]
(WSJ, 9/6/02, p.W14)
1558 Hendrick Goltzius (d.1617), Dutch Master painter, was born.
(WSJ, 8/14/03, p.D8)
1564 Dec 31, Willem of Orange demanded freedom of conscience and religion.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1564-1651 Abraham Bloemaert, artist and teacher of Hendrick ter Brugghen.
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.13)
1566 Aug 25, Iconoclastic fury began in the Dutch province of Utrecht. Fanatical Calvinists instigated religious riots in the Netherlands.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)(TL-MB, 1988, p.21)
1566-1638 Joachim Wytawael (Wtewael), Dutch mannerist painter.
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.13)(SFEM, 9/17/00, p.96)
1566-1640 Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom, Dutch painter.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)
1567 Apr 11, Dutch Prince William of Orange fled from Antwerp to Breda.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1567 May 1, Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt, Dutch royal painter, was born.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1567 Oct 6, The Duke of Alba became guardian of the Netherlands. Spain’s Duke of Alba arrived in Brussels at the head of a 10,000 troops to quell the iconoclastic riots.
(MC, 10/6/01)(WSJ, 7/1/04, p.D8)
1568 Jan 24, In Netherlands Duke of Alba declared (future King) William of Orange an outlaw.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1568 Feb 16, A sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named, were acquitted.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War)
1568 Oct 5, Willem of Orange's army occupied Brabant.
(MC, 10/5/01)
1568-1648 The Eighty Years' War, or Dutch Revolt was the secession war in which the proto-Netherlands first became an independent country and in which the region now known as Belgium became established. It was carried on by the Calvinist and predominantly mercantile Dutch provinces.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War)
1569 Sep 5, Pieter Breughel, South Netherlands (Flemish) painter, died at about 44.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1570 Mar 4, Spain’s King Philip II banned foreign Dutch students.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1570 Nov 2, A tidal wave in the North Sea destroyed the sea walls from Holland to Jutland. Over a thousand people are killed.
(HN, 11/2/98)(www.metoffice.com/education/secondary/students/flood.html)
1572 Apr 1, The Sea Beggars under Guillaume de la Marck landed in Holland and captured the small town of Briel.
(HN, 4/1/99)
1572 Jun 9, Willem van Orange's army occupied Gelderland.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1572 Jun 24, Adrianus van Gouda, lay brother, was hanged along with Cornelis van Diedt, Daniell van Arendonck (clergyman), Joannes van Naarden (priest) and Ludovicus Voets (priest).
(MC, 6/24/02)
1572 Jul 9, In Gorinchem, Netherlands, 19 Catholics were executed during the Dutch war for independence. They became known as “The Martyrs of Gorkum."
(SFC, 3/5/11, p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrs_of_Gorkum)
1572 Jul 18, William of Orange was recognized as viceroy of Holland, Friesland and Utrecht.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1572 Dec, The Dutch town of Naarden surrendered to Imperial Spanish troops under the Duke of Alba (1507-1582). The town was then burned and the entire population massacred. Alba’s attempt to impose a 10% sales tax on commodities stirred resistance that led to the Dutch independence. In 2004 Henry Kamen authored "The Duke of Alba."
(WSJ, 7/1/04, p.D8)
1572 Dutch warships, Beggars of the Sea, effectively harried Spanish shipping in the English Channel and fueled the Dutch War of Independence.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1572 The Dutch used carrier pigeons during the Spanish siege of Haarlem.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1573 Jul 20, Lancelot of Brederode (Netherlands), water beggar, was beheaded.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1574 Oct 1-2 A storm broke a Leiden dike and 20,000 Spanish soldiers drowned. Spanish forces in the Netherlands besieged Leyden, but William the Silent (Willem of Orange) breached the dykes to flood the land. This allowed his ships to sail up to the walls and lift the siege.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(PCh, 1992, p.198)(MC, 10/1/01)
1575 The Bols family arrived in Amsterdam to open ‘het Lootsje’ where they would distill liqueurs. This was the starting point of what would become the world’s oldest distillery. Bols began producing Genever, a Dutch style of gin, in 1664. In 2007 it opened a House of Bols museum in the museum quarter in the Dutch capital. It was dedicated to the history of Jenever (also known as genever or jeniever), the juniper-flavored alcoholic liquor from which gin evolved. The museum is housed on two floors of the Bols headquarters at 14 Paulus Potterstraat. Originally sold as a remedy for lumbago muscular pain, the traditional Dutch and Flemish drink was allegedly invented at the end of the 16th century by Sylvius de Bouve, a chemist, alchemist, renowned scholar and professor at the university of Leyden.
(http://amsterdam.wantedineurope.com/news/news.php?id_n=2999)(www.lucasbols.com/index.asp)(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.A12)
1576 Nov 8, All 17 provinces of the Netherlands united in the Pacification of Ghent in the face of Spanish occupation. The 17 provinces of the Netherlands formed a federation to maintain peace.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(HN, 11/6/98)
1576 Mutinous Spanish forces sacked Antwerp in "the Spanish Fury."
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1577 Feb 12, The Eternal Edict was concluded by Don Juan of Austria, the new Spanish governor of the Netherlands, and the States General in Marche-en-Famenne
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_1577)
1577 Jun 28, Pietro Paul Rubens (d.1640), Flemish painter, was born in Germany, the child of protestants exiled from Antwerp. His work included "Helene Fourment" and "The Abduction of the Daughters of Leucippus."
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1250)(HN, 6/28/01) (Econ, 5/15/04, p.81)
1577 Sep 23, William of Orange made his triumphant entry into Brussels, Belgium.
(HN, 9/23/98)
1578 Jan 28, Cornelis Haga, Dutch lawyer, ambassador to Constantinople (1611-39), was born.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1578 Don John of Austria died of fever. He was succeeded as Governor of the Netherlands by Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1579 Jan 6, The Union of Atrecht (French: Arras) was an accord signed in Atrecht (Arras), under which the southern states of the Spanish Netherlands, today in Wallonia and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais (and Picardy) regions in France, expressed their loyalty to the Spanish king Philip II and recognized the landlord, Don Juan de Austria. It is to be distinguished from the Union of Utrecht, signed later in the same month. The Peace of Arras ensured that the southern provinces of The Netherlands were reconciled to Philip II. It joined the Low Country Walloons (Catholics) with those of Hainaut and Artois.
(http://en.allexperts.com/e/u/un/union_of_atrecht.htm)(PCh, 1992, p.200)
1579 Jan 25, The Union of Utrecht brought together seven northern, Protestant provinces of the Netherlands against the Catholics. Known as the United Provinces, they become the foundation of the Dutch Republic. The Treaty of Utrecht was signed, marking the beginning of the Dutch Republic.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(AP, 1/25/98)
1579 Mar 23, Friesland joined the Union of Utrecht.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1580 Jun 18, States of Utrecht outlawed Catholic worship.
(MC, 6/18/02)
c1581 Franz Hals (d.1666), painter, was born.
(WUD, 1994 p.640)(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.T7)
1581 The seven northern provinces of the Netherlands renounced their allegiance to Philip II of Spain.
(TL-MB, p.23)
1582 Nov 1, Maurice of Nassau, the son of William of Orange, became the governor of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht.
(HN, 11/1/98)
1583 Apr 10, Hugo Grotius (d.1645) of Holland, father of international law, was born. Huig de Groot (Latinized as Hugo Grotius), Dutch jurist and statesman, is generally regarded as the founder of international law because of his influential work "On the Law of War and Peace" published in 1625. He became a member of a diplomatic mission to France at age 15 and began practicing law at 16. A liberal Protestant, de Groot became involved in religious disputes in the Netherlands and was arrested in 1618 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He escaped in 1621 and fled to Paris. He served the Swedish government as ambassador to France from 1634-1644.
(HN, 4/10/98)(HNQ, 3/15/00)
1584 Jan 7, This was the last day of the Julian calendar in Bohemia & Holy Roman empire. The 1582 Gregorian (or New World) calendar was adopted by this time in Belgium, most of the German Roman Catholic states and the Netherlands.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, Par p.27)(MC, 1/7/02)
1584 Jul 10, William of Orange (1533-1584), Prince of Orange (1544-1584), Count of Nassau (1559-1584), and first stadholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, was assassinated by Burgundian Balthasar Gerard (25) with a handgun. Philip II of Spain had called for a volunteer assassin due to William’s reluctance take a public stand on religious issues. William was succeeded by his 17-year-old son, Maurice of Nassau. In 2006 Lisa Jardine authored “The Awful End of Prince William the Silent."
(TL-MB, 1988, p.23)(WSJ, 4/5/06, p.D8)
1584 A Dutch trading post was established at the Russian port of Archangel.
(TL-MB, p.23)
1585 Apr 5, Clemens Crabbeels became bishop of Hertogenbosch.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1585 Antwerp was sacked by the Duke of Parma, resulting in long-lasting loss of trade for that port.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1585 Simon Stevin, Dutch mathematician and military and civil engineer, introduces decimals into the mathematical calculations of his physics in Die Thiende.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1585 The Dutch used the first time-bombs in floating mines actuated by clockwork at the siege of Antwerp.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1587 Giles Everard, a Dutch doctor, authored “Panacea," extolling the virtues of tobacco. The Latin version was made available in English in 1659.
(WSJ, 11/22/08, p.W11)
1588-1629 Hendrick ter Brugghen was an artist of the Utrecht School. His paintings included: "St. Sebastian Tended by Irene." He traveled to Rome and was influenced by the work of Caravaggio.
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.8)
1590 Mar 4, Mauritius of Nassau's ship reached Breda, Netherlands.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1592-1656 Gerard van Honthorst was an artist of the Utrecht School. His paintings included "The Denial of St. Peter" (1620-1626), and "Saint Sebastian" from (c1620/1623). He traveled to Rome and was influenced by the work of Caravaggio.
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.8,12)
1595 Apr 2, Cornelis de Houtman's ships departed to Asia around Cape of Good Hope.
(MC, 4/2/02)
c1595-1624 Dirck van Baburen was an artist of the Utrecht School. He traveled to Rome and was influenced by the work of Caravaggio.
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.8)
1596 May 18, Willem Barents left Amsterdam for Novaya Zemlya.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1597 Jun 20, Willem Barents, Dutch explorer who discovered Spitsbergen & Bereneil, died. In 1995 Rayner Unwin authored "A Winter Away from Home," an account of Barents’ Arctic voyages.
(WUD, 1994 p.120)(SSFC, 12/10/00, p.C17)(MC, 6/20/02)
1597 In Amsterdam the Spinhuis (spinning house) was opened as a workhouse for fallen women.
(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.T9)
1597-1665 Pieter Saenredam, Haarlem painter of architectural motifs.
(WSJ, 7/2/02, p.D7)
1597/8-1671 Jan van Bijlert, painter. He traveled to Rome and was influenced by the work of Caravaggio.
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.13)
1598 Jun, A 5-ship Dutch expedition to Japan departed Rotterdam with Will Adams, English ship pilot, as chief navigator.
(ON, 11/02, p.8)
1599 The Dutch East India Company dates to this time. [see 1602]
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1600 Apr 19, The Dutch ship Liefde, piloted by Will Adams, reached Japan with a crew of 24 men. 6 of the crew soon died. 4 other ships in the expedition were lost.
(ON, 11/02, p.8)
1600 Dec 31, The British East India Company (d.1874) was chartered by Queen Elizabeth I in London to carry on trade in the East Indies in competition with the Dutch, who controlled nutmeg from the Banda Islands.
(WUD, 1994, p.449)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)(www.theeastindiacompany.com/history.html)
1600-1700 Britain waged wars against the Dutch. The English fleet sailed in three segments, the 3rd of which was commanded by a Rear Admiral. [see 1780-1783]
(SFEC, 8/3/97, Z1 p.2)
1600-1700 Cognac 1st appeared when Dutch sea merchants found that they could better preserve white wine shipped from France to northern Europe by distilling it. They then learned the wine got better as it aged in wooden barrels.
(WSJ, 7/14/03, p.A1)
1600-1700 West Timor was seized by the Netherlands.
(SFC, 3/3/98, p.A6)
1600-1800 A mass migration of nearly 1 million people in the 17th and 18th century led to the decline of this small nation.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.F4)
1601 Joachim Wtewael painted "Mars and Venus Discovered by Vulcan."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.8)
1602 Mar 20, The Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) was chartered to carry on trade in the East Indies. The VOC traded to 1798 whereupon its possessions were dissolved into the Dutch empire. In 2010 a student found a share in the company issued to an official named Pieter Harmenz dating to Sep 9, 1606. As a result, continuous trade in company stock emerged on the Amsterdam Exchange.
(SFC, 9/10/10, p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market)(Econ, 2/25/12, SRp.4)
1602 Japan’s Shogun Ieyasu seized the Dutch ship Liefde and granted its crew allowances to live in Japan.
(ON, 11/02, p.9)
1603 The Dutch East India Company seized a Portuguese ship laden with raw silk and gold near the straight of Malacca and hired Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) to defend its action. In 1625 Grotius authored “Mare Liberum" (The Free Sea) arguing that the seas were international territory and should be open to all.
(Econ, 11/15/14, SR p.11)
1604 Sep 20, After a two-year siege, the Spanish retook Ostend [NW Belgium], the Netherlands, from the Dutch.
(WUD, 1994, p.1019)(HN, 9/20/98)
1604-1667 Christiaen van Couwenbergh, Dutch painter.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)
1605 Japan’s Shogun Ieyasu allowed some of the Dutch crew of the ship Liefde to return home, but kept Will Adams in Japan. Adams soon married Magoma Oyuki, a young noblewoman.
(ON, 11/02, p.10)
1606 Jul 15, The painter Rembrandt (d.1669) Harmenszoom van Rizn (Rijn), was born in Leiden, Netherlands. His paintings included "Old Woman Cutting Her Nails," "Night Watch," "Self Portrait Leaning Forward" (1628), "Two Studies of Saskia Asleep" (1635-1637), "Jupiter and Antiope" (1659) and "Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer." He started making etchings in the 1620s when the medium was barely a 100 years old.
(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)(SFC, 10/12/96, p.E3)(SFC, 5/17/97, p.E1)(AP, 7/15/97)
1608 Oct 2, Jan Lippershey, spectacle maker, formally offered to the Estates of Holland his new spyglass for warfare. He was the 1st to file a patent claim for a spyglass.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9048449)(CW, Spring ‘99, p.33)
1608 The Oudemannenhuis almshouse was built in Haarlem.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.T7)
1609 Mar 25, Henry Hudson embarked on an exploration for Dutch East India Co.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1609 Sep 12, English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into the river that now bears his name. Hudson sailed for the Dutch East India Company in search of the Northwest Passage, a water route linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, when he sailed up the present-day Hudson River.
(AP, 9/12/97)(HNQ, 7/23/00)
1609 Dutchman Huig de Groot authored a treatise titled “Mare Liberum" (The Open Sea) in which he argued that seas were open to anyone.
(Econ, 1/18/14, p.80)
1610 The Dutch ousted the Portuguese from Indonesia by this time, but the Portuguese retained the eastern half of Timor.
(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)
1610 The first cargo of Asian tea arrived in Amsterdam
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1610-1650 Painters from Utrecht worked in the style of Caravaggio.
(WSJ, 10/20/97, p.A19)
1611 Joachim Wtewael painted "Andromeda." He and Bloemaert helped transmit the Italian mannerist influence and a preference for figure painting over landscape
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C8)
1613 Apr 7, Gerard Dou, Dutch painter (Night School), was born.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1613-1675 Gerrit Dou, Dutch artist. He was a student of Rembrandt.
(SFC, 5/25/00, p.A24)
1614 Crispijn de Passe the Younger published "Hortus Floridus" in Holland.
(WSJ, 7/7/98, p.A14)
1615 Joachim Wtewael painted the "Judgement of Paris."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C8)
1616 Dec 25, Nathaniel Courthope, a British merchant-adventurer under direct orders from James I, landed his ship Swan at the Banda Island of Run. He persuaded the islanders to enter an alliance with the British for nutmeg. He fortified the 1 by 2 mile island and with 30 men proceeded to hold off a Dutch siege for 1,540 days.
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W7)
1616 The Dutch became the first to establish colonies in Guyana with Essequibo. Berbice followed in 1627, and then Demerara in 1752.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyana)
1616-1691/92 Emanuel de Witte, Dutch painter.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)
1617 Feb 4, Louis Elsevier (~76), Dutch publisher, died.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1617 The Pilgrims decided to leave the Netherlands. They formed a partnership in a joint-stock company with a group of London merchants in a company called John Pierce & Assoc. They received a grant for a plantation in the Virginia colony but ended up landing in Massachusetts. Each adult was to receive a share in the company but earnings would not be divided for 7 years.
(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.A14)
1618 Aug, Hugo Grotius, attorney general of Holland, was arrested on the orders of Prince Maurice of Nassau, ruler of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, for conspiring to undermine the authority of the government.
(ON, 10/04, p.1)
1618 Hendrick Goltzius (b.1558), Dutch Master painter, died. His work included "Danaë."
(WSJ, 8/14/03, p.D8)
1619 May 13, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (b.1547), Dutch lands advocate, was beheaded.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1619 May 18, Hugo the Great (1582-1645), Hugo de Groot or Grotius, Dutch scholar, the "Father of Int’l. Law" and author of the 1st treatise on the law of the sea, Mare liberum," was sentenced to life in prison.
(SC, 5/18/02)(Internet)
1619 Jun 5, Hugo Grotius was taken to Loevestein Castle to begin his life sentence. His wife and 5 children were allowed to stay with him.
(ON, 10/04, p.1)
1619 Jul 2, Jan Pieterszoon Coen, a top officer of the Dutch East India Company, decided to expand a Dutch fort into a larger fortress. On Oct 7 he sent plans for Batavia Castle to the Netherlands. The region which became Batavia was built on the ruins of the former Jayakarta.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Pieterszoon_Coen)
1619 Amsterdam opened a stock exchange.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1620 Jul 22, The Pilgrims set out from Holland destined for the New World. The Speedwell sailed to England from the Netherlands with members of the English Separatist congregation that had been living in Leiden, Holland. Joining the larger Mayflower at Southampton, the two ships set sail together in August, but the Speedwell soon proved unseaworthy and was abandoned at Plymouth, England. The entire company then crowded aboard the Mayflower, setting sail for North America on September 16, 1620.
(HNQ, 3/4/00)(MC, 7/22/02)
1621 Jan 21, In Indonesia a new city built on the site of a Dutch fort was officially named as Batavia. Jan Pieterszoon Coen, recognized as the founder of Batavia (now Jakarta).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Jakarta)
1621 Jun 3, The Dutch West India Company received a charter for New Netherlands, now known as New York. The Dutch West India Co. was formed to trade with America and West Africa.
(AP, 6/3/97)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1621 Jan Pieterszoon Coen, a top officer of the Dutch East India Company, led a bloody assault on a group of islands in order to secure a monopoly on spices grown there. He was later reviled as the “butcher of Banda." In 2020 protests called for the removal of his statue in Hoorn.
(AP, 6/19/20)
1621-1622 Dutch artist Dirck van Baburen painted "The Mocking of Christ."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C8)
1622 Feb 27, Rembrandt Carel Fabritius (d.1654), Dutch painter, was born.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)(MC, 2/27/02)
1622 Mar 22, Hugo Grotius escaped from Loevestein Castle.
(ON, 10/04, p.2)
1622 Dirck van Baburen painted: "The Procuress."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.8)
1622 In Aklmaar the cheese market officially opened. [see 1366]
(SFEC, 6/7/98, p.T10)
1623 Apr 29, 11 Dutch ships departed for the conquest of Peru.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1623 Dirck van Baburen painted "Prometheus Chained."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C1)
1624 Cafe Chris opened in Amsterdam and served the construction workers of the nearby Westerkerk.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, p.T5)
1624 The Dutch conquered Salvador, Brazil.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.T8)
1624 Dutchman Cornelius Drebbel encased a wooden frame in a greased leather sheath and pushed it underwater to create what’s claimed to be the world’s 1st submarine.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.B3)
1625 Sep 24, Dutch Gen’l. Bowdoin Hendrik and his fleet of 17 ships sailed into San Juan, Puerto Rico, and attacked El Morro. He held the garrison under siege for 3 weeks and then set the town to flames. This infuriated the Spanish who attacked and sent the Dutch fleeing.
(HT, 4/97, p.31-33)(MC, 9/24/01)
1625 Hendrick ter Brugghen painted "Saint Sebastian Attended by Saint Irene."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C8)
1625 Rembrandt depicted himself as a bit player in his painting "The Stoning of St. Stephen."
(WSJ, 8/11/99, p.A16)
1625 Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) of Holland published his influential work "On the Law of War and Peace." Huig de Groot (Latinized as Hugo Grotius), Dutch jurist and statesman, is generally regarded as the founder of international law. "It is lawful to kill who is preparing to kill."
(HN, 4/10/98)(HNQ, 3/15/00)(Econ, 11/22/03, p.25)
1626 May 4, Dutch explorer Peter Minuit (~1594-1638), director-general of New Netherlands, bought Manhattan Island for 60 guilders (about $24 in 1839 dollars) worth of cloth and buttons. Minuit conducted the transaction with Seyseys, chief of the Canarsees, who were only too happy to accept valuable merchandise in exchange for an island that was actually mostly controlled by the Weckquaesgeeks. The Sixty guilders were valued at approximately $1,060 in 2013. The site of the deal was later marked by Peter Minuit Plaza at South Street and Whitehall Street.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Minuit)(AP, 5/4/97)(HN, 5/4/98)(WSJ, 11/19/99, p.W10)
1626 Nov 7, Peter Schager of Amsterdam informed the States General that the ship "The Arms of Amsterdam" had arrived with a cargo of furs and timber from New Netherlands and that the settlers there had bought the Island of Manhattan for 60 guilders.
(WSJ, 11/19/99, p.W10)
1626 Rembrandt depicted part of himself in his painting "History Piece."
(WSJ, 8/11/99, p.A16)
c1626-1627 Hendrick ter Brugghen painted "The Concert."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.12)
1626-1679 Jan Steen, Dutch painter.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)
1627 Mar 3, Piet Heyn conquered 22 ships in Bay of Salvador, Brazil.
(SC, 3/3/02)
c1627-1628 Hendrick ter Brugghen painted "Melancholia."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C1)
1628 Mar 10, Constantine Huygens Jr., Dutch poet, painter, cartoonist, was born.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1628 Abraham Bloemaert painted his "Virgin and Child."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.13)
1628 Rembrandt Harmenszoom van Rizn (Rijn) (1606-1669), Dutch painter, painted "Self Portrait Leaning Forward."
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1213)(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)
1628 Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish painter, was called upon to broker a peace between Catholic Spain and Protestant England.
(Econ, 5/15/04, p.81)
1629 Apr 14, Christian Huygens (d.1695), Dutch astronomer, discoverer of Saturn's rings, was born. He invented the pendulum and along with Newton showed that any body revolving around a center is actually accelerating constantly toward that center, even though the rate of rotation remains constant.
(TNG, Klein, p.30)(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_huygens.htm)
1629 Jun 18, Piet Heyn (51), lt.-admiral (Spanish silver fleet), died in battle.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1629 Oct 13, Dutch West Indies Co. granted religious freedom in West Indies.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1629 The Batavia, a Dutch East India ship, struck a reef off the western coast of Australia. Some 300 survivors made it to a tiny island in the Houtman Abrolhos archipelago, where Jeronimus Cornelisz, a junior officer, took power after a vicous struggle. He ran a regime of murder, rape and torture for 3 months when helped arrived from the Dutch colony on Java. 70 of the 300 initial survivors were still alive. Cornelisz was quickly tried and executed. In 2005 Simon Leys authored “The Wreck of the Batavia."
(WSJ, 1/10/06, p.D8)
1629-1684 Pieter de Hooch, Dutch painter of contemplative scenes of everyday life.
(WSJ, 2/2/99, p.A20)
1632 Oct 24, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch naturalist, was born.
(HN, 10/24/00)
1632 Oct 31, [Johannes] Jan Vermeer (d.1675), tavern keeper and Dutch painter (Procuress, Astronomer), was born in Delft. Only 35 of his pictures are known to survive. These include: "Girl With a Pearl Earring" (1665-1666), "The Little Street" (1657), "Saint Praxedis" (1655), "Allegory of Faith" (1671) and "The Artist in His Studio." His wife was Catharina Bolnes.
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1587)(MC, 10/31/01)
1632 Nov 24, Baruch (Benedict) de Spinoza (d.1677), Dutch rationalist philosopher, was born in Amsterdam. "Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear."
(AP, 9/24/99)(MC, 11/24/01)
1632 Rembrandt painted his work "Europa" and "Portrait of a Lady Aged 62." The portrait sold for $28.7 million in 2000.
(WSJ, 3/9/98, p.A16)(SFC, 12/15/00, p.C15)
1632 The "Portrait of a Young Woman" was created in the studio of Remrandt. In 1961 the portrait was bequethed to Pennsylvania's Allentown Art Museum. In 2020 art experts declared it to be an authentic Rembrandt.
(SFC, 2/18/20, p.A6)
1633 Dec 18, Willem van de Velde the Younger, Dutch marine painter, was baptized.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_van_de_Velde_the_Younger)
1633 Rembrandt van Rijn painted the "Portrait of a Bearded Man in a Red Coat." It sold for $9.1 million in 1998.
(SFC, 2/3/98, p.E3)
1634 Rembrandt van Rijn painted "Portrait of a Woman." It hangs in the Speed Museum of Louisville, Ky.
(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A20)
1634-1637 The Dutch tulip craze was known as the "tulipomania." A futures market was created for tulip bulbs in Dutch taverns and prices crashed 95% in the end. In 2000 Peter M. Garber authored "Famous First Bubbles," and restored a sense of proportion to the inflated notions of the mania.
(WSJ, 7/7/98, p.A14)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(WSJ, 1/18/00, p.C14)(WSJ, 8/2/00, p.A20)
1635 Apr 16, Frans van Mieris, the Elder, Dutch painter, was born.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1635-1637 Rembrandt Harmenszoom van Rizn (Rijn) (1606-1669), Dutch painter, painted "Two Studies of Saskia Asleep."
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1213)(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)
1636 Mar 26, University of Utrecht held its opening ceremony.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1636 Nov 17, Henrique Dias, Brazilian general, won a decisive battle against the Dutch in Brazil.
(HN, 11/17/98)
1636 Rembrandt made his etching "Self-portrait with Saskia."
(HT, 5/97, p.60)
1636 Pieter Saenredam, Haarlem painter of architectural motifs, spent 3 months in Utrecht where he drew the interiors of the gothic churches.
(WSJ, 7/2/02, p.D7)
1637 Mar 5, John van der Heyden, Dutch painter, inventor (fire extinguisher), was born.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1637 Nov 20, Peter Minuit & 1st Dutch and Swedish immigrants to Delaware sailed from Sweden. Peter later purchased Manhattan Island for 60 guilders.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1637 The Dutch tulip bulb craze crashed as futures prices became too high for speculators to pay off and take delivery.
(WSJ, 7/7/98, p.A14)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(WSJ, 1/18/00, p.C14)
1637 The Dutch attacked and captured Elmina (Ghana), which up to that point was the centre of Portuguese activity in West Africa.
(www.moxon.net/ghana/cape_coast.html)
1638 Mar 23, Frederik Ruysch, Dutch anatomist, was born.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1638 Aug 9, Jonas Bronck of Holland became the 1st European settler in the Bronx.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1638 Rembrandt painted the "Portrait of Willem Bartolsz Ruyter," a Dutch actor.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.E3)
1638 Joachim Wytawael (Wtewael, b.1566) , Dutch mannerist painter, died. His work included "The Adoration of the Shepherds."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.13)(SFEM, 9/17/00, p.96)
1640 Rembrandt painted his "Portrait of a Man Seated in an Armchair" about this time.
(WSJ, 11/3/95, p.A-12)
1641 Sep 23, Adrian "Aart" van Wijck, theologian, was born. He fought Jansenism.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1641 The Dutch pushed the Portuguese out of Malacca and renamed Our Lady of the Hill church to St. Paul’s.
(Econ, 11/15/14, SR p.5)
1642 Aug 13, Christian Huygens discovered the Martian south polar cap.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1642 Dec 13, Dutch navigator and explorer Abel Janszoon sighted present-day New Zealand. He fled after Maori cannibals feasted on the “friendship party" he sent ashore.
(NG, Aug., 1974, p.196)(SFEC, 10/4/98, p.T4)(AP, 12/13/07)
1642 Rembrandt van Rijn painted "Night Watch."
(WSJ, 3/904, p.D8)
1642 Curacao became a colony of the Netherlands.
(Econ, 6/19/04, p.72)
1645 Aug 28, Hugo Grotius, Dutch jurist and politician, died. In 1917 Hamilton Vreeland authored “Hugo Grotius: The Father of Modern Science and International Law."
(RTH, 8/28/99)(ON, 10/04, p.4)
1646 Akzo Nobel, a Dutch multinational firm, traced its origins to a foundry established this year in the Swedish countryside by Paul Hossman. Milestone mergers and divestments led to the formation of AKZO in 1969 and the merger with Nobel Industries in 1994 to form Akzo Nobel.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AkzoNobel) (Econ, 4/22/17, p.58)
1647 May 11, Peter Stuyvesant (37) arrived in New Amsterdam to become governor of New Netherland. The one-legged professional soldier was sent from the Netherlands to head the Dutch trading colony at the southern end of Manhattan Island. Stuyvesant lost a leg in a minor skirmish in the Caribbean in 1644.
(ON, 4/00, p.1)(AH, 10/04, p.74)(AP, 5/11/08)
1647 Nov 8, Pierre Bayle (d.1706), French-Dutch theologian, philosopher, and writer, was born. He authored the "Historical and Critical Dictionary." "If an historian were to relate truthfully all the crimes, weaknesses and disorders of mankind, his readers would take his work for satire rather than for history."
(WUD, 1994, p.128)(AP, 11/19/97)(WSJ, 12/2/97, p.A20)(MC, 11/8/01)
1647 Nov 10, The all Dutch-held area of New York was returned to English control by the treaty of Westminster.
(HN, 11/10/98)
1648 May 15, The independence of the Netherlands was finally recognized with the Dutch and Spanish ratification of the Treaty of Munster, initially signed on January 30.
(www.oldandsold.com/articles36/netherlands-18.shtml)
1648 Van Ruisdael painted "Dunes at Haarlem." His work this year also included his print "Christ Preaching (The Hundred Guilder Print).
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.T7)(WSJ, 3/904, p.D8)
1649 Salomon van Ruysdael (1602-1670), Dutch landscape artist, created his painting “Ferry on a River."
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.D7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruisdael)
1649 The Prins Willem was built in Middelburg, Netherlands, as the flagship of the Dutch East India Company. The 3-masted ship, launched on Jan 1, 1650, sank in 1662 off Madagascar.
(AP, 7/30/09)(http://tinyurl.com/mteqbf)
1650 Nov 4, William III, Prince of Orange and King of England, was born. [see Nov 14]
(HN, 11/4/98)
1650 Nov 14, William III, King of England (1689-1702), was born. [see Nov 4]
(HN, 11/14/98)
c1650 Jan Baptist Weenix painted "Mother and Child in an Italian Landscape."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.12)
1652 Apr 7, The Dutch established settlement at Cape Town, South Africa.
(HN, 4/7/97)
1652 May 29, English Admiral Robert Blake drove out the Dutch fleet under Lieutenant-Admiral Tromp.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1652 Michael Sweerts, Flemish artist, painted "Plague in an Ancient City" in Rome. In 1998 it held by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.D7)
1652 War broke out between the Netherlands and England.
(ON, 4/00, p.2)
1653 May 18, Carel Reyniersz (48), Governor-General of Netherlands and East Indies, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1653 Rembrandt painted his "Aristotle With a Bust of Homer."
(WSJ, 11/3/95, p.A-12)
1654 Oct 12, Carel Fabritius (b.1622), Dutch painter, died in a gunpowder explosion in Delft. He was one of Rembrandt’s most gifted pupils.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carel_Fabritius)(WSJ, 7/20/01, p.W11)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.93)
1654 Rembrandt van Rijn painted a portrait of poet-businessman Jan Six, one of the richest Amsterdammers of his time. His work this year also included "A Woman Bathing in a Stream" and "Flora." His work this year also included the etching and drypoint “The Descent From the Cross by Torchlight."
(WSJ, 6/19/00, p.A42)(WSJ, 3/904, p.D8)(SFC, 1/28/06, p.E4)(Econ, 6/23/07, p.96)
1654-1656 Rembrandt van Rijn painted a medallion portrait of Muhammed Adil Shah of Bijapur.
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.16)(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E8)
1655 Apr 26, Dutch West Indies Co. denied Peter Stuyvesant's desire to exclude Jews from New Amsterdam.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1655 Sep 26, Peter Stuyvesant recaptured Dutch Ft. Casimir from Swedish in Delaware.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1655 Rembrandt painted "Polish Rider."
(WSJ, 12/5/96, p.A16)
1655 Jan Steen painted "A Burgher of Delft and His Daughter." In 2004 it sold for $14.6 million to the Dutch National Museum.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)(SFC, 8/21/04, p.E12)
1655 Vermeer painted his Saint Praxedis. [see Vermeer, 1632-1675]
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)
1655 Pieter de Hooch moved to Delft and painted there for 5 years.
(WSJ, 7/20/01, p.W11)
1655 Mar 25, Christiaan Huygens, Dutch inventor and astronomer, discovered Titan, Saturn's largest satellite.
(www.xs4all.nl/~carlkop/huyglens.html)
1655-1660 Rembrandt painted his picture called "The Auctioneer."
(WSJ, 11/3/95, p.A-12)
1656 Jan 8, Oldest surviving commercial newspaper began in Haarlem, Netherlands.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1656 Jul 26, Rembrandt declared he is insolvent.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1656 Christian Huygens invented the first pendulum clock, as described in his 1658 article "Horologium". It was built by Solomon Coster and was later put on exhibit at the Time Museum in Rockford, Ill. The time-pieces previously in use had been balance-clocks, Chris Huygens' pendulum clock was regulated by a mechanism with a "natural" period of oscillation and had an error of less than 1 minute a day.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_huygens.htm)(SF E&C, 1/15/1995, T-10)
1657 Vermeer painted his "The Little Street" about this time (1658-1660).
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)
1658 Vermeer (1632-1675), Dutch artist, completed his painting “The Milkmaid" about this time.
(Econ, 9/19/09, p.98)
1659 Rembrandt Harmenszoom van Rizn (Rijn) (1606-1669), Dutch painter, made "Jupiter and Antiope" (1659).
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1213)(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)
1659 Christian Huygens of Holland used a 2-inch telescope lens and discovered that the Martian day is nearly the same as an Earth day.
(SFC, 11/29/96, p.A16)
1660 May 7, Isaack B. Fubine of Savoy, in The Hague, patented macaroni.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1660 Rembrandt painted "The Old Woman Cutting Her Nails" about this time.
(WSJ, 11/3/95, p.A-12)
c1660 The Dutch crafted an early version of a boat they called a "yacht."
(SFC, 7/18/98, p.E3)
1660 Pieter Claesz (b.ca.1597), Dutch still-life painter, died.
(WSJ, 11/22/05, p.D8)
1661 Aug 6, Holland sold Brazil to Portugal for 8 million guilders.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1661 Rembrandt depicted himself in the painting "Self-Portrait as St. Paul." His work this year also included "James the Apostle."
(WSJ, 8/11/99, p.A16)(SFEC, 1/16/00, BR p.5)(WSJ, 3/904, p.D8)
1662 Feb 11, The Prins Willem, built in 1643 as flagship of the Dutch East India Company, sank off Madagascar. A replica, built in the 1980s, burned down at Den Helder in 2009.
(AP, 7/30/09)(http://tinyurl.com/mteqbf)
1662 Apr 27, Netherlands and France signed a treaty of alliance in Paris.
(http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn1767012)
1662 Rembrandt depicted himself in a painting as the fifth-century Greek painter Zeuxis. His work this year also included “The Syndics of the Clothmakers' Guild."
(WSJ, 8/11/99, p.A16)(Econ, 6/23/07, p.96)
1662 Dutch fortune seekers killed over 400 members of the Nayar warrior caste in Kerala, India.
(SFEM, 7/18/99, p.12)
1663 Rembrandt depicted himself as a bit player in his painting "The Raising of the Cross."
(WSJ, 8/11/99, p.A16)
1663 The Amsterdam attic church, later known as the Museum Amstelkring, was built after the monarchy banned the public practice of Catholicism.
(SFEC, 6/18/00, p.T11)
1663 Abraham Blauvelt, Dutch pirate, died about this time. In the early 1630's He explored the coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua. Afterwards, he went to England and with a proposal for a settlement at site in Nicaragua, which is near the town and river of Bluefields, Nicaragua.
(www.thepirateking.com/bios/blauvelt_abraham.htm)
1664 Apr 4, Adam Willaerts, Dutch seascape painter, died.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1664 Aug 29, Adriaen Pieck/Gerrit de Ferry patented a wooden fire spout in Amsterdam.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1664 Sep 5, After days of negotiation, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam surrendered to the British, who would rename it New York. The citizens of New Amsterdam petitioned Peter Stuyvesant to surrender to the English. The "Articles of Capitulation" guaranteed free trade, religious liberty and a form of local representation. In 2004 Russell Shorto authored "The Island At the Center of the World," a history of New York's Dutch period.
(HN, 9/5/98)(ON, 4/00, p.3)(WSJ, 3/16/04, p.D6)
1664 Sep 8, The Dutch formally surrendered New Amsterdam to 300 English soldiers. The British soon renamed it New York.
(AP, 9/8/97)(ON, 4/00, p.3)
1664-1667 The Second Anglo-Dutch War.
(HN, 6/21/98)
1665 Mar 4, English King Charles II declared war on Netherlands.
(SC, 3/4/02)
c1665 Gerrit Dou painted "Woman at the Clavichord" and a "Self-Portrait" in which he resembled Rembrandt.
(WSJ, 5/24/00, p.A24)
1665 Jacob van Ochtervelt (1634-1682), Dutch artist, painted his “Street Musicians in the Doorway of a House."
(WSJ, 1/30/09, p.W2)(http://wwar.com/masters/o/ochtervelt-jacob.html)
1665 The British briefly recaptured the Banda Island of Run from the Dutch.
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W7)
1665 Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer painted his "Girl With a Pearl Earring" about this time. [see Vermeer, 1632-1675] In 1999 Tracy Chevalier authored the novel "Girl With a Pearl Earring," a fictionalization based on one of Vermeer's models.
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.3)(SFC, 1/24/13, p.E1)
1666 Franz Hals (b.1581?), painter, died in the Oudemannenhuis almshouse in Haarlem. The almshouse later became the Frans Hals Museum.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.T7)
1667 Jun 18, The Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames and threatened London. They burned 3 ships and captured the English flagship in what came to be called the Glorious Revolution, in which William of Orange replaced James Stuart.
(HN, 6/18/98)(WSJ, 3/14/00, p.A28)
1667 Jul 21, The Peace of Breda ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War and ceded Dutch New Amsterdam to the English. The South American country of Surinam, formerly Dutch Guiana, including the nutmeg island of Run was ceded by England to the Dutch in exchange for New York in 1667 after the second Anglo-Dutch War.
(WUD, 1994, p.961)(HN, 7/21/98)(HNQ, 8/21/98)(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W7)
1668 Feb 7, The Netherlands, England and Sweden concluded an alliance directed against Louis XIV of France.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1669 Oct 4, Rembrandt H. van Rijn (b.1606), painter and etcher (Steel Masters, Night Watch), died. In 1999 Simon Schama published the biography "Rembrandt's Eyes."
(WSJ, 11/24/99, p.A16)(MC, 10/4/01)
1669 Vermeer painted "The Art of Painting." The 3' by 4' work was larger than most of his paintings.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.E8)
1670 Vermeer painted his "A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal" and "A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal." Estimates for auction in 2004 for the seated one reached $5.4 million.
(WSJ, 6/19/00, p.a42)(SFC, 4/1/04, p.E7)
1670 Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch philosopher, authored "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus" an enlightened assessment of the Old Testament and a plea for religious toleration.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.D8)
1671 Vermeer painted his "Allegory of Faith." [see Vermeer, 1632-1675]
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)
1672 Apr 29, King Louis XIV of France invaded the Netherlands. A French army of 100,000 crossed the Rhine and invaded the Dutch Republic. The Dutch Golden Age fell apart when England, France and a pair of German principalities teamed up to attack the Netherlands and seize its colonies.
(HN, 4/29/99)(PC, 1992ed., p.255)(Econ, 4/18/20, p.38)
1672 Jun 15, The Sluices were opened in Holland to save Amsterdam from the French.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1672 Jul 4, States of Holland declared "Eternal Edict" void.
(Maggio)
1672 Aug 20, Jan de Witt, Dutch politician and mathematician, was assassinated by a carefully organized lynch "mob" after visiting his brother Cornelis de Witt in prison. He was killed by a shot in the neck; his naked body was hanged and mutilated and the heart was carved out to be exhibited.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Witt)
1672 Christian Huygens of Holland discovered the southern polar caps on Mars.
(http://chapters.marssociety.org/toronto/Education/TL1500.shtml)
1673 Mar 28, Adam Pijnacker (51), Dutch landscape painter, etcher, was buried.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1673 May 29, Cornelis van Bijnkershoek, lawyer, president of High Council, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1673 Jun 25, French commander Charles de Batz (b.1611), known as D’Artagnan, was slain in the service of Louis XIV. He died at the Siege of Maastricht in the Franco-Dutch War and was one of the musketeers who inspired Dumas’ fiction.
(SSFC, 4/13/08, p.E4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D'Artagnan)
1673 Aug 9, Dutch recapture NY from English. It was regained by English in 1674.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1673 Dec 28, Joan Blaeu (77), Dutch cartographer, publisher (Atlas Major), died.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1673 The most important of Christian Huygens' written works, the "Horologium Oscillatorium," was published in Paris. It discussed the mathematics surrounding pendulum motion and the law of centrifugal force for uniform circular motion.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_huygens.htm)
1674 Feb 9, English reconquered NY from Netherlands.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1674 Feb 19, Netherlands and England signed the Peace of Westminster. NYC became English.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1674 Nov 10, Dutch formally ceded New Netherlands (NY) to English. [see 1664]
(MC, 11/10/01)
1675 Jan 20, Christian Huygens, Dutch scientist, transformed a theoretical insight on springs into a practical mechanism with the 1st sketch of a watch balance regulated by a coiled spring.
(www.princeton.edu/~mike/articles/huygens/timelong/timelong.html)(Econ, 2/4/06, p.73)
1675 Mar 2, Prince William III was installed as Governor of Overijssel.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1675 Johannes Vermeer (b.1632), Dutch painter, died in poverty. In 2001 Anthony Bailey authored "Vermeer: A View of Delft."
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)(SSFC, 3/25/01, BR p.5)
1676 Apr 29, Michiel A. de Ruyter (69), Dutch rear-admiral, (Newport), was killed.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1676 Jun 1, The Swedish ship Svardet, armed with 86 bronze canons and under command of Claes Uggla, went under when Sweden was defeated by a Danish-Dutch fleet in the Battle of Öland. In 2011 Deep Sea Productions said it believed it had found the ship off the island of Oland.
(AP, 11/16/11)(www.ocean-discovery.org/thesword.htm)
1677 Feb 15, King Charles II reported an anti-French covenant with Netherlands.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1677 Feb 21, [Benedictus] Baruch Spinoza (b.1632), Dutch philosopher, died. In 2003 Antonio Damasio authored "Looking for Spinoza," a look at contemporary neurological research in contrast with the opposing philosophical views of Spinoza and Descartes. In 2005 Matthew Stewart authored “The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World.
(WUD, 1994 p.1371)(SSFC, 2/2/03, p.M4)(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.D8)
1677 Nov 4, William and Mary were married in England. William of Orange married his cousin Mary (daughter to James, Duke of York and the same James II who fled in 1688).
(HN, 11/4/98)(HNQ, 12/28/00)
1683 Sep 17, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek reported the existence of bacteria.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1683-1707 Adriaen Coorte (b.1665), a Dutch Golden Age painter of still lifes, signed his work during this period. His work included “Still Life With Sea Shells" (1698).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriaen_Coorte)
1688 Nov 1, William of Orange set sail for England at the head of a fleet of 500 ships and 30,000 men. He intended too oust his father-in-law King James II. The Dutch parliament, the States General, funded William with 4 million guilders. Amsterdam financiers provided another 2 million. Some of this was used to print 60,000 copies of his “Declaration" (of the reasons inducing him to appear in arms in the Kingdom of England), which were distributed in England. In 2008 Lisa Jardine authored “Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland’s Glory."
(WSJ, 8/28/08, p.A13)
1688 Nov 5, William of Orange landed in southern England and marched with his army nearly unopposed to London.
(WSJ, 8/28/08, p.A13)
1688 Nov 26, Louis XIV declared war on the Netherlands.
(HN, 11/26/98)
1688 Dec 10, King James II fled London as "Glorious Revolution" replaced him with King William (of Orange) and Queen Mary. [see Dec 11]
(MC, 12/10/01)
1688 Dec 11, James II abdicated the throne because of William of Orange landing in England.
(HN, 12/11/98)
1688 Dec 28, William of Orange made a triumphant march into London as James II fled in the "Glorious Revolution." William of Orange—son of William II, Prince of Orange and Mary, daughter of Charles I of England—was fourth in line to the English throne.
(HN, 12/28/98)(HNQ, 12/28/00)(WSJ, 2/6/02, p.A16)
1689 May 12, England’s King William III joined the League of Augsburg and the Netherlands. The "Grand Alliance" was formed to counter the war of aggression launched by Louis XIV against the Palatinate states in Germany. This is known as The War of the League of Augsburg (1689-97) also The Nine Years' War, and the War of the Grand Alliance.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/king_william.htm)
1690 Jul 1, Led by Marshall Luxembourg, the French defeated the forces of the Grand Alliance at Fleurus in the Netherlands.
(HN, 7/1/98)
1690 Oct 23, There was a revolt in Haarlem, Holland, after a public ban on smoking.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1691 Aug 20, The 1st African slaves arrived to North America on a Dutch ship. It docked in Jamestown, Virginia, with twenty human captives among its cargo.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1691 Oct 3, English and Dutch armies occupied Limerick, Ireland.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1692 Mar 14, Peter Musschenbroek, Dutch physician, physicist (Leyden jar), was born.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1692 Mar 26, King Maximilian was installed as land guardian of South Netherlands.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1692 May 29, Battle at La Hogue: An English & Dutch fleet beat France.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1692 Aug 3, French forces under Marshal Luxembourg defeated the English at the Battle of Steenkerke in the Netherlands.
(HN, 8/3/98)
1693 Jul 4, Battle at Boussu-lez-Walcourt: French-English vs. Dutch army.
(Maggio)
1693 Jul 29, The Army of the Grand Alliance was destroyed by the French at the Battle of Neerwinden in the Netherlands.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1694 Jul 27, The Bank of England received a royal charter as a commercial institution. It had been set up by William III, the ruler of Britain and the Netherlands, in the midst of a war against France. The mission of the bank was to provide war finance. Financiers agreed to lend the crown £1.2 million in return for a partial monopoly on the issue of currency.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C2)(AP, 7/27/97)(Econ, 1/10/09, p.49)(Econ, 11/5/11, p.92)(Econ, 4/29/17, p.56)
1695 Jul 8, Christian Huygens (66), Dutch inventor, astronomer, died. He generally wrote his name as Christiaan Hugens, and it is also sometimes written as Huyghens. In his book “Cosmotheros," published in 1698, he speculated on life on other planets.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_huygens.htm)
1695 Portugal established colonial rule in the eastern half of Timor Island. The western side was incorporated into the Dutch East Indies.
(SFC, 5/18/02, p.A15)
1696 Jan 31, An uprising of undertakers took place after funeral reforms in Amsterdam.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1696 Mar 7, English King William III departed Netherlands.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1697 Sep 20, The Treaty of Ryswick was signed in Holland. It ended the War of the Grand Alliance (aka War of the League of Augsburg,1688-1697) between France and the Grand Alliance. Under the Treaty France’s King Louis XIV (1638-1715) recognized William III (1650-1702) as King of England. The Dutch received trade concessions, and France and the Grand Alliance members (Holland and the Austrian Hapsburgs) gave up most of the land they had conquered since 1679. The signees included France, England, Spain and Holland. By the Treaty of Ryswick, a portion of Hispaniola was formally ceded to France and became known as Saint-Domingue. The remaining Spanish section was called Santo Domingo.
(www.caribbeanguides.net/hispaniola.htm)(www.jacobite.ca/documents/1697ryswick.htm)
1700 May 7, Gerard van Swieten, Dutch botanist, was born.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1701 Sep 7, England, Austria, and the Netherlands formed an Alliance against France.
(HN, 9/7/98)
1702 Mar 8, William III of Orange (51), Dutch King of England (1689-1702), died after falling from his horse and catching a chill. Anne Stuart (37), his sister-in-law, succeeded to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland and reigned until 1714.
(PCh, 1992, p.272)(MC, 3/8/02)(AP, 3/8/98)
1703 May 18, Dutch and English troops occupied Cologne.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1704 Aug 4, In the War of Spanish Succession, an Anglo-Dutch fleet captured Gibraltar.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Gibraltar)(AP, 9/19/06)
1707 Apr 6, Willem Van de Velde (b.1633) the Younger, Dutch marine painter, died. His work included “fishing Boats by the Shore in a Calm" (1660-1605).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_van_de_Velde_the_Younger)(SFC, 7/9/11, p.E1)
1708 Jul 11, The French were defeated at Oudenarde, Malplaquet, in the Netherlands by the Duke of Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy.
(HN, 7/11/98)
1709 Oct 20, Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy took Mons in the Netherlands.
(HN, 10/20/98)
1712 Oct 4, Utrecht banished poor Jews.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1714 Mar 6, the Treaty of Rastatt ended the war between Austria and Spain. It complemented the Treaty of Utrecht, which had, the previous year, ended hostilities with Britain and the Dutch Republic. The Spanish Netherlands became the Austrian Netherlands, and Spain gave up her possession in Italy, Luxembourg and Flanders. A third treaty, the Treaty of Baden (Sep 7, 1714), was required to end the hostilities between France and the Holy Roman Empire.
(PCh, ed. 1992, p.279)(http://tinyurl.com/b8uxbje)
1714 Bernard de Mandeville, Dutch philosopher, achieved widespread fame with his lengthy poem "The Fable of the Bees: Private Vice, Publick Benefits."
(NH, 7/02, p.74)
1718 Dutch planters introduced coffee to their Suriname colony.
(ON, 10/2010, p.12)
1722 Apr 5, On Easter Sunday Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovered a Polynesian Island 1400 miles from the coast of South America and named it Easter Island. He noted that the island was treeless and wondered how its massive statues were erected. Much of the population was later wiped out and the island became a possession of Chile. An indigenous script called rongorongo survived but by 2002 was still not deciphered. In 2005 Steven Roger Fischer authored “Island at the End of the World: The Turbulent History of Easter Island."
(WSJ, 1/7/05, p.W1)(http://islandheritage.org/eihistory.html)(Econ, 7/23/05, p.77)
1723 Aug 26, Anton van Leeuwenhoek (b.1632), Dutch biologist, inventor (microscope), died in Delft, Netherlands. [some sources say Aug 30]
(http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/Files/leewnhok.html)
1724 May 18, Johann K. Amman (54), Swiss-Dutch doctor for deaf-mutes, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1726 Feb 26, Maximilian II, M. Emanuel, elector of Bavaria, governor of Netherlands, died.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1729 May 25, Jean de Neufville, Dutch-US merchant (started 4th English war), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1730 Jul 21, States of Holland put a death penalty on "sodomy."
(MC, 7/21/02)
1731 Luis Berrueco, Mexican painter, painted “The Martyrs of Gorkum," a detailed work depicting the 1572 martyrdom of 19 Catholics in Gorinchem, Netherlands, during the Dutch war for independence.
(SFC, 3/5/11, p.E2)(http://tinyurl.com/5s8wnz2)
1732 Jun 3, Pieter Vuyst, Dutch gov-gen. of Ceylon, was executed.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1736 Mar 23, Iman Willem Falck, Dutch Governor of Ceylon (1765-83), was born.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1736 Sep 16, Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit (b.1686), Gdansk-born German physicist, died in the Netherlands. He discovered that water boils at 212F and freezes at 32F.
(www.britannica.com)
1741 Apr 13, Dutch people protested the bad quality of bread.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1744-1828 Eisa Eisinga, knitting-wool processor. He devoted his spare time to astronomy and mathematics and built a small planetarium in Franeker (1781).
(NH, 6/00, p.10)
1745 Jan 8, England, Austria, Saxony and the Netherlands formed an alliance against Russia.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1745 May 11, French forces defeated an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army at Fontenoy.
(HN, 5/11/98)
1745 Oct 11, The Leyden jar, capable of storing static electricity, was invented by German cleric Ewald Georg von Kleist. Also about this time Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek of Leiden (Leyden) independently came up with the same idea.
(ON, 2/12, p.11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leyden_jar)
1747 Jul 2, Marshall Saxe led the French forces to victory over an Anglo-Dutch force under the Duke of Cumberland at the Battle of Lauffeld.
(HN, 7/2/98)
1747 Sep 16, The French captured Bergen-op-Zoom, consolidating their occupation of Austrian Flanders in the Netherlands.
(HN, 9/16/98)
1747 Dec 9, England and Netherlands signed a military treaty.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1748 Jun 28, A riot followed a public execution in Amsterdam and over 200 were killed.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1749 Feb 8, Jan van Huysum (66), Dutch still life painter, died.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1751 Sep 12, Amsterdam refused to establish a Jewish ghetto.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1751 Sep 13, Henry Kobell, Dutch painter and cartoonist, was born.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1756 Nov 4, Anthony van Hoboken, Rotterdam merchant-ship owner, was born.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1757 Feb 13, John C. Hespe, Dutch journalist, politician, was born.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1761 Mar 23, John W. de Winter, Dutch Vice-Admiral (Battle at Kamperduin), was born.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1761 May 13, Adrian Loosjes Pzn (1818, Dutch publisher, writer (Mauritius Lijnslager), was born.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1765 Mar 18, David H. Chass, Dutch baron, general (fought Napoleon at Waterloo), was born.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1772 May 11, Joseph Kerckhoff, Limburg surgeon, robber captain, was hanged.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1774 A Dutch merchant cobbled together the earliest mutual-style fund, Eendragt Maakt Magt (Unity creates Strength). The first modern mutual fund was launched in Boston in 1924.
(Econ, 4/21/07, p.83)
1776 Apr 26, Joan M. Kemper, Dutch lawyer (designed civil code law book), was born.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1776 The Dutch built a slave house on Goree Island off the coast of Senegal.
(SFC, 7/9/03, p.A10)
1779 May 25, Henry M. Baron de Kock, Dutch officer, politician, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1780-1783 A 4-year war with England was fought.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.F4)
1781 Eisa Eisinga (1744-1828), knitting-wool processor, built a small planetarium in Franeker.
(NH, 6/00, p.10)
1782 Apr 19, Netherlands recognized the United States.
(HN, 4/19/97)
1783 Apr 10, Hortense E. de Beauharnais, French queen of Netherlands (1806-10), was born.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1784 May 20, Peace of Versailles ended the war between France, England, and Holland.
(HN, 5/20/98)
1784 Jun 16, Holland forbade orange clothes.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1784 The Teyler Museum opened as the country’s first public collection.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.T7)
1786 Capt. Francis Light landed in Penang (Malaysia) and built Fort Cornwallis. Light, acting on behalf of the East India Company, swindled the island from the ruling sultan with a promise of protection. The British usurped the land to break the Dutch monopoly on the spice trade.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.T8)(SFEM, 12/19/99, p.8)(SFC, 12/8/05, p.E7)
1788 Sep 15, An alliance between Britain, Prussia and the Netherlands was ratified at the Hague.
(HN, 9/15/99)
1791 Mar 23, Etta Palm, a Dutch champion of woman's rights, set up a group of women's clubs called the Confederation of the Friends of Truth.
(HN, 3/23/99)
1793 Feb 1, France declared war on Britain and the Netherlands.
(HN, 2/1/99)
1793 Mar 4, French troops conquered Geertruidenberg, Netherlands.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1795 Sep 16, The Capitulation of Rustenburg: A Dutch garrison at the Cape of Good Hope surrendered to a British fleet under Adm. George Elphinstone.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)
1796 Mar 1, The 1st National Meeting was held in the Hague.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1799 The Dutch East India Company liquidated and the Dutch government took control over the islands of Indonesia.
(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)
1801 Oct 6, Napoleon Bonaparte imposed a new constitution on Holland.
(HN, 10/6/98)
1803 Feb 21, The British return the Cape of Good Hope to the Dutch (Batavian Republic) under the Treaty of Amiens.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)
1803 Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, artist, came from a renowned family of artists. He considered the painting of nature the only true calling of an artist.
(WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W16)
1806 Jan 10, The Capitulation of Papendorp: The Dutch in Cape Town surrendered to a British fleet.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)
1814 May 30, The First Treaty of Paris was declared, after Napoleon's first abdication. It returned France to its 1792 borders and secured for the British definite possession of the Cape of Good Hope. [see Aug 13]
(HN, 5/30/98)(HN, 5/30/99)(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)
1814 Aug 13, Treaty of London-Netherland was signed to stop the transport of slaves. By agreement Britain paid the Dutch £6 million in compensation for the Cape of Good Hope. [see May 30]
(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)(MC, 8/13/02)
1815 Mar 1, Sunday observance in Netherlands was regulated by law.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1815 Mar 16, William I (1772-1843), prince of Orange-Nassau, proclaimed the Netherlands a kingdom at the urging of the powers gathered at the Congress of Vienna. In 1813 he had proclaimed himself 'Sovereign Prince' of the "United Netherlands."
(Econ, 4/13/13, p.55)
1815 Apr, British General Arthur Wellesley, duke of Wellington, began assembling troops at Brussels, Belgium. 73,000 British troops were joined by 33,000 German, Dutch and Belgian troops preparing to face Napoleon. Prussian Gen. Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher gathered an army of 120,000 southeast of Brussels.
{Belgium, Britain, France, Prussia, Netherlands}
(ON, 4/06, p.1)
1815 May 29, Cornelis de Gijselaar (64), politician, patriot, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1815 Jun 16, A French attack at the crossroads called Quatre Bras badly mauled Anglo-Dutch army under Wellington, but failed to rout it or to take the crossroads. Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte had marched into Belgium to find himself confronted by two allied armies, which he tried to split apart. Although similarly battered at Ligny that day, the Prussian army also retired intact. Both armies would face Napoleon again two days later at Waterloo.
(HNPD, 6/16/99)(Econ, 5/23/15, p.71)
1817 Feb 19, William III, King of the Netherlands, was born.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1817 The Dutch and French agreed on a final pact to divide the control of St. Martin Island. The southern Dutch half comprises the Eilandgebied Sint Maarten (Island Territory of St. Maarten) and is part of the Netherlands Antilles. The northern French half comprises the Collectivité de Saint-Martin (Collectivity of St. Martin) and is an overseas collectivity of France.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Martin)
1819 Oct 6, Willem A. Scholten, Dutch potato flour manufacturer, was born.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1819 The British claimed Malacca from the Dutch. They used St. Paul’s church as an ammunition dump and put a lighthouse in front.
(Econ, 11/15/14, SR p.5)
1820 Mar 5, Dutch city of Leeuwarden forbade Jews to go to synagogues on Sundays.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1824 Mar 29, ABN AMRO incorporated in the Hague. Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (Netherlands Trading Society, NTS) was established by Royal Decree of King Willem I. With effect from 3 October 1964 after the merger with Twentsche Bank, NTS changed her name to Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN Bank). After the merger with Amro Bank in 1991, ABN changed its name to ABN AMRO.
(www.abnamro.com/about/history/historyfaq.cfm)
1825 A disastrous breach of Dutch coastal defenses occurred.
(www.metoffice.com/education/secondary/students/flood.html)
1828 Apr 4, Casparus van Wooden patented chocolate milk powder (Amsterdam).
(MC, 4/4/02)
1830 Aug 25, Belgium rebelled against Netherlands. Among the reasons for rebelling were heavy taxes on beer.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)(Econ, 12/17/11, p.125)
1831 Jan 20, Protocols were signed in London that recognized Belgium as an independent nation. Belgium became a nation and combined French and Flemish-speaking lands. The Rothschild banking empire financed the founding of Belgium.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A11)(SSFC, 2/24/02, p.C5)(http://tinyurl.com/3335jt)
1831 Aug 2, The Dutch army, headed by the Dutch princes, invaded Belgium, in the so-called "Ten Days Campaign", and defeated Belgian forces near Hasselt and Leuven. Only the appearance of a French army under Marchal Gerard caused the Dutch to stop their advance.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution)
1836 A Dutch regiment entered the kingdom of the Ashanti tribe (later Ghana). Holland had taken this land as a colony to mine gold and sell slaves. Slavery was outlawed but African men were enlisted as troops in a form of indentured servitude. The Ashanti king sent his son and nephew, Kwasi and Kwame Boachi, to Holland for a European education in exchange for providing troops. In 2001 Arthur Japin authored the novel "The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi."
(SSFC, 1/21/01, BR p.5)
1837 May 29, Alexander F. de Savornin Lohmann, Dutch minister, party leader (CHU), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1838 In Ghana Asante King Nana Badu Bonsu II had his head cut off by Maj. Gen. Jan Verveer in retaliation for Bonsu's killing of two Dutch emissaries, whose heads were then displayed as trophies. In 2008 Dutch author Arthur Japin discovered Bonsu’s head in a jar of formaldehyde at Leiden Univ. Medical Center. In 2009 the Dutch government returned the head of Bonsu’s descendants.
(SFC, 3/21/09, p.A2)(SFC, 7/24/09, p.A2)
1839 In the Netherlands the locomotive named "De Arend" was the first and pulled a train from Amsterdam to Haarlem with a top speed of 23 mph.
(SFC, 6/18/99, p.D4)
1840 Oct 8, King William I of Holland abdicated.
(HN, 10/8/98)
1840 Niels Gade, Dutch composer, wrote the overture "Echoes of Ossian."
(SFC, 3/24/00, p.B1)
1841 Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, Dutch artist, authored "Thoughts and Recollections of a Landscape Artist."
(WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W16)
1841 The brothers Clemens and August Brenninkmeyer founded the Dutch textile shop C&A, which sold, unusually for that time, ready-made clothes. The two brothers, peddlers originally from the small village Mettingen in Westphalia traveled each year to Friesland to sell their textiles to the farmers.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenninkmeijer_family)
1844 Jul 25, Louis Napoleon (b.1779), French king of the Netherlands (1806-10), died.
(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Louis-Napoleon-Bonaparte)
1846 Barend Cornelis Koekkoek painted his "Portrait of a Young Lady."
(WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W16)
1849 May 25, Andreas Michiels (52), Dutch Military Governor of West Sumatra, died in battle.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1850 In the Netherlands Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), a Dutch version of St. Nicholas, made his debut as an African servant in a book. By 2012 he was being described as a racist caricature of a black person. In 2013 Amsterdam officials were asked to revoke a permit for a children’s festival that featured the caricature.
(AP, 12/4/12)(SFC, 10/18/12, p.A2)
1851 May 18, The Amsterdam-Nieuwediep telegraph connection linked.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1853 Mar 4, Pope Pius IX recovered Catholic hierarchy in Netherlands.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1853 Mar 30, Vincent Van Gogh (d.1890), Dutch artist, was born in Zundert, Neth. His work included "The Drawbridge and Sunflowers in a Vase," and "Harvest in Prevance," which was done both in oil and as a watercolor. The watercolor sold in 1997 for $14.7 mil. He produced an estimated 900 paintings and 1200 drawings but sold virtually none of them. In 1997 it was reported that more than 100 of his paintings and drawings might be fakes. 300 of his canvasses were painted in the last 15 months of his life.
(AAP,1964)(WUD,1994, p.606)(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A21)(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A8)(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.8)(HN, 3/30/98)
1853-1890 Theo Van Gogh, the younger brother of Vincent Van Gogh. Theo's widow Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger inherited the paintings of Vincent that had been in Theo's hands.
(SFC, 1/18/99, p.B2)
1857 May 10, Hendrik Zwaardemaker, Dutch physiologist (olefactometer), was born.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1858 Oct 9, Gerard L.F. Philips, Dutch engineer and manufacturer, was born.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1863 Jul 1, The Dutch abolished slavery in Suriname. The Dutch were among the last Europeans to abolish slavery.
(AP, 7/2/03)
1864 May 18, Jan P. Veth Bayern, Dutch painter, etcher, lithographer, art historian, was born.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1860 May 21, Willem Einthoven, Dutch physiologist, inventor of the electro-cardiogram, was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)(MC, 5/21/02)
1864 May 18, Jan P. Veth Bayern, Dutch painter, etcher, lithographer, art historian, was born.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1864 May 29, A.H. Borgesius, Dutch amateur astronomer, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1864 Sep 5, British, French & Dutch fleets attacked Japan in Shimonoseki Straits.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1864 Gerard Adriaan Heineken founded a beer brewery. In 2002 it was the world’s 3rd largest brewery.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A22)
1865 May 25, Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist (Zeeman effect, Nobel 1902), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1870 Jul 11(Jun 11), 1st-stone Amstel Brewery opened in Amsterdam.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1871 Mar 28, Willem Mengelberg, conductor (NY Philharmonic 1922-30), was born in Utrecht, Neth.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1872 Mar 7, Piet Mondrian (d.1944), Dutch abstract painter, was born. He was born in Amersfoort, near Amsterdam. His two principal styles date from before and after 1907. His Red Tree in 1908 reflects the stance of a Van Gogh. In 1911 he went to Paris and quickly changed his style in response to Cubism. He emigrated to New York in 1940. His Broadway Boogie Woogie was done in 1942-1943. He was labeled as a degenerate by the Nazis and was sent to New York to continue working. He went through a number of styles i.e. fauvist, neoimpressionist Dutch landscapes, to total abstractions in a manner of his own that he called neoplasticism. He was a pioneer of abstract painting.
(WSJ, 6/6/95, p.A-14)(WSJ, 10/3/95, p.A-18)(SFC, 10/4/97, p.E1)(HN, 3/7/98)
1873 From the Netherlands the Holland America cruise line began operations.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.T5)
1873 The Dutch began colonization efforts in Aceh province (Indonesia), which led to a decades-long war.
(SFEC, 11/7/99, p.A30)(SFCM, 11/2/03, p.8)
1876 Aug 7, Margaretha Zelle (aka Mata Hari) was born in the Netherlands. Mata Hari, otherwise known as Margaretha G. Macleod, passed secrets to the Germans in World War I.
(WSJ, 1/16/97, p.A16)(HN, 8/7/98)
1877 Feb 26, Carel S. Adama van Scheltema, Dutch poet, writer (socialism), was born.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1877 May 29, John Lothrop Motley (63), (History of United Netherlands), died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1880 Vincent Van Gogh ended his career as a theology student and began painting.
(WSJ, 3/14/00, p.A28)
1880-1962 Queen Wilhelmina Of Netherlands (b.Aug 31, d.Nov 28 at 82), reigned 1890-1947.
(DT internet 11/28/97)
1881 Apr 1, Kingdom post office in Netherlands opened.
(OTD)
1882 Vincent Van Gogh painted "The Wounded Veteran.'
(WSJ, 3/14/00, p.A28)
1883 May 29, WFLC Marianne princess of Orange-Nassau, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1885 Vincent Van Gogh painted "The Potato Eaters" and "A Pair of Shoes."
(SFC, 1/14/98, p.D3)(WSJ, 8/14/01, p.A12)
1885 The façade of the Rijksmuseum was completed.
(WSJ, 1/8/99, p.C13)
1886-1888 Vincent Van Gogh made his Paris sojourn.
(WSJ, 3/14/00, p.A28)
1887 Van Gogh painted "The Courtesan." It was inspired by an 1820 work by the Japanese artist Keisai Eisen who pictured an intricately coifed woman that later appeared on the cover of a French magazine
(SFC, 11/16/98, p.E3)(WSJ, 12/1/98, p.A20)
1887-1888 Van Gogh painted "Self-Portrait with Felt Hat" and "Self-Portrait as an Artist."
(WSJ, 10/30/98, p.W11)(SFC, 1/18/99, p.B2)
1888 Vincent van Gogh painted the "Portrait of a Young Man in a Cap." The painting is up for auction and may fetch as much as $8 mil. In 1990 Robert Altman directed a film titled "Vincent and Theo" about Van Gogh and his brother. Van Gogh also painted his "Boats at Saintes-Maries," "The Bedroom" and "Self Portrait as an Artist" in this year. He cut his ear in this year with a razor during a quarrel with painter Paul Gauguin.
(WSJ, 4/27/95, p.C-18)(WSJ, 11/10/95, p. A-10)(SFC, 4/13/96, p.E3)(SFC, 1/14/98, p.D3)(SFEC, 10/25/98, Z1 p.12)
1889 Van Gogh painted "The Gardener," while a patient in St. Remy. He also did "Wheatfield with a Reaper" and "Crab on Its Back" in this year.
(SFC, 5/21/98, p.A14)(SFC, 1/18/99, p.B1)(WSJ, 8/14/01, p.A12)
1890 Apr 6, Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker (d.1939), aircraft pioneer, was born in Java.
(www.britannica.com)
1890 Jul 29, Artist Vincent van Gogh died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Auvers, France, while painting "Wheatfield with Crows." Earlier in the year he painted his "Garden at Auvers" and "Portrait of Dr. Gachet," which sold to a Japanese tycoon in 1990 for $82.5 mil. In 1939 Irving Stone wrote a novel about Van Gogh titled "Lust for Life," which spawned a 1956 movie.
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)(SFC, 5/26/96, Zone 1 p.2)(AP, 7/29/97)(SFEC, 6/14/98, BR p.9)
1890 Nov 23, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg separated from the Netherlands.
(AP, 11/23/02)
1890 The Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. was founded.
(WSJ, 11/2/04, p.A14)
1891 May 15, Gerard and Anton Philips began their Philips & Co. operations in Eindhoven, Holland, with the production of light bulbs.
(www.vedpuriswar.org/book/PHILIPS.htm)(WSJ, 1/7/04, p.A1)
1891 May 25, Robert W.P. Peereboom, Dutch editor in chief (Haarlem Newspaper), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1894 Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), Swiss painter, created a painting 10 meters high for the Exposition in Antwerp. It depicted the story of the 1865 descent of Edward Whymper (1840-1911) after he became the first man to climb the Matterhorn. Four of his party died. Hodler allowed the painting to be cut up and it’s now in a museum in Berne.
(Econ, 2/18/12, ILp.26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Whymper)
1894 A disastrous breach of Dutch coastal defenses occurred.
(www.metoffice.com/education/secondary/students/flood.html)
1896 Numico was founded by Martinus van der Hagen, a Dutch inventor, after he won the exclusive right to make infant formula out of cow’s milk.
(Econ, 9/2/06, p.59)
1897 Wolves disappeared from the Netherlands. In 2011 a wolf was again spotted in the country.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.125)
1898 Jun 17, Maurits C. Escher, Dutch graphic artist, was born.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1898 A painting titled "Golden Carriage," by Nicolaas van der Waay, was given to Queen Wilhelmina from the people of Amsterdam as a gift. The painting was intended to recreate the style of the country's 17th-century "Golden Age," in which Amsterdam became wealthy as the hub of a naval empire. The work depicts half-naked, brown-skinned women and men in servile poses bearing gifts to an enthroned white woman.
(AP, 9/16/11)
1899 May 18, The First Hague Peace Conference opened in the Netherlands as 26 nations met on World Goodwill Day. The destruction or seizure of enemy property with no military value was banned at the convention. The czar of Russia had called for a disarmament conference that, for reasons of diplomatic niceties and international rivalries, ended up in The Hague.
(AP, 5/18/99)(SFC, 8/11/00, p.A15)(AP, 4/17/06)
1899 Western powers set up the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. It was established by the first Hague Peace Conference under Articles 20 to 29 of the 1899 Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes. It was later designated by the UN as as an arbiter of disputes under its Law of the Sea Convention.
(http://tinyurl.com/jx4jukn)(Econ, 8/6/16, p.67)
1902 Mar 3, Isaac D. France van de Putte (79), Dutch premier (1866), died.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1902 May 29, Dutch State Mine law formed.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1902 Jul 18, Charles W.J. Mengelberg, Dutch composer, conductor, was born.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1903 Jan 21, Harry Houdini escaped from police station Halvemaansteeg in Amsterdam.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1903 Mar 26, American Hotel opened in Amsterdam.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1904 Apr 24, Willem de Kooning (d.1997), abstract impressionist artist, was born in Rotterdam.
(SFC, 3/20/97, p.A1,6,E1)(HN, 4/24/01)
1904 Aug 10, Dutch newspaper Volk fired gay journalist Jacob de Cock.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1904 The Weerdinge Couple, 2 men, were found in a Holland bog and dated from 160BC - 220AD.
(AM, 7/97, p.66)
1905 May 29, Jan [Johannes] Teulings, Dutch actor, director (That Joyous Eve), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1905 Dec 7, Gerard Kuiper, Dutch-US astronomer (moons of Uranus, Neptune), was born.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1906 Apr 28, Bartholomeus J "Bart" Bok, Dutch-US astronomer (Milky Way), was born.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1907 The Hague Convention of this year prohibited the taking of war booty and instituted what some considered the first wartime environmental protections.
(WSJ, 5/29/96, p.A6)(SFC, 8/11/00, p.A15)
1907 Royal Dutch combines its oil operations with Shell Transport & Trading Co.
(WSJ, 11/2/04, p.A14)
1908 Dec 13, The Dutch took two Venezuelan Coast Guard ships.
(HN, 12/13/98)
1908 The first bus line to link the Jordaan section with the rest of Amsterdam opened.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, p.T5)
1908 Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes, Dutch physicist, was the first to liquefy helium. He cooled helium gas to below its boiling point of -269°C, just 4 degrees above absolute zero. Three years later he observed the resistance of mercury vanished when it was cooled by liquid helium, thus discovering superconductivity.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A15)(Econ, 12/3/11, TQ p.20)
1909 Apr 30, Juliana, queen of the Netherlands, was born. She fled during the Nazi occupation and abdicated in favor of her daughter Beatrix.
(HN, 4/30/99)
1909 The Elfstedentocht, a 125-mile ice skating race, officially began.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.A1,11)
1911 Jun 10, Queen Wilhelmina opened the Rembrandt house in Amsterdam.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1912 May 18, Maurits Binger established 2 Dutch movie companies.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1912 May 29, John Hanlo, Dutch poet (Go to the Mosque), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1912 Aug 13, Jan Peeters, Dutch water colors painter, monumental artist, was born.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1912 Nov 25, Johannes D. De Jong, Frisian poet and photographer (Kar £t twa), was born.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1912 A ban on brothels was enacted. It was overturned in 1999.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1913 May 14, Franz Hals museum opened in Haarlem, Netherlands.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1913 The Peace Palace was built at the Hague, Netherlands, by the Carnegie Foundation. It is often called the seat of international law because it houses the International Court of Justice (which is the principal judicial body of the United Nations), the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Hague Academy of International Law, and the extensive Peace Palace Library.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Palace)
1913 Kamerlingh Onnes of Holland won the Nobel Prize for liquefying helium. His major discovery was superconductivity, the elimination of electrical resistance at very cold temperatures. In 1999 Tom Shachtman described the event in his book "Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold."
(WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W12)
1914 Mar 1, H. Colijn, Dutch Minister of war, was named director of British Petroleum.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1914 Aug 24, German Zeppelins bombed Antwerp.
(AH, 1/97)
1914 Sep 2, German Zeppelins again bombed Antwerp.
(AH, 1/97)
1915 Mar 4, Petrus de Jong, Dutch premier (KVP, 1967-71), was born.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1915 Aug 26, Gre [Gerarda D] Brouwenstijn, Dutch opera soprano, was born.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1916 A disastrous breach of Dutch coastal defenses occurred.
(www.metoffice.com/education/secondary/students/flood.html)
1917 Jan 6, Hendrik P.G. Quack (82), lawyer and economist (Bank of Netherlands), died.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1917 Feb 26, Utrecht Harbor, Netherlands, held its 1st Annual fair.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1917 Mar 8, Ferdinand von Zeppelin (78), Dutch count, air pioneer, died.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1917 Oct 15, Mata Hari, a Dutch dancer who had spied for the Germans, was executed by a firing squad outside Paris.
(WSJ, 1/16/97, p.A16)(AP, 10/15/97)
1917 Piet Mondrian and three other painters founded the movement known as De Stijl, which became synonymous with Mondrian.
(HNQ, 7/16/01)
1918 May 18, The Netherlands Indian Volksraad was installed in Batavia (later Djakarta).
(SC, 5/18/02)
1918 Nov 10, Retired German Kaiser Wilhelm II fled to the Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor)
1919 Jul 21, Anthony Fokker established an airplane factory at Hamburg and Amsterdam.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1919 Sep 6, Pier Pander (b.1864), Dutch sculptor, died.
(http://home.wxs.nl/~bekke412/pier.html)
1919 Oct 11, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines made its debut and served a pre-packaged dinner, believed to be the 1st in-flight meal, on a flight between London and Paris.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.A12)
1920 Jan 23, The Dutch government refused demands from the victorious Allies to hand over Kaiser Wilhelm II, the dethroned German monarch who had fled to the Netherlands.
(AP, 1/23/00)
1920 Dec 13, League of nations established the Int’l. Court of Justice in The Hague.
(MC, 12/13/01)
1920 The plane maker NV Fokker firm was founded. By 1996 it was in trouble and seeking protection from its creditors.
(WSJ, 1/24/96, p.A-12)
1921 Apr 5, Alphons Diepenbrock (b.1862), Dutch composer, died in Amsterdam. His work included “Wandering Through the Woods" (1910).
(SFC, 9/1/04, p.B7)
1922 May 18, Dutch 2nd Chamber agreed to a 48 hour work week over the previous 45 hours.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1923 Mar 3, US Senate rejected membership in International Court of Justice, The Hague.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1923 Dutch physicist Dirk Coster (1889-1950) and Hungarian chemist George Charles de Hevesy (1889-1966) found element 72, Hafnium. It was identified in zircon (a zirconium ore) from Norway, by means of X-ray spectroscopic analysis. It was named in honor of the city in which the discovery was made, from the Latin name "Hafnia" meaning "Copenhagen."
(www.chemistryexplained.com/elements/C-K/Hafnium.html)(http://tinyurl.com/kj24t)
1924 Apr 20, Nina Foch (d.2008), film, theater and TV actress, was born in Leyden, Netherlands. Her films later included “An American in Paris" (1951).
(SFC, 12/13/08, p.A5)
1924 H. Pander & Son, a Netherlands’ furniture company, bought an aircraft manufacturing firm and started making small airplanes. They continued to make furniture through the mid 1930s.
(SFC, 11/7/07, p.G6)
1925 Mar 2, SDAP-Second-Faction (Dutch Socialists) of parliament demanded drastic disarmament.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1926 Mar 4, De Geer government in Netherlands took office.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1926 Mar 26, ACD de Graeff was appointed Governor-General of Dutch East-Indies.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1927 Apr 30, Princess Juliana got a seat in Dutch Council of State.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1927 May 29, Dick Hillenius, Dutch biologist, writer, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1928 Jul 28, The Olympics opened at Amsterdam. Track and field events opened for women for the 1st time despite objections from Pope Pius IX. Germany was allowed to participate for the 1st time since WWI.
(SC, 7/28/02)(NG, 8/04, Geographica)(WSJ, 4/12/08, p.R2)
1928 Aug 3, Ray Barbuti saved the US team from defeat in Amsterdam Olympics track events by winning 400 m (47.8 sec).
(SC, 8/3/02)
1928 Aug 10, The Univ. of California crew won the rowing championship at the Olympics in Holland.
(SFC, 8/8/03, p.E6)
1928 Aug 12, The 9th Olympic Games closed in Amsterdam. During the games several women collapsed at the end of the 800-meter run. This led to a 32-year ban on women running in Olympic races over 200 meters.
(SC, 8/12/02)(SSFC, 4/13/03, p.F1)
1929 Jun 12, Anne Frank, German-Jewish diarist and Holocaust victim, was born in Holland. She with her family hid from the Nazis in Holland during World War II. Her diary is world famous
(HN, 6/12/98)(MC, 6/12/02)
1930 Jan 3, The second conference on war reparations began in the Hague.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1930 British detergent maker Lever Bros. merged with Margarine Unie of the Netherlands to form Unilever. William Hulme Lever (1888-1949), 2nd Viscount Leverhulme, co-founded Unilever. Lever brothers had operated from the Belgian Congo from 1911.
(www.ubffoodsolutions.com/company/history)(Econ, 6/3012, p.20)
1932 Apr 5, A Dutch textile strike was broken by trade unions.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1932 May 10, Government of Netherland declared "Wilhelmus" the national anthem.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1932 Netherlands passed a blasphemy law that mandated a maximum sentence of three months in prison for a convicted "scornful blasphemer."
(AP, 5/24/11)
1932 Han van Meegeren sold his Vermeer forgery “Lady and Gentleman at the Spinnet" for 40 thousand guilders. In 2007 this would represent about $225,000.
(ON, 12/07, p.10)
1932 The Afsluitdijk dam was completed. It sealed the Zuider Zee from the ocean and formed the freshwater Lake IJssel.
(SSFC, 3/25/01, p.C1)
1933 Feb 8, Elly Ameling, soprano (Ilya-Idomeneo), was born in Rotterdam, Holland.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1933 Apr 22, Dutch government forbade a left-wing radio address.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1933 Dec 3, Paul Crutzen, Dutch chemist, was born.
(HN, 12/3/00)
1934 Jan 10, Marinus van der Lubbe (24), Dutch communist, was guillotined in Berlin.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1934 Jul 4, Jordanians revolted in Amsterdam after reduction in employment.
(Maggio, 98)
1934 Aug 12, Hendrik Petrus Berlage (b.1856), the father of modern Dutch architecture, died at The Hague.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Petrus_Berlage)(Econ, 9/27/14, IL p.11)
1935 Mar 3, Dutch Revolutionary Socialist Worker's party (RSAP) was formed.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1935 In the Netherlands the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, the Art Deco final masterwork of H.P. Berlage (1856-1934), was completed.
(Econ, 9/27/14, IL p.11)
1935 May 29, Hague local museum opened.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1936 Oct, Dutch-born Peter Debye (1884-1966), won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies on the structure of molecules. In 1938, as Chairman of the German Physical Society, he had a letter sent out under his name requesting that the domestic Jewish members voluntarily resign. In 1940 he moved to the US. In 2006 he emerged in a book, "Albert Einstein in the Netherlands." which contained evidence of pro-Nazi actions. In 2008 the Terlouw Committee, appointed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, reviewed the allegations and issued its report clearly stating that Debye was neither a Nazi collaborator nor a Nazi sympathizer.
(AP, 3/3/06)(http://piurl.com/5F)
1936 The Dutch film "The Trouble With Money" was directed by Max Ophuls.
(SFEC, 9/5/99, DB p.50)
1938 Jan 10, Eduard van Beinum became the 1st conductor of Amsterdam Concert orchestra.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1938 May 12, In Holland, the 4-day convention at Utrecht ended. A Provisional Constitution for the World Council of Churches was adopted.
(SC, internet, 5/12/97)
1938 May 6, Dutch writer Maurits Dekker was sentenced to 50 days for "offending a friendly head of state" (Hitler).
(MC, 5/6/02)
1938 Alfred Flatow (1869-1942), Jewish gymnast and three-time, first-place medalist in the 1896 Olympics, fled to the Netherlands. He was later arrested by the Nazis for possession of guns following their occupation of the Netherlands. Flatow was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942 where he was starved to death.
(SFC, 7/17/14, p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Flatow)
1939 Mar 28, Dutch hunter shot English bombers down.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1939 Nov 18, The Netherland KNSM passenger ship Simon Bolivar hit a German mine and 86 died.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1939 Dec 23, Anthony H.G. Fokker (49), Dutch airplane builder (Spider), died in America.
(www.obituariestoday.com)
1940 May 8, German commandos in Dutch uniforms crossed the Dutch border to hold bridges for the advancing German army.
(HN, 5/8/99)
1940 May 10, German forces began a blitzkrieg of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, skirting France's "impenetrable" Maginot Line. Belgium was invaded by Germany and maintained resistance for 18 days.
(WSJ, 8/1/95, p.A-8)(WSJ, 4/29/96, p.C-1)(HN, 5/10/02)
1940 May 13, British bombed a factory at Breda, Netherlands.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1940 May 13, Dutch Queen Wilhelmina fled to England.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1940 May 14, The Netherlands (Holland) surrendered to Nazi Germany after the bombing of Rotterdam that left 600-900 dead.
(HN, 5/14/98)(MC, 5/14/02)
1940 May 15, German troops occupied Amsterdam. Gen Winkelman surrendered.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1940 May 16, Jacques Goudstikker, Dutch art dealer, fell on a staircase of the SS Bodegraven as the ship was refused entry at Dover. He died from a broken neck. His inventory in Amsterdam totaled some 1,400 works, which Reichsmarschall Herman Goring, Hitler’s 2nd in command, soon snapped up.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.D7)
1940 May 18, German forces under Field Marshal Georg von Kuchler (1881-1968) occupied Antwerp, Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_von_K%C3%BCchler)
1940 May 19, Amsterdam time became MET (Middle European Time).
(DTnet, 5/19/97)
1940 May 29, Arthur Seyss-Inquart was installed as Reich Commissioner of Hague, Netherlands.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1940 Jun 11, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands arrived in Canada as an exile.
(AP, 6/11/03)
1940 Jun 21, German occupiers disbanded the Dutch States-General, Council of State.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1940 Jul, Jan Zwartendijk, a Dutch diplomat, and Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat, worked together to save some 2,000 thousand Polish Jews, who had fled to Lithuania by issuing them visas for Japan, China and the Dutch colonies in South America. Zwartendijk wrote out the so called Curacao visas, while Sugihara issued the transit visas weeks after the Red Army entered the Baltic state. The Sugihara family was later captured by the Russians and placed in a concentration camp for 1½ years. None of the refugees actually arrived in Curacao, but many of them reached free countries or ended up in Shanghai where they survived the war.
(www.remember.org/witness/righteous.html)(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A13)(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A16)(AFP, 6/15/18)
1941 Feb 9, Nazi collaborators destroyed the pro-Jewish cafe Alcazar Amsterdam. Alcazar had refused to hang "No Entry for Jews" signs in front.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1941 Feb 19, Nazi police were attacked and driven away from Koco, Amsterdam by young Jews. Nazis raided Amsterdam and rounded up 429 young Jews for deportation.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1941 Feb 26, Utrecht and Zaandam struck against raid on Jews.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1941 Mar 3, Netherlands NSB-leader Mussert visited Göring in Berlin.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1941 Mar 4, 18 Geuzen resistance fighters were sentenced to death in The Hague.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1941 Mar 8, Martial law was proclaimed in Holland in order to extinguish any anti-Nazi protests.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1941 Mar 20, D.A. van den Bosch, anti-Nazi clergyman (Amersfoort Camp), died.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1941 Apr 24, Dutch Prince Bernhard became an RAF pilot.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1941 May 15, Nazi occupiers in Netherlands forbade Jewish music.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1941 May 19, German occupiers in Holland forbade bicycle taxis.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1941 Jun 4, Wilhelm II von Hohenzollern (b.1859), the last German emperor (1888-1918), died in the Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor)
1941 Jul 11(Jun 11), The 2nd great roundup of Jews of Amsterdam took place.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1941 Aug 18, The concentration camp at Amersfoort, Netherlands, opened.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1941 Nov 25, German Jews in Netherlands were declared stateless.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1942 Jan 11, Japan declared war against the Netherlands, the same day that Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies (later Indonesia).
(AP, 1/11/98)(HN, 1/11/99)
1942 Feb 16, German submarines attacked an Aruba oil refinery and sank the tanker Pedernales.
(MC, 2/16/02)(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.C11)
1942 Mar 1, The 3 day Battle of Java Sea ended as US suffered a major naval defeat. Japanese troops occupy Kalidjati airport in Java. More than 900 Dutch and 250 Indo-Dutch sailors died during the battle in which the Allied navies suffered a disastrous defeat by the Imperial Japanese Navy.
(HN, 3/1/98)(SC, 3/1/02)(AFP, 11/17/16)
1942 May 3, Nazis executed 72 in reprisal in Sachsenhausen, Netherlands. Johan H. Westerveld, lt.-Col, leader Order Service, was among the executed.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1942 May 17, Dutch SS vowed loyalty to Hitler.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1942 Jun 9, German-Neth press reported that 3 million Dutch were sent to East-Europe.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1942 Jun 12, Anne Frank received her diary as a birthday present in Amsterdam.
(MC, 6/12/02)
1942 Jun 14, Anne Frank began her diary.
(MC, 6/14/02)
1942 Jun 20, Adolf Eichmann proclaimed the deportation of Dutch Jews.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1942 Jul 6, Anne Frank's family went into hiding in After House, Amsterdam.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1942 Jul 9, Anne Frank (13), her family and 4 other Jews went into hiding in the attic above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.
(HN, 7/9/01)(MC, 7/9/02)
1942 Jul 16, Jews were transported from Holland to an extermination camp.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1942 Jul 26, Roman Catholic churches protested the Dutch bishops’ stand against the spread of Judaism.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1942 Aug 25, German SS began transporting Jews of Maastricht, Neth.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1942 Oct 15, Dirk Bannink, nurse and local councilor Deventer, Netherlands, was executed.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1942 The Catholic hierarchy of Amsterdam spoke against the Nazi treatment of Jews. This led to a redoubling of roundups and deportations.
(WSJ, 4/25/97, p.A18)
1943 Feb 17, Dutch churches protested to Artur Seyss-Inquart against persecution of Jews.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1943 Mar 1, In Amsterdam a Jewish old age home for disabled was raided.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1943 Mar 2, 1st transport of Jews from Westerbork, Netherlands, to Sobibor concentration camp.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1943 Mar 18, The ships James Oglethorpe (US) and Terkolei (Neth.), were torpedoed and sank.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1943 Mar 31, US Army Air Force bombers attacked harbor facilities in the west of Rotterdam. A combination of strong wind and overcast conditions also caused great damage to the nearby residential areas, especially in the Bospolder-Tussendijken District. The death toll rose to 401 casualties and around 16,500 people lost their homes.
(http://tinyurl.com/6rmgrp6)
1944 Feb 1, Piet Mondrian (b.1872), Dutch artist, died in NYC of pneumonia. To create an art of harmony and order he used straight lines exclusively. "His trademark paintings of black lines forming a grid and primary colors are a calculated, mathematical blueprint for an organized life." A leading abstract artist in the early half of the 20th century, Dutch painter Piet Mondrian was also a leading proponent of De Stijl ("The Style"). Born to an educator and amateur artist in 1872, Mondrian pursued a career as a painter from an early age. He was influenced by the Post-Impressionists, but gravitated towards Cubism after seeing an exhibition of works by Picasso and others.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Mondrian)(Hem, Dec. 94, p.131)(WSJ, 5/25/01, p.W10)
1944 Apr 30, The 8th and 9th US Army Air Forces and Royal Air Force Bomber Command began to fly sorties into France and the Low Countries in preparation for the Allied Expeditionary Force landing on Jun 6.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.B9)
1943 Apr 30, Dutch struck against forced labor in Nazi Germany's war industry.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 Apr 30, Etty Hillesum, Dutch diarist, died in Auschwitz.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1944 May 19, 240 gypsies were transported to Auschwitz from Westerbork Neth.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1943 May 26, Jews rioted against Germans in Amsterdam.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1943 Jun 25, Arthur Seyss-Inquart ordered a mass arrest of Dutch physicians.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1943 Oct 20, A US B-17 bomber crashed in the Netherlands near the small town of de Bilt. Of the 10 men on board 5 died and 5 were captured. Robert Surdez, co-pilot, died in 2004.
(SFC, 3/30/04, p.B1)(SFC, 8/11/04, p.B7)
1943 Willem Kolff invented the 1st dialysis machine in Holland.
(WSJ, 10/2/03, p.A2)
1944 Jun 6, Gerrit John van de Peat (41), artist, resistance fighter, was executed.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1944 Jun 6, Nazi troops executed 96 prisoners by firing squad.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1944 Jun 9, 99 inhabitants of Tulle were hanged by the SS.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1944 Jul 14, SS men Heinrich Boere and Jacobus Petrus Besteman shot and killed Dutch pharmacist Fritz Hubert Ernst Bicknese at his home in Breda for suspected activity in Nazi resistance. Boere was sentenced to death in absentia by a Dutch court in 1949. This was later commuted to life imprisonment. In 2009 Boere (88) was slated to stand trial for murder in Germany for the execution-style killings of three Dutch civilians during World War II. In 2010 a German court convicted Boere (88) of murdering the three Dutch civilians. He was given the maximum sentence of life in prison for the killings.
(www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/germ-n02.shtml)(AP, 7/7/09)(AP, 3/23/10)
1944 Jul 15, Anne Frank (1929-1945) entered this in her diary: "In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart." In 1998 5 additional pages to her diary were reported. She died of typhoid in the spring of 1945 at the Bergen-Belson concentration camp.
(AP, 8/4/98)(SFC, 8/19/98, p.A16)
1944 Jul 19, Carl Bock, Danish Gestapo agent, was liquidated.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1944 Aug 1, Anne Frank's last diary entry; 3 days later she was arrested.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1944 Aug 4, Nazi police raided the secret annex of a building in Amsterdam and arrested eight people, including 15-year-old Anne Frank, whose diary became a famous account of the Holocaust. She died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the spring of 1945, just weeks before the camp was liberated. Miep Gies (1909-2010), secretary to Anne’s father Otto, collected the scattered pages of Anne’s diary and returned them to Otto Frank after the war.
(AP, 8/4/02)(Econ, 1/30/10, p.95)
1944 Sep 3, The 68th & last transport of Dutch Jews, which included Anne Frank, left for Auschwitz.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1944 Sep 5, "Mad Tuesday" 65,000 Dutch Nazi collaborators fled to Germany.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1944 Sep 8, Germany's V-2 offensive against England began. The 1st V-2 rockets landed in London & Antwerp.
(HN, 9/8/98)(MC, 9/8/01)
1944 Sep 17, Operation Market Garden, one of the largest allied operations of WW II, was launched. It failed to liberate the north of the Netherlands from Nazi Germany. American infantry glider troops of the 82nd Airborne Division parachuted into Holland to capture the Arnhem bridge as part of Operation Market Garden. The plan called for the airborne troops to be relieved by British troops, but they were left stranded and eventually surrendered to the Germans. Around 15,000 allied soldiers and thousands of German soldiers lost their lives in the operation. The 1974 book by Cornelius Ryan, "A Bridge Too Far," was based on this operation and was made into the 1977 film "A Bridge Too Far," starring Sean Connery.
(MT, Fall ‘96, p.8)(HN, 9/17/98)(HC, 12/12/01)(AP, 9/17/06)(Reuters, 9/21/19)
1944 Sep 21, The last British paratroopers at bridge of Arnhem surrendered.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1944 Sep 22, Aldert Klaas Dijkema, a Dutch resistance fighter, was executed by the Nazi Waffen SS shortly after he was captured. In 2012 Dutch-born Siert Bruins (91) was charged with Dijkema’s murder. In 2014 a German court dropped the case against Bruins ruling that there are too many gaps in the evidence to deliver a verdict.
(www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4312068,00.html)(SFC, 11/27/12, p.A2)(SFC, 9/3/13, p.A2)(AP, 1/8/14)
1944 Sep 27, Thousands of British troops were killed as German forces rebuffed their massive effort to capture the Arnhem Bridge across the Rhine River in Holland.
(HN, 9/27/98)
1944 Sep 28, At the Battle of Arnhem the Germans defeated the British airborne in Netherlands.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1944 Sep, SS men Heinrich Boere and an accomplice named Hendrik Kromhout shot Dutch bicycle-shop owner Teun de Groot when he answered the doorbell at his home in the town of Voorschoten. They then continued to the apartment of F.W. Kusters, and forced him into their car. They drove him to another town, stopped on the pretense of having a flat tire and shot him.
(AP, 3/7/08)
1944 Oct 1, In the Netherlands 600 men in Putten were sent to German work camps for the killing of German oficer by the resistance. Only 48 returned at the end of the war.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putten_raid)(Econ., 2/29/20, p.12)
1944 Nov 28, The first Allied supplies reached Antwerp by convoy.
(HN, 11/28/98)
1944 In the Netherlands Marion Phillipina van Binsbergen (b.1920), later Marion Pritchard, shot and killed a Nazi collaborator in Huizen as he returned to a house where Jewish children were being hidden. In 2009 Pritchard received the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Medal of Valor for her efforts in saving children in Amsterdam during WWII.
(SSFC, 12/25/16, p.C12)
1944 Piet Mondrian (b.1872), Dutch artist, died of pneumonia. To create an art of harmony and order he used straight lines exclusively. "His trademark paintings of black lines forming a grid and primary colors are a calculated, mathematical blueprint for an organized life." A leading abstract artist in the early half of the 20th century, Dutch painter Piet Mondrian was also a leading proponent of De Stijl ("The Style"). Born to an educator and amateur artist in 1872, Mondrian pursued a career as a painter from an early age. He was influenced by the Post-Impressionists, but gravitated towards Cubism after seeing an exhibition of works by Picasso and others.
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.131)(WSJ, 5/25/01, p.W10)(HNQ, 7/16/01)
1944-1945 Some 16,000 people starved to death in the Dutch “hunger winter."
(Econ, 6/18/16, p.46)
1945 Mar 3, Roermond-Venlo, Netherlands, was freed.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1945 Mar 3, RAF bombing error hit The Hague and killed 511.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1945 Mar 5, Allies bombed The Hague, Netherlands.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1945 Mar 6, In Holland SS General Hans Albin Rauter, was ambushed, and his driver and orderly were killed. Rauter was seriously wounded. SS Brigadefuhrer Dr. Eberhardt Schongarth immediately ordered reprisals and a total of 263 people were shot. A Special Court of Justice in the Hague sentenced Rauter to death and he was executed March 25, 1949. Schongarth was tried by a British Military Court, found guilty on another war crime charge, sentenced to death and was hanged in 1946.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres.html
(WW2D, p.610)
1945 Mar 8, 53 Amsterdammers were executed by Nazi occupiers.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1945 Mar 11, Flemish Nazi collaborator Maria Huygens was sentenced to death.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1945 Mar 12, In Amsterdam 30 people were executed by Nazi occupiers.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1945 Mar 13, Queen Wilhelmina returned to Netherlands.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1945 Apr 8, Nazi occupiers were executed. Nazi general Christiansen fled the Netherlands.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1945 Apr 12, Canadian troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Westerbork, Neth.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1945 Apr 14, Arnhem and Zwolle were freed from Nazis.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1945 Apr 17, Canadian lead tanks roll into Apeldoorn, Netherlands, loudly cheered by relieved residents.
(www.bouwman.com/netherlands/Liberation.html)
1945 Apr 17, Hannie Schaft (24), Dutch resistance fighter who lived in Haarlem, known as the "Girl with red hair," was executed by the Germans just one month before the war ended. She was a student who joined the resistance early in the war. On her bicycle she delivered ration coupons, newspapers, secret information and weapons. She was shot and buried in a shallow grave in the Dunes around Bloemendaal.
(MC, 4/17/02)(Internet)
1945 May 1, Arthur Seys-Inquart, Nazi overlord of Netherlands, fled to Flensburg.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1945 May 4, German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany agreed to surrender.
(AP, 5/4/00)
1945 May 5, Netherlands and Denmark were liberated from Nazi control. The Liberation of the Netherlands was completed by the First Canadian Army.
(HN, 5/5/98)(www.bouwman.com/netherlands/Liberation.html)
1945 May 7, SS opened fire on a crowd in Amsterdam and killed 22.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1945 May 29, Dutch police arrested and imprisoned Hans van Meegeren (1889-1947) for collaborating with the enemy. His name had been traced to a sale made during the second world war of what was then believed to be an authentic Vermeer to Nazi Field-Marshal Hermann Goering. On July 12, in order to prove his innocence, Meegeren revealed that he had forged the painting.
(WSJ, 10/14/06, p.P10)(ON, 12/07, p.12)
1945 Jun 6, Meinoud M. Rost van Tonningen, anti Semite, NSB (1937-41), committed suicide.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1945 Aug 17, Indonesian nationalists declared independence from the Netherlands.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A13)(AP, 8/17/99)
1945 Oct 6, Gen Eisenhower was welcomed in Hague on Hitler's train.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1945 Dec 27, The Dutch formally relinquished sovereignty to Indonesia.
(WSJ, 7/24/01, p.B4)
1946 Mar 2, Dutch troops landed on East Bali.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1946 May 29, KVP won the Provincial National elections in Netherlands.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1946 Mar 1, In the Netherlands Felix Gulje, head of a construction company, was murdered at his door front. Rumors had circled that Gulje worked with occupation authorities during the war. After his death it emerged that Gulje had sheltered Jews and given money to hide others. In 2011 Atie Ridder-Visser (96), former resistance member, confessed to the killing.
(SFC, 6/9/11, p.A3)
1947 Nov 12, Hans van Meegeren (1889-12947), Dutch painter and forger, was tried for forgery and convicted of “obtaining money by deception" and “appending false names and signatures with the intent to deceive." He was given the minimum sentence of one year and then the court petitioned Queen Wilhelmina that he be pardoned, but he died 6 weeks later.
(ON, 12/07, p.12)
1947 Dec 9, In western Java up to 430 men were rounded up and shot by Dutch troops in the village of Rawagedeh. The Dutch called the incident a "police action" to quell an uprising. The Dutch government conceded in 1995 that summary executions had taken place in Rawagedeh, now known as Balongsari, but said prosecutions were no longer possible. In September, 2011, a Dutch court ordered the government to compensate the widows of Indonesian villagers, to apologize for the killings and to give each of the 10 plaintiffs $27,000. Old friends and neighbors cajoled, bullied and intimidated the plaintiffs and their families until local officials jumped in, forcing them to part with half their cash.
(AP, 9/14/11)(http://tinyurl.com/5sp5psn)(AP, 11/23/11)(AP, 1/16/12)
1947 Dec 29, Hans van Meegeren (b.1889), Dutch painter and forger, died. In 2006 Frank Wynne authored “I Was Vermeer."
(WSJ, 10/14/06, p.P10)(http://denisdutton.com/van_meegeren.htm)
1947 “The Diary of Anne Frank" was first published. In her diary Anne Frank (1929-1945) chronicled the details of her teenage life hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam from 1942 to 1944, when the Nazi secret police discovered her and her family's hiding place. Miep Gies (1909-2010), had guarded Anne's memoirs and presented it to the girl's father, Otto, when he returned from the Auschwitz concentration camp at the end of World War II, the only one of his family to survive.
(AFP, 1/12/10)
1947 Dutch writer Gerard Reve (1923-2006) authored his debut novel “De Avonden" (The Evenings) under the pseudonym Simon van het Reve. In 2016 it was translated to English.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Avonden)(Econ, 3/11/17, p.79)
1947 Klaas Carel Faber (1922-2012) was convicted of murder and aiding the enemy in time of war for helping the Netherlands' Nazi occupiers during World War II. He had worked for the death squad code named "Silbertanne," or "Silver Fir," which carried out killings of resistance members, Nazi opponents, and people who hid Jews. He was given a death sentence that was later commuted to life in prison, but he escaped and fled to Germany in 1952, where he was granted citizenship. In 2010 the Dutch government issued a European arrest warrant for Faber (88). In 2011 a German court ruled that the Dutch request cannot be granted as Faber’s consent was mandatory due to his German citizenship. Klaas Faber died in Germany in 2012.
(AP, 11/25/10)(AP, 5/11/11)(AP, 5/26/12)
1947 Gerard Kuiper of Holland and Texas discovered carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mars.
(SFC, 11/29/96, p.A17)
1948 Mar 18, France, Great Britain and Benelux signed the Treaty of Brussels.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1948 Apr 18, International Court of Justice opened at Hague, Netherlands.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1948 May 4, The Hague Court of Justice convicted Hans Rauter (SS) of war crimes.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1948 May 12, Queen Wilhelmina resigned. [see Sep 4]
(MC, 5/12/02)
1948 Aug 23, The World Council of Churches (WCC) was formed in Amsterdam to help reconcile differences among Christians. Delegates of 147 churches assembled to merge the Faith and Order Movement and Life and Work Movement. Church leaders had agreed in 1937 to establish a World Council of Churches, based on a merger of the Faith and Order Movement and Life and Work Movement organizations. Headquarters were later established in Geneva.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Council_of_Churches)(Econ, 2/23/08, p.79)
1948 Sep 4, Queen Wilhelmina abdicated the Dutch throne for health reasons.
(AP, 9/4/97)
1948 Sep 6, Queen Juliana (1909-2004) of the Netherlands was crowned, two days after the abdication of her mother, Queen Wilhelmina. Juliana abdicated in 1980.
(AP, 9/6/98)(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.B7)
1948 Auke Bert Pattist, a Nazi collaborator, was convicted for helping Nazis and persecuting Jews. He escaped from prison and later settled in France and Spain where he died in 2001 at age 80.
(SFC, 3/27/01, p.A18)
1948 Dutch economist Petrus Johannes Verdoorn (1911-1982), developed what came to known as Verdoorn's law. It relates to the long-term dynamic relationship between the rate of growth in output and the growth of productivity due to increasing returns.
(www.economyprofessor.com/economictheories/verdoorns-law.php)
1948 H.B.G. Casimir, Dutch physicist, deduced the necessity of a quantum-mechanical effect arising from the zero-point energy of the harmonic oscillators that are the normal modes of the electromagnetic field. The Casimir force was first measured in 1997 and can be seen in a gecko's ability to stick to a surface with just one toe.
(AFP, 8/6/07)(www.du.edu/~jcalvert/phys/casimir.htm)
1949 Apr 4, The (NATO) North Atlantic Treaty Organization pact was signed by the US, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Canada. It provided for mutual defense against aggression and for close military cooperation.
(www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm)(TOH, 1982, p.1949)
1949 Dec 27, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands granted sovereignty to the United States Indonesia after more than 300 years of Dutch rule. The Netherlands retained control of Irian Jaya, inhabited by Melanesians, until 1963.
(EWH, 1968, p.1168)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)(AP, 12/27/99)
1949 Heinrich Boere (b.1922), part of a Waffen SS death squad of mostly Dutch volunteers, was sentenced to death in the Netherlands. The squad had been tasked with killing fellow countrymen in reprisal for attacks by the anti-Nazi resistance. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment and Boere managed to escape to Germany. A German court has refused to extradite him because he might have German nationality as well as Dutch. In 2008 Dortmund prosecutor Ulrich Maass charged Heinrich Boere (86) with the 1944 murders of three men as a member of the Waffen SS death squad code-named Silbertanne, or Silver Pine.
(AP, 3/8/08)(AP, 4/16/08)
1950 West Timor (Dutch Timor), part of the former Dutch East Indies, became Indonesian territory when Holland transferred sovereignty.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A13)(TOH, 1982, p.1949)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)
1951 Apr 18, Jean Monnet, French civil servant, and Robert Schuman, French foreign minister, helped found the European Union with agreements between 6 countries on the pooling of coal and steel resources. Ministers from Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, West Germany, Italy and France put their names on the Treaty of Paris, the founding document of what in four decades would become the European Union.
(Econ, 9/25/04, Survey p.3)(Econ, 6/18/16, p.45)
1952 Feb 26, A Netherlands-Indonesian Unity conference took place.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1952 Apr 3, Dutch Queen Juliana spoke to the US Congress.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1952 May 6, Maria Montessori (b.1870), Italian physician, educationist, died In Holland. She opened her 1st school in San Lorenzo, Italy, in 1907.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori)(SFC, 1/6/07, p.B1)
1952 May 29, A 2nd Round Conference between Dutch Antilles and Suriname ended.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1952 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines began offering first class passengers ceramic houses filled with liquor. Industry rules capped handouts at 75 cents, but there was no limit on booze. In 2008 the 89th house in the series made it debut on Oct 7, the airline’s 89th birthday.
(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.A1)
1952-1954 In the Netherlands 34 boys under 18 during this period died in a Catholic institute for the mentally disabled in the Roermond Diocese. A Dutch Catholic institute for disabled girls in the same town of Heel experienced 40 deaths during the same period. In 2011 prosecutors opened an investigation on the unusually high death rate. In 2012 Dutch prosecutors said Brother Andreas, now dead, may have been involved in the suspicious deaths of 37 patients. The deaths sharply declined after he was transferred to another institution.
(AP, 8/16/11)(AP, 8/18/11)(AP, 6/28/12)
1953 Jan 31-1953 Feb 1, A powerful storm breached sea dikes in the south of the Netherlands, killing more than 1,800 people and cementing a deep resolve among the Dutch that their ancient enemy, water, would never kill again. 307 people died in eastern England.
(SSFC, 3/25/01, p.C3)(www.metoffice.com/education/secondary/students/flood.html)
1954 Dec 15, With the proclamation of the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles attained equal status with the Netherlands proper and Suriname in the overarching Kingdom of the Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cura%C3%A7ao_and_Dependencies)(SSFC, 10/9/11, p.C3)
1954 The Bilderberg Group was set up in to support military and economic co-operation between Europe and North America during the Cold War. Its first meeting was at the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland.
(AP, 6/7/13)
1954 The Hague Convention of this year forbade the taking of war booty. The Hague cultural Property Convention recognized the protection of cultural, religious and historical monuments including national parks.
(WSJ, 5/29/96, p.A6)(SFC, 8/11/00, p.A15)
1954 The 5 islands of the Netherlands Antilles were federated. These included Bonaire, Curacao, St. Maarten, Saba and St. Eustatius.
(Econ, 5/26/07, p.38)
1955 May 18, Queen Juliana opened the E55 fair in Amsterdam.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1956 Apr 10, Philips broadcasted the 1st Dutch color TV programs.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1956 May 18, Queen Juliana opened the Rembrandt fairs in Amsterdam.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1956 Nov 6, Holland and Spain withdrew from Olympics, to protest Soviets in Hungary.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1957 May 4, The Anne Frank Foundation formed in Amsterdam.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1957 May 9, Heinrich Campendonk (b.1889), German-born Dutch artist and a member of the Der Blaue Reiter group (1911-1912), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Campendonk)
1957 Jul 4, Dutch 2nd Chamber accepted temporary tax increase.
(Maggio)
1958 Jun 23, In the Netherlands the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation was founded by Prince Bernhard. It awarded the annual Erasmus Prize to individuals or institutions that have made notable contributions to European culture, society, or social science.
(www.123exp-culture.com/t/03604490053/)
1958 Aug 14, KLM Flight 607-E, a Lockheed Super Constellation, crashed west of Ireland, killing 99.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KLM_Flight_607-E)
1959 Apr 13, Eduard A van Beinum (57), Dutch musician, conductor, died.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1959 Oct 13, K. Rudolf Mengelberg, Dutch composer (Amsterdam Concertgebouw), died at 67.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1959 Aldo van Eyck (d.1999 at 80) designed the State Orphanage in Amsterdam.
(SFC, 1/16/99, p.A18)
1959 In the Netherlands a massive gas field was discovered under the city of Groningen. In the 1970s higher gas export prices raised the value of the guilder by a sixth , hitting the competitiveness of Dutch manufaturing and services. In 1977 The Economist dubbed this economic curse “Dutch disease".
(WSJ, 6/26/08, p.B1)(Econ, 8/12/17, p.58)
1961 Dec 1, The Territory of New Guinea declared independence from the Netherlands.
(WUD, 1994, p.962)(SFC, 6/5/00, p.A8)
1962 Mar 21, Dutch RC Bishop Willem Bekkers declared himself in favor of birth control. The church in the Netherlands tried to promote a more liberal view of birth control. But their view did not prevail.
(http://tinyurl.com/lpxof8)
1962 Jun 3, Lee Harvey Oswald arrived by train in Oldenzaal, Netherlands.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1962 Jun 4, Lee Harvey Oswald departed Rotterdam on SS Maasdam to US.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1962 Jun 28, Thalidomide was banned in Netherlands.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1963 The western part of the island of New Guinea, Irian Jaya, became a province of Indonesia. It was formerly a Dutch territory called West New Guinea, Dutch New Guinea or Netherlands New Guinea. A West Papua pro-independence movement began and by 2004 an estimated 100,000 civilians had died in the struggle.
(WUD, 1994, p.1623)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)
1964 Aug 25, Singapore limited imports from Netherlands due to Indonesian aggression.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1965 May 25, Remco Prins, Dutch rock guitarist/vocalist (Burma Shave-Stash), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1965 May 25, Roef-Ragas, Dutch actor (Missing Link, Red Rain, Juju, Mykosch), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1966 Dutch courts prosecuted a blasphemy case putting a novelist on trial for a story about wanting to have sex with God, who had taken the form of a donkey. Gerard Reve was acquitted. The 1932 blasphemy law barred scorn against any religion.
(AP, 5/24/11)
1968 Mar 3, Greece, Portugal and Spain's embassies were bombed in the Hague.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1968 Apr 27, In the Netherlands part of a group of Catholic radicals left their own party and formed the Political Party of Radicals (PPR). The party dissolved in 1991.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Party_Radicals)
1968 Sep 1, Pirate Radio Marina in the Netherlands began transmitting.
(www.historyorb.com/entertainment/radio/pirate-radio)
1968 The Rembrandt Research Project was formed and funded by the government to act as the gatekeepers of Rembrandt’s work.
(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W12)
1968 In the Netherlands the 56 square km of Oostvaardersplassen was reclaimed from the sea and was intended for industrial use. It lay vacant and became a nature reserve.
(Econ, 9/14/13, SR p.8)
1969 Mar 25, John and Yoko Ono staged a bed-in for peace in Amsterdam.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1969 Mar 26, The Nuclear reactor in Dodewaard, Netherlands, went into use.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodewaard_nuclear_power_plant)
1969 May 30, Refinery workers on Curacao set fires in Willemstad. Marines from the Netherlands restored order.
(Econ, 5/26/07, p.38)
1969 Oct, Economists Jan Timbergen (1903-1994) of the Netherlands and Ragnar Frisch of Norway were awarded the first Nobel Prize in Economics for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes. Tinbergen was a founding trustee of Economists for Peace and Security.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Tinbergen)
1970 Jul 15, Frederik Lugt (b.1884), Dutch founder of the Fondation Custodia (1947), died in Paris. The foundation, which he founded with his wife, kept intact his collection of Old Master drawings at the Institut Neederlandais, the Dutch cultural center in Paris.
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frits_Lugt)
1971 Oct 1, As of this day divorce in the Netherlands could only be granted on the ground of the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage (Article 1:151 of the Dutch Civil Code).
(http://www2.law.uu.nl/priv/cefl/Reports/pdf/Netherlands02.pdf)
1971 Cornelis van Houten (1920-2002), Dutch astronomer, discovered an asteroid and named it Asteroid 1877 Marsden after British astronomer Brian Marsden.
(Econ, 12/4/10, p.111)
1973 Jul 20, The Japanese Red Army and Lebanese guerrillas hijacked a Japan Airlines plane over the Netherlands. The passengers and crew were released in Libya where the hijackers blew up the plane.
(SFC, 11/9/00, p.C2)(www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=1771)
1973 The Dutch government built the Van Gogh Museum.
(Econ, 1/21/06, p.81)
1974 Apr 6, Willem Dudok (b.1884), Dutch architect (Hilversum Town Hall), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Marinus_Dudok)
1974 Sep 1, In the Netherlands laws prohibiting pirate radio came into effect.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Caroline)
1974 Sep 13, In the Netherlands the French embassy at the Hague was taken over by Haruo Wako and 2 other Japanese Red Army militants. A 4-day standoff ended with the release of comrade Yutaka Suyaka from a French jail. The attack was linked to Carlos the Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. In 2005 a Tokyo District Court sentenced Wako to life imprisonment.
(http://my-my-miyuki.blogspot.com/)(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(SFC, 11/9/00, p.C2)
1975 Sep 14, Rembrandt's "Nightwatch" was slashed and damaged in Amsterdam.
(http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_n7_v86/ai_21113228)
1975 Dec 14, Six South Moluccan extremists surrendered after holding 23 hostages for 12 days on a train near the Dutch town of Beilen.
(AP, 12/14/00)
1975 The Dutch film "Keetje Tippel" (Cathy Tippel or Katie's Passion, or Hot Sweat) starred Jan De Bont and was directed by Paul Verhoeven.
(WSJ, 7/23/99, p.W4)
1975 Suriname gained Independence from the Netherlands.
(SFC, 9/6/96, p.A14)
1976 Aug 26, Prince Bernhard, husband of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, agreed to resign his positions with the Dutch armed forces and industry following severe criticism of his behavior by a commission of enquiry into a Lockheed bribery scandal. Bernhard had allegedly received $1.1 million as a gift from Lockheed.
(RTH, 8/26/99)(SFC, 12/24/08, p.B7)
1976 Dec 6, Dutch War criminal Pieter Menten (1899-1987) was arrested in Switzerland after fleeing there in November.
(http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Menten)
1976 Claes Oldenburg (b.1929), Swedish-born American artist, constructed a 41-foot "Trowel I" for the Kroller-Muller Museum in the Netherlands by. He also made "Typewriter Eraser."
(Smith., Aug. 1995, p.82)(SFC, 10/26/96, p.B1)
1976 Amnesty International received Netherlands’ Erasmus-prize.
(www.nndb.com/honors/622/000165127/)
1977 May 8, The trial of Pieter Menten (b.1899), a former Dutch SS officer and art collector, began in Amsterdam. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years, but the sentence was reduced to 10 years in 1980.
(www.cnn.com/almanac/9805/08/)(http://tinyurl.com/2n79xl)
1977 May 23, Moluccan extremists held 105 schoolchildren and 50 others hostage on a hijacked train in Netherlands. The children were released May 27. The siege ended June 11.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1977 May 25, Dutch social democratic party won parliamentary election.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1977 Jun 11, A 20-day hostage drama in the Netherlands ended as Dutch marines stormed a train and a school held by South Moluccan extremists. Six gunmen and two hostages on the train were killed.
(AP, 6/11/97)
1977 The Economist coined the term “Dutch disease" to describe how the exploitation of natural resources can cause a decline in other forms of economic activity, particularly manufacturing. This briefly happened in the Netherlands when natural gas was discovered (1959).
(Econ, 10/11/08, p.36)
1978 Jun 25, Argentina, host to the World Cup, beat Netherlands in the soccer World Cup championship in Buenos Aires. It was later alleged that the ruling military junta bribed an opposing team to ensure Argentina’s progress and eventual victory.
(SFC, 2/4/97, p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_FIFA_World_Cup)(Econ, 8/15/09, p.32)
1980 Apr 30, Juliana Z(1909-2004), Queen of the Netherlands, abdicated. Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, was crowned queen of Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliana_of_the_Netherlands)
1980 Jul 9, Pieter Menten (81), Dutch war criminal and art collector, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/369gbh)(http://tinyurl.com/3xjlqp)
1980 Sep 5, The opera “Satyagraha" by Philip Glass, commissioned by the city of Rotterdam, was first performed by the Netherlands Opera.
(WSJ, 4/19/08, p.W14)(www.philipglass.com/html/recordings/satyagraha.html)
1980 Oct 4, Some 520 people were forced to abandon the cruise ship “Prisendam" in the Gulf of Alaska after the Dutch luxury liner caught fire—no deaths or serious injury resulted. The ship capsized and sank a week later.
(AP, 10/4/08)
1980 Oct 25, The Hague Convention was concluded. It is a multilateral treaty developed by the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) that provides an expeditious method to return a child internationally abducted by a parent from one member country to another. It entered into force between the signatories on 1 December 1983. As of May 2017, 97 states are party to the convention.
(http://tinyurl.com/ydd2k726)(Econ, 2/7/09, p.22)
1981 Apr 12, Hendrik F. Andriessen (b.1892), Dutch organist, composer (Te Deum), died.
(http://www2.rnw.nl/mu/en/behind/biographies/hendrikandriessen)
1981 Antoine W. van Agtmael of the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank coined the term “emerging market." He coined the term to attract investors in a “Third World Equity Fund." The emerging, or developing, market economy (EME) is defined as an economy with low-to-middle per capita income. Emerging markets constitute approximately 80% of the global population, representing about 20% of the world's economies.
(www.investopedia.com/articles/03/073003.asp)(Econ, 9/20/08, SR p.10)
1982 Nov 4, In the Netherlands Ruud Lubbers (1939-2018) began serving a prime minister and continued to 1994.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruud_Lubbers)(SSFC, 2/18/18, p.C12)
1983 Jan 25, The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) space probe, sponsored by the United Kingdom, the US, and the Netherlands, was launched. It studied infrared radiation from across the cosmos and exposed stars as they were born from clouds of gas and dust.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A14)
1983 Mar, Compact Disc recordings, introduced by Phillips and Sony in Europe in 1982, were introduced to the US.
(www.iconnect.net/home/bsnpubs/cdhist.html)
1983 Nov 1, Anthony van Hoboken (b.1887), Dutch musicologist, died in Zurich. He is best known for his Haydn Catalog (1957).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_van_Hoboken)
1983 Nov 9, Alfred Heineken, beer brewer from Amsterdam, was kidnapped and held for a ransom of more than $10 million. Heineken was freed Nov 30. Cor van Houton, the kidnapper, was shot to death in 2003.
(HN, 11/9/98)(AP, 1/24/03)
1983 Nov 30, Police freed kidnapped beer magnate Alfred Heineken in Amsterdam.
(www.cedmagic.com/museum/press/ced-timeline-1983.html#11-1983)
1983 The Dapper Foundation of Amsterdam was founded with a private gift donation of African art. It was brought to Paris in 1986 and housed in an elegant private museum at 50 Avenue Victor Hugo.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, p.T7)
1984 May 25, Piet Ketting (b.1904), Dutch pianist, conductor, composer, died.
(http://tinyurl.com/2tpeyt)
1984 Philips, a Dutch electronics giant, and ASM Int'l, a maker of semiconductor equipment, began their ASML joint venture. The company grew to become the world's most advanced maker of equipment critical to modern chipmaking.
(Econ., 2/29/20, p.49)
1985 Jul 10, French security forces sank the Rainbow Warrior, a ship operated by Greenpeace near NZ. Fernando Pereira, a Dutch photographer, was killed in the sinking. In 2015 a retired French secret service agent apologized for planting the bombs. Jean-Luc Kister said that he and his colleagues never meant to kill anybody.
(SFC, 5/7/99, p.A14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Warrior)(AP, 9/7/15)
1986 Oct 4, In the Netherlands Queen Beatrix officially opened the Oosterscheldekering for use by saying the well-known words: De stormvloedkering is gesloten. De Deltawerken zijn voltooid. Zeeland is veilig. (The flood barrier is closed. The Delta Works are completed. Zealand is safe.) It was the world's largest movable flood barrier.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterscheldekering)
1987 Nov 14, Pieter Menten (b.1899), Dutch war criminal, died at an old people's home in Loosbroek, southern Netherlands.
(www.jbwan.com/roblog/archives/000615.html)
1987 In the Netherlands the first campaign to alter social norms of condom use focused on a number of Dutch celebrities who use condoms themselves.
(http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/IES/netherlands.html)
1987 In the Netherlands art works by David Teniers, Willem van de Velde, Jan Brueghel the Younger, Eva Gonzales, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Paul Desire Trouillebert were stolen from the Noortman gallery in Maastricht. In 2009 police recovered eight of the paintings and arrested 3 suspects.
(AP, 3/8/09)
1987 Heavy floods inundated the town of Valkenburg as the Geul River overflowed.
(SFC, 9/19/98, p.A5)
1988 Mar 2, Dutch Liberal Party merged with SDP.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1988 Apr 11, In Amsterdam the Royal Concert building (Concertgebouw) reopened.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Concertgebouw_Orchestra)
1988 Dec, Thieves stole three paintings by van Gogh, with an estimated value of $72 million to $90 million, from the Kroeller-Mueller Museum in a remote section of the Netherlands. Police later recover all three paintings.
(AP, 2/11/08)
1988 The Dutch film "The Vanishing" was directed by George Sluizer. An American remake was also directed by Sluizer.
(SFEC, 8/1/99, DB p.48)
1989 Ter Beek (d.2008 at 64) became defense minister in a centrist coalition led by PM Ruud Lubbers and served until 1994. He worked to streamline the Dutch military in the aftermath of the Cold War, including scrapping the draft.
(AP, 9/30/08)
1990 Toy company FAO Schwartz sold out to Dutch Company Koninklijke Bijenkorf Beheer.
(WSJ, 11/21/03, p.B1)
1991 Apr, Two masked armed men stole 20 paintings, worth at least $10 million each at the time, from Amsterdam's van Gogh Museum. The paintings are found in the getaway car less than an hour later.
(AP, 2/11/08)
1991 Dec 9, European Community leaders meeting in the Dutch city of Maastricht tentatively agreed to begin using a single currency by 1999.
(AP, 12/9/01)
1991 Dec 11, European Community leaders meeting in the Dutch city of Maastricht hammered out a compromise for a loose federation of their countries. The Maastricht treaty was signed on February 7, 1992, and entered into force on November 1, 1993. It set entry terms for joining a European monetary union.
(WSJ, 11/18/96, p.A10)(WSJ, 3/3/97, p.A1)(AP, 12/11/01)
1991 Klaas Bruinsma, gangster and drug baron, was gunned down near an Amsterdam hotel.
(SSFC, 10/11/03, p.A2)
1992 Feb 7, The Treaty on the European Union was signed in Maastricht by the Foreign and Finance Ministers of the Member States.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1992/index_en.htm)
1992 Feb 7, The Maastricht Treaty to integrate Europe was signed in Maastricht by the Foreign and Finance Ministers of the Member States. Upon its entry into force on 1 November 1993 during the Delors Commission, it created the three pillars structure of the European Union and led to the creation of the single European currency, the euro.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty)
1992 Apr 13, The opera "Life With an Idiot" by Alfred Schnittke had its world premier at the Netherlands Music Theater in Amsterdam.
(SFC, 8/5/98, p.A17)
1992 Apr 13, An earthquake rocked Germany and the Netherlands.
(http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/sig_1992.html)
1992 Jul 11, In Bosnia it was later alleged on Dutch TV that Dutch troops deliberately drove an armored vehicle into a Muslim blockade on this day and killed as many as 30 people.
(SFC, 8/21/98, p.A14)
1992 Oct 4, In the Netherlands an Israeli El Al Jumbo Jet transport, enroute from New York to Tel Aviv, crashed into an Amsterdam apartment complex and killed 43 people. Since then scores of people complained of unidentified health problems. In 1998 it was revealed that the jet carried 50 gallons of dimethyl methylphosphonate, a non-poisonous ingredient of sarin nerve gas, destined for Israel. A report on the crash was released in 1999 and said that the plane's ballast included carcinogenic depleted uranium.
{Netherlands, Air Crash, Israel, Medical}
(AP, 10/4/97)(WSJ, 4/22/99, A1)(www.pacificnews.org/jinn/stories/5.03/990211-cargo.html)
1992 Dec 15, The Netherlands ratifies the Treaty on the European Union.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1992/index_en.htm)
1992 Dec 21, A Dutch DC-10 burst into fire at landing on Faro, Portugal, and 56 died.
(http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19921221-0)
1993 Dutch novelist Cees Nooteboom won the European Literary Prize for best novel for his work: "The Following Story."
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A3)
1993 In the Netherlands prosecution stopped against physicians giving lethal drugs to patients to help them commit suicide. In 2000 euthanasia was legalized.
(SFC, 11/29/00, p.A17)
1993 A family in the Netherlands was found to have an abnormally high number of violent criminals. The criminal members were found to have a faulty gene that caused the absence of the enzyme monoamine oxidase A, an enzyme that regulates a group of neurotransmitters including serotonin and dopamine. Both of these were important for emotional responses.
(Econ, 12/23/06, Survey p.6)
1994 May 21, John Henry Weidner (81), Dutch-US resistance fighter, died.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1995 Apr 27, Willem Frederik Hermans (b.1921), Dutch author, died. His 1966 novel “Beyond Sleep" was considered to be one of the founding works of modern Dutch literature. In 2007 an English translation became available.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.P8)(http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Frederik_Hermans)
1995 Jun 3, In Bosnia Mladic forces seized a Dutch observation post.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A12)
1995 Jul 6, 3:15AM The UN safe area at Srebrenica came under attack by Bosnian Serbs, and thousands of male residents were killed. The acquisition and delivery of arms was organized by Yugoslav army officer Mirko Krajisnik, brother to Momcilo Krajisnik, president of the Bosnian Serb assembly. In 1998 Chuck Sudetic published "Blood and Vengeance: One Family’s Story of the War in Bosnia." The book focused on the Srebrenica killings. 300 Dutch troops were later accused of not preventing the Serbs from overrunning the town.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A8)(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A12)(SFC, 8/12/98, p.A14)
1995 Jul 8, Shelling resumed and the Dutch abandoned 3 posts under direct fire. 30 Dutch troops were taken by the Serbs to Bratunac.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A12)
1995 Jul 9, The Dutch again asked for air support but it was refused.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A12)
1995 Jul 16, Early reports of massacres in Bosnia emerged as the first survivors of the long march from Srebrenica began to arrive in Muslim-held territory. Following negotiations between the UN and the Bosnian Serbs, the Dutch were at last permitted to leave Srebrenica, leaving behind weapons, food and medical supplies.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/675945.stm)
1995 A river flood forced the evacuation of 200,000 people and millions of animals.
(SSFC, 3/25/01, p.C3)
1996 Jan 26, The Dutch government provided 365 mil in short-term funds to keep Fokker going for a few weeks to allow the search for a foreign partner.
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-11)
1996 Feb, The last Dutch draft notices were sent out.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A15)
1996 May 7, The first international war crimes proceeding since Nuremberg opened at The Hague in the Netherlands, with a Serbian police officer, Dusan Tadic, facing trial on murder-torture charges. Tadic was convicted of crimes against humanity but acquitted of murder on May 7, 1997. In Jul, 1997 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 5/7/97)(SFC, 5/8/97, p.C2)(SFC, 7/15/97, p.A12)
1996 May 18, A 40 year agreement was signed between Royal Dutch/Shell and Perupetro, Peru’s state oil company. Royal Dutch will spend $2.7 bil to develop a natural gas field.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.D-6)
1996 Jun 9, The latest unemployment rate was 7%.
(SFC, 6/9/96, Parade, p.9)
1996 Jul 7, The average cost of a Big Mac in the Netherlands was $3.21.
(SFC, 7/7/96, Parade, p.17)
1996 Sep 25, A DC-3 aircraft went into the North Sea near Den Helder and killed all 32 people on board.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A11)
1996 Dec 2, It was reported that a Dutch rubber company had produced and shipped to England a 100 water-filled rubber mats (water beds) for cows. The product seemed to enhance milk production.
(SFC, 12/3/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec, Wim Duisenberg of the Netherlands was approved to run the European Monetary Institute in Frankfurt, Germany.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.D6)
1996 Wijnand van der Sanden, curator of the Drents Museum in Holland, authored "Through Nature to Eternity: The Bog Bodies of Northwest Europe."
(AM, 7/97, p.62)
1996 Fokker went bankrupt, and the last new Fokker-50 was delivered to Ethiopian Airlines in May, 1997. Stork, another Dutch company, bought a large part of Fokker's assets, and continued to be a main provider of parts and service for Fokker planes.
(AP, 2/10/04)
1997 Mar 19, Willem de Kooning (92), Dutch-born abstract painter, considered to be one of the 20th century's greatest painters, died in East Hampton, N.Y.
(SFC, 3/20/97, p.A1,6,E1)(AP, 3/19/98)
1997 Mar 25, An arson attack left a Turkish woman and 5 children dead in the Hague.
(SFC, 3/29/97, p.A9)
1997 Oct 2, The EU formally set up a common foreign and security policy in the Amsterdam Treaty. It set to adopt key asylum and immigration measures within five years of the treaty's entry into force, expected in 1999. A protocol to the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam reclassified animals as sentient beings.
(Econ, 8/26/06, p.42)(http://hrw.org/worldreport/Helsinki-28.htm)(Econ, 12/2/06, p.88)
1997 Oct 22, A 64-year-old woman, dubbed the "furniture terrorist," received an 8-month sentence for causing an estimated $500,000 damage to furniture over a six-year period. She wandered through showrooms and slashed sofas with a razor often in a Zorro-like "Z" style.
(SFC,10/23/97, p.A17)
1997 The Dutch film "Character" was set in Rotterdam in the 1920s. It won an Oscar for best foreign film.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.A6)
1997 In the Netherlands the Maeslant barrier, a sea defense structure was inaugurated.
(Econ, 8/27/19, p.15)
1997 ING Direct, an online banking service under Dutch parent ING Groep NV, was launched in Canada. In 2000 it began operations in the US from Wilmington, Del. By the end of 2007 it had over 7 million customers and $62 billion in deposits. In 2008 Arkadi Kuhlman, ING’s US chief, and Bruce Philp, chairman of ING Direct’s marketing partner, authored “The Orange Code: How ING direct Succeeded by Being a Rebel with a Cause."
(WSJ, 12/10/08, p.A17)
1997-2001 In the Netherlands Lucia de Berk murdered 7 people in her care by giving them lethal doses of drugs. In 2004 a court sentenced her to life in jail and compulsory psychiatric treatment for killing. A high court ordered a review, ruling that the woman could not be sentenced to both life in jail and psychiatric care. In 2006 de Berk was sentenced to life in prison.
(Reuters, 7/13/06)
1998 May 3, European leaders meeting in Brussels, Belgium, agreed on Wim Duisenberg of the Netherlands as the chief of the new European Central Bank (ECB), but with the proviso that he step down in 2002 to make way for Frenchman Jean-Claude Trichet.
(BS, 5/3/98, p.21A)(AP, 5/3/99)
1998 Aug 1, The 5th quadrennial Gay Games began in Amsterdam with some 15,000 competitors. The games closed Aug 8.
(SFEC, 8/2/98, p.A2)
1998 Aug 11, In the Netherlands the body of Nicky Verstappen (11) was found, a day after he disappeared from a youth camp in southern Limburg province. He had been sexually abused before he was killed. In 2018 Dutch detectives said they have matched DNA traces and identified Jos Brech (55) as a suspect in the brutal murder. A European-wide warrant for Brech's arrest was issued on June 12, 2018.
(AFP, 8/22/18)
1998 Aug 24, The United States and Britain agreed to allow two Libyan suspects in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 to be tried by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. A former Libyan intelligence agent was later convicted of murder; the other suspect was acquitted.
(AP, 8/24/08)
1998 Sep 10, The Rotterdam Convention was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rotterdam. It is a multilateral agreement to promote shared responsibilities in relation to importation of hazardous chemicals, became legally binding to its parties. It officially entered into force on Feb 24, 2004. As of 2008, 73 countries were signatories and 126 were parties.
(www.ec.gc.ca/international/multilat/rotterdam_e.htm)
1998 Sep 19, The worst storm in a century hit the Netherlands and Belgium over the past week.
(SFC, 9/19/98, p.A5)
1998 Oct 13, It was reported that Dutch auditors chastised the prime minister and other officials for spending $40 million to acquire the Piet Mondrian painting: "Victory Boogie Woogie."
(WSJ, 10/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov 13, The cabinet approved a plan to let homosexuals adopt Dutch children by Jan 1, 2000.
(SFEC, 11/15/98, p.A20)
1998 Dec 1, Dutch and Flemish lexicographers unveiled a 40-tome dictionary with 45,000 pages that documented words back to 1500. It took 147 years to complete and compilers stopped at 1976.
(SFC, 12/2/98, p.C2)
1998 The 245 minute film "Amsterdam Global Village" was directed by Johan van der Keuken and showed at the SF Film Fest.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, DB p.55)
1998 The Dutch film "The Dress" starred Hanri Garcin and Ariane Schluter. It was written and directed by Alex van Warmerdam.
(SFC, 11/27/98, p.C8)
1998 The documentary film "Sex, Drugs and Democracy" was produced.
(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.T9)
1998 Ernst Langhout, a singer-songwriter, increased his sales when he began singing in his native Frisian language.
(WSJ, 5/13/98, p.A20)
1999 Jan 1, The Maastricht Treaty specified that a monetary union will be established by this date, and laid down several criteria that EU nations must fulfill in order to join. Some of the criteria included: maximum budget deficits of 3% of GDP, a cap on government debt of 60% of GDP. The European economic and monetary union (EMU) was scheduled to start with a new "Euro" currency. Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain made the transition. Public use was set for Jan 1, 2002.
(WSJ, 9/25/95, p.A-12)(WSJ, 12/5/95, p.A-14)(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A1)(SFC, 1/1/99, p.A8)
1999 Feb 18, Transamerica was bought by Aegon NV of the Netherlands in a deal valued at $9.7 billion. The assessed value of the Transamerica Pyramid in SF was set at $190 million.
(SFC, 2/19/99, p.A1)(SFC, 5/29/04, p.C2)
1999 May 1, The Treaty of Amsterdam Treaty, signed on October 2, 1997, entered into force. Its full official title was: the Treaty of Amsterdam amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and certain related acts. In Article 7 it said governments that violate the union’s fundamental values would be threatened with sanctions.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Amsterdam)(Econ 7/29/17, p.42)
1999 Apr 5, Libya handed over to UN officials 2 men accused in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. They were then flown to the Hague to be tried under Scottish law. UN Sec. Gen'l. Kofi Annan immediately suspended economic sanctions on Libya.
(SFC, 3/20/99, p.A8)(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A1)
1999 May 16, The 1956 Picasso painting, "Woman Nude Before Garden," was slashed by a mental patient in Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum.
(WSJ, 2/16/99, p.A20)
1999 May 19, The Dutch Cabinet of Prime Minister Wim Kok resigned following a split over whether to give citizens the right to vote in referendums.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 12, Professors Gerardus 't Hooft and Martinus J.G. Veltman of the Netherlands won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of mathematical tools to calculate properties of fundamental particles. From 1981 to his retirement in 1997, Veltman was an active member of the Univ. of Michigan physics department.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A2)(MT, Fall/99, p.7)
1999 Oct 26, The Parliament overturned a 1912 ban on brothels.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Dec 7, In Holland a student (17) in Veghel shot and wounded a teacher and 4 fellow students in the 1st school shooting in Dutch history. The student was reported to have been upset over a romance. The student's father (35) and sister (15) were arrested 2 days later as accessories.
(SFC, 12/8/99, p.A15)(SFC, 12/10/99, p.D8)
1999 The Netherlands documentary film "I Love Money" (the title used symbols for "love" and "money") was directed by Johan van der Keuken.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, DB p.36)
1999 In the Netherlands a leftist coalition toppled the long-ruling Christian Democrats.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.A16)
2000 Mar 21, Holland announced that it would give the Jewish community $180 million for injustices suffered after returning from Nazi death camps. Another $114 million was set for Dutch victims of Japanese WW II prison camps in Indonesia and $14 million for Dutch Gypsies persecuted by the Nazis.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 3, In Bosnia NATO troops arrested Momcilo Krajisnik, former speaker of the Bosnian Serb assembly, for war crimes and flew him to the Netherlands to stand trial. In 2006 Momcilo Krajisnik was convicted by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague for persecuting and forcibly expelling non-Serbs during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia. He was released in 2013 after serving two-thirds of a reduced 20-year sentence.
(SFC, 4/4/00, p.A10)(SFC, 8/31/13, p.A6)
2000 Apr 6, Two Russian cosmonauts docked with Mir. The destruction of the space station was delayed after MirCorp. of Amsterdam agreed in Feb. to pay $10-20 million to lease commercial rights.
(SFC, 4/7/00, p.D2)(SFEC, 6/11/00, p.T12)
2000 Apr 15, Rem Koolhaas (56), Dutch architect, won the annual $100,000 Pritzker Architecture Prize.
(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.A4)
2000 May 4, Hendrik Casimir (b.1909), Dutch physicist, died. He was best known for his research on the two-fluid model of superconductors (together with C. J. Gorter) in 1934 and the Casimir effect (together with D. Polder) in 1946.
(Econ, 5/24/08, p.105)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Casimir)
2000 May 13, In the Netherlands a fireworks depot exploded in Enschede and 20 people were killed with 589 injured. An estimated 100 tons of fireworks exploded and flattened some 400 houses.
(SFEC, 5/14/00, p.A12)(SFC, 5/15/00, p.A13)
2000 Jun 7, It was reported that Patrick Atoon of Nigmegen had spent 8 years building his web site dedicated to the meanings of words in rap music: www.rapdict.org.
(WSJ, 6/7/00, p.A1)
2000 Jun 18, In England officials found 58 bodies in the back of a truck at Dover. The truck had arrived from Zeebrugge under 86-degree heat and 54 male and 4 female Chinese immigrants from Fujian province appeared to have suffocated. There were 2 survivors. The chief suspect was arrested in Rotterdam in 2001. In 2001 Dutch driver Perry Wacker (32) was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Ying Guo (30) was convicted of conspiracy and was sentenced to 6 years in prison.
(SFC, 6/19/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/20/00, p.A1)(SFC, 6/21/00, p.A12)(SFC, 1/23/01, p.C14)(SFC, 4/6/01, p.D6)
2000 Sep 12, A bill was passed that converted same-sex partnerships into full-fledged marriages.
(SFC, 9/13/00, p.A12)
2000 Oct, Brothels were legalized. The $1 billion sex industry was estimated as 5% of the Dutch economy.
(SSFC, 8/12/01, p.A15)
2000 Nov 28, In the Netherlands lawmakers of the lower house voted 104 to 40 to legalize euthanasia with strict guidelines.
(SFC, 11/29/00, p.A17)
2001 Jan 1, In the Netherlands a fire in a Volendam café killed at least 5 people and injured over 130.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A12)
2001 Jan 31, In the Netherlands a Scottish court sentenced Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, to life in a Scottish prison for the 1998 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. A second Libyan was acquitted.
(SFC, 1/31/01, p.A11)(SFC, 2/1/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/1/01, p.A1)(AP, 12/19/03)
2001 Mar 31, In the Netherlands legislation enacted in 2000 to legalize gay marriages went into effect at midnight. This made Netherlands the first country to legalize same-sex marriages.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A10)(SSFC, 8/4/13, p.A2)
2001 Apr 5, Dutch driver Perry Wacker was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years in prison in the deaths of 58 Chinese immigrants who suffocated in his truck in Dover, England.
(AP, 4/5/02)
2001 Apr 10, The Dutch Senate legalized euthanasia gave doctors immunity from prosecution for assisting in the deaths of terminally ill patients.
(SFC, 4/11/01, p.C2)
2001 Jul 5, Scientists at Delft Univ. of Tech. in the Netherlands reported the creation of nanotechnology transistors built from a single molecule.
(SFC, 7/6/01, p.B3)
2001 Jul 12, Herman Brood (55), musician, jumped to his death from the roof of an Amsterdam hotel. He had recorded nearly 20 albums and had acted in Dutch films. In 1978 he made a hit with his single "Saturday Night."
(SFC, 7/13/01, p.D5)
2001 Aug 16, Col. Vidoje Blagojevic, former commander of Bratunac, pleaded innocent at the Hague war crimes tribunal for 1995 war crimes in Srebrenica. On January 17, 2005, Col. Vidoje Blagojevic became the second indictee to be convicted on Srebrenica Genocide charges and other human rights violations. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison. On May 9, 2007, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ruled that Col Blagojevic had not been complicit in the genocide at Srebrenica because he had not known his troops intended to commit it. Blagojevic’s sentence was reduced to 15 years.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.A14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre)
2001 A charge of 7 guilders was planned for motorists entering major cities in order to reduce traffic congestion.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.B8)
2001 KaZaA, an internet file-sharing program, was founded in Amsterdam by Niklas Zennstrom of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark. In 2004 they launched Skype software for internet telephony.
(Econ, 7/3/04, p.54)
2001-2005 Ruud Lubbers (b.1939), former Dutch prime minister (1982-1994), served as the head of the UNHCR.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.67)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruud_Lubbers)
2002 Jan 3, Alfred Henry Heineken (78), builder of a global beer brand, died in the Noordwijk. Freddie designed the green bottle and logo. In 1983 he was abducted for weeks and released unharmed.
(WSJ, 1/4/02, p.A1)(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A22)
2002 Feb 9, At the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Jochem Uytdehaage of the Netherlands won the gold medal in the men's 5,000-meter speedskating race in world record time of 6:14.66.
(AP, 2/9/03)
2002 Mar, In the Netherlands the Liveable Rotterdam Party catapulted Pim Fortuyn, its chief figurehead, onto the national stage. Fortuyn rode a wave of dissatisfaction over immigration, Islam and the elitism of the ruling Labor Party. He was shot to death May 6.
(Econ, 3/11/06, p.46)
2002 Apr 1, In the Netherlands the "Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act" entered into force.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_in_the_Netherlands)
2002 May 6, In the Netherlands Pim Fortuyn (54), a right-wing populist with an anti-immigrant platform, was shot to death in Hilversum. Volkert van der Graaf (32), an environmental activist, was arrested May 7 for the murder.
(SFC, 5/7/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/7/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/8/02, p.A17)
2002 May 15, Election results in the Netherlands showed the opposition Christian Democrats with a sizeable victory with 43 seats. List, the party of recently slain Pim Fortuyn, took 2nd place with 26 seats and named Mat Herben as leader. Jan Peter Balkenende, head of the Christian Democrats, was set to be PM. The ruling Labor Party won 23 of the 150 seats.
(WSJ, 5/16/02, p.A14)(SFC, 5/16/02, p.A8)(WSJ, 5/17/02, p.A1)
2002 May, Uganda began to fear that too much Western assistance might damage its economy by pushing up the value of its shilling. The phenomenon is called Dutch Disease because decades ago massive oil revenues in the Netherlands unsettled the exchange rates and left exports less competitive.
(WSJ, 5/29/02, p.A4)
2002 Jul 1, In the Hague the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal officially came into existence. It was vehemently opposed by the United States.
(AP, 7/1/02)
2002 Jul 17, Joseph Luns (90), foreign minister for 19 years, died. He had also served for 13 years as NATO sec. gen.
(SFC, 7/18/02, p.A26)
2002 Aug 30, In the Netherlands 8 men were detained for providing financial and logistical services to al Qaeda and for recruiting fighters.
(SFC, 9/3/02, p.A6)
2002 Oct 6, Prince Claus (76), the German-born husband of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, died in Amsterdam.
(AP, 10/6/03)
2002 Oct 16, The Dutch government collapsed amid infighting in the List party.
(WSJ, 10/17/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec, Two thieves broke in through the roof of the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and stole two paintings by van Gogh valued at $30 million. The men were convicted a year later. In 2016 the two paintings were recovered by Italian police investigating suspected Italian mobsters for cocaine trafficking. On March 21, 2017, they were put back on display.
(AP, 2/11/08)(AP, 3/21/17)
2003 Jan 13, Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer took over as head of the 55-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe for 2003. He said the Vienna-based OSCE would sharpen its efforts to improve border security and police cooperation and cut off the flow of cash to terrorist groups.
(AP, 1/13/03)
2003 Jan 22, In the Netherlands voters rejected an anti-immigration party and gave 44 seats to the Christian Democrats and 42 to the Labor party.
(SFC, 1/23/03, p.A10)
2003 Mar 2, Netherlands, the world’s 4th largest poultry exporter, discovered a bird flu in some its poultry for the 1st time in 30 years.
(WSJ, 3/6/03, p.A11)
2003 Mar 11, The 18-judge world court was inaugurated at the Hague. It had been approved Jul 17, 1998, by the Rome Treaty.
(SFC, 3/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 17, In the Netherlands a law went into effect that allowed pharmacies to fill prescriptions for marijuana.
(SFC, 3/18/03, p.A8)
2003 Apr 15, In the Netherlands, Volkert van der Graaf, the killer of politician Pim Fortuyn, was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
(AP, 4/15/08)
2003 Apr 17, A Dutch veterinarian (57) died from avian influenza 2 days after working on a farm where animals were infected with the bird flu. He was believed to be the 1st victim of the current epidemic.
(WSJ, 4/21/03, p.A10)
2003 May, Heineken paid $2.2 billion for BBAG, Austria's leading beer maker.
(Econ, 6/28/03, p.63)
2003 Jun 6, The Netherlands said it will send 1,100 peacekeepers to southern Iraq to join the British-led multinational stabilization force.
(AP, 6/7/03)
2003 Aug 29, The board of Air France approved a deal to combine with Dutch KLM under a holding company to form the world's #3 airline.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Sep 1, Marijuana went on sale Monday at Dutch pharmacies to help bring relief to thousands of patients suffering from cancer, AIDS or multiple sclerosis.
(AP, 9/1/03)
2003 Sep 22, NATO selected Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer as the alliance's new secretary general.
(AP, 9/22/03)
2003 Oct 27, Prosecutors in the Netherlands said Momir Nikolic (48), a Bosnian Serb captain who admitted participating in the mass killing of more than 7,000 Muslim boys and men in Srebrenica, should serve up to 20 years in prison. Nikolic accepted that he was on duty when 80-100 prisoners were decapitated and their corpses loaded onto trucks on July 12, 1995. In 2006 a UN appeals court reduced his 27-year sentence to 20 years.
(AP, 10/28/03)(AP, 3/8/06)
2003 Dec 12, Three Dutch Protestant churches formally agreed to put aside their ideological differences and merge, the culmination of a process that began more than 40 years ago.
(AP, 12/12/03)
2003 Dec 23, The Dutch National Flu Center said more than 15 of every 10,000 Dutch citizens have flu symptoms, enough to qualify the current outbreak as an epidemic.
(AP, 12/23/03)
2003 The Groningen Academic Hospital in Amsterdam, Netherlands, carried out 4 mercy killings of terminally ill newborn children in this year. In 2004 the hospital proposed guidelines for such procedures.
(SFC, 12/1/04, p.A17)
2004 Jan 5, Dutchman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer took over as NATO's top official.
(AP, 1/5/04)
2004 Jan 13, The European Commission proposed an initiative aimed at creating a single market for services within the European Union (EU), similar to the single market for goods act of 1986. It came to be known as Bolkestein Directive after the Dutch Commissioner Frits Bolkestein (b.1933), who launched it. Trade unions opposed it. On 16 February 2006, the European Parliament in plenary session in Strasbourg voted in favor of a compromise proposal that went a long way towards meeting the trade union demands.
(www.etuc.org/a/499)
2004 Jan 13, A Dutch high school student walked into his school's crowded cafeteria and shot Hans van Wieren (49), an economics teacher, point-blank in the head, fatally wounding him.
(AP, 1/13/04)
2004 Feb 17, The Dutch parliament approved a measure to expel 26,000 people seeking political asylum, despite objections from left-leaning political parties and human rights groups.
(AP, 2/17/04)
2004 Mar 20, Former Netherlands Queen Juliana (94), who presided over the dismantling of the centuries-old Dutch empire and witnessed the birth of a social revolution during her 32-year reign (1948-1980, died.
(AP, 3/20/04)(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.B7)
2004 Apr 11, Arjan Erkel, A Dutch aid worker who headed the North Caucasus mission of Medecins Sans Frontieres and was kidnapped in Russia nearly two years ago, was freed in a police operation in Dagestan.
(AP, 4/11/04)
2004 Jul 2, The Dutch government backed plans for "seals of quality" for well-run brothels and standard contracts for prostitutes, as well as more support for those who want to leave the world's oldest profession.
(Reuters, 7/2/04)
2004 Aug 29, Hans Vonk (63), Dutch conductor, died in Amsterdam.
(SFC, 9/1/04, p.B7)
2004 Oct, Some 200,000 people demonstrated in Amsterdam against government reforms planned by the Christian-Democrat coalition under PM Jan Peter Balkenende.
(Econ, 10/9/04, p.47)
2004 Nov 2, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh (47), the great-grandnephew of the painter Vincent, was shot and stabbed to death on an Amsterdam street after receiving death threats over “Submission," a movie he made criticizing the treatment of women under Islam. A death threat to a Dutch politician was found pinned with a knife to Gogh’s body by his Islamic attacker. Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali collaborated with Van Gogh on the film. In January prosecutors said Mohammed Bouyeri (26), the alleged killer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, ignored his victim's pleas for mercy and calmly shot him at close range before slitting his throat. In his trial in July, 2005, Bouyeri said he killed van Gogh for insulting God. In 2006 Ian Buruma authored “Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance," an account of the van Gogh murder.
(AP, 1/26/05)(SFC, 7/13/05, p.A10)(WSJ, 9/9/06, p.P8)(Econ, 9/2/06, p.74)
2004 Nov 10, Dutch police mounted a major anti-terror raid against suspects holed up in an apartment in The Hague. 2 men were arrested following a daylong siege. Jason Walters (b.1985) was arrested along with Ismail Akhnikh after a massive 14 hour siege in The Hague. In 2010 Walters, while serving a 15-year sentence said he has renounced Islamic radicalism.
(AP, 11/10/04)(SFC, 11/11/04, p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Walters)
2004 Nov 12, Dutch police raided a suspected Kurdish separatist training camp in a small village in the southern Netherlands, arresting 29 people. 38 members of the group were arrested nationwide. Jason Walters threw a hand grenade and injured several police officers in a standoff at a barricaded house in The Hague. Walters was one of 7 men later convicted for belonging to a terrorist group associated with Mohammed Bouyeri, who killed filmmaker Theo van Gogh on Nov 2. In 2008 Their conviction was overturned, but a 15-year sentence against Walters was upheld. The court also reduced the sentence for Ismail Aknikh, who was with Walters during the standoff, from 13 years to 15 months.
(AFP, 11/12/04)(SFC, 11/13/04, p.A18)(AP, 1/23/08)
2004 Dec 1, Prince Bernhard (93), father of Queen Beatrix, died in Utrecht. It was soon reported that he had acknowledged in a series of secret interviews 2 illegitimate children and the acceptance of bribes in 1976 from Lockheed to persuade the Dutch government to purchase its planes. The money was reportedly passed to charities.
(SFC, 12/15/04, p.A12)
2004 Frits Hoekstra, a former Dutch security official authored “In the Service of the BVD" (In Dienst van de BVD), a book on Dutch secret service operations. It included an account of “Project Mongol," the use of a mock Maoist movement to gather intelligence during the cold war, which the CIA called “Operation Red herring."
(WSJ, 12/3/04, p.A1)
2004 Geert Mak (b.1946), Dutch journalist, authored “In Europe: Travels through the Twentieth Century." An updated version in English was published in 2007.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.96)
2005 Jan 1, Netherlands was forecast for 2% annual GDP growth with a population at 16.4 million and GDP per head at $38,950.
(Econ, 1/1/05, p.89)
2005 Feb 20, Ruud Lubbers, former prime minister of the Netherlands, was forced to resign as UN High Commissioner for Refugees in a sexual harassment scandal. Lubbers maintained his innocences.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruud_Lubbers)(SSFC, 2/18/18, p.C12)
2005 Feb 25, In the Netherlands diamonds and jewelry valued at $72 million (67 million euros) were taken during the hold up of a KLM armored car in a high-security portion of Schiphol airport. Part of the loot was quickly recovered from a getaway car, but diamonds worth $43 million remained missing. In January, 2017, seven suspects were arrested.
(AP, 1/21/17)
2005 Mar 30, Dutch bank ABN Amro announced a 6.3 billion euros ($8.1 billion) bid for the 87 percent of Italian bank Antonveneta it does not already own, the second foreign offer for an Italian bank in as many days.
(AP, 3/30/05)
2005 Apr 19, Dutch authorities arrested a Chechen citizen in the Netherlands in connection with the November 2 slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. A 2nd suspect was arrested May 18 in Tours, France. Both were believed to have ties to a group of Islamic fundamentalists which prosecutors dubbed the Hofstad network.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 May 8, President Bush paid homage in the Netherlands to the "terrible price" paid by World War II soldiers who never came home from their fight against tyranny.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 Jun 1, Dutch voters worried about social benefits and immigration overwhelmingly rejected the European Union constitution in what could be a knockout blow for a charter meant to create a power rivaling the United States. Slow economic growth in the Netherlands was seen as a key reason for the massive rejection of the EU constitution
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 Jun 6, The International Criminal Court at the Hague formally announced the opening of a war crimes investigation in Sudan's Darfur region after receiving a list of 51 potential suspects from UN.
(AP, 6/6/05)
2005 Jun 9, In the Netherlands thousands of civil servants went on strike to protest declining social benefits and low wages.
(WSJ, 6/10/05, p.A6)
2005 Jun, In the Netherlands Nouriddin el Fahtni, an Islamic radical, was arrested with a loaded machine. His group was linked with the so-called "Hofstad." In 2011 a court found that Fahtni's 8-year sentence was longer than allowed by law and reduced it to 7 years and four months. His ex-wife, Soumaya Sahla, tried to get her sister, who worked at a pharmacy, to give her the home addresses of Dutch politicians. Allegedly she intended to supply the addresses to other group members who planned attacks.
(AP, 11/15/11)
2005 Jul 11, The Dutch market research firm, VNU, announced its acquisition of IMS Health, the leading supplier of research to pharmaceutical firms, for $7 billion.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.60)
2005 Jul 12, Mohammed Bouyeri, a Muslim extremist on trial in the slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, unexpectedly confessed in court, saying he was driven by religious conviction. Bouyeri was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2005 Jul 26, A Dutch court sentenced Mohammed Bouyeri (27), the killer of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, to life in prison. He was linked to the “Hofstad Group," some of whom were accused of wild plans to blow up Schiphol airport, the Dutch parliament and a nuclear reactor.
(AP, 7/26/05)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.13)
2005 Jul 27, The US charged Iraqi-born Wasem al Delaema (32), a Dutch citizen, with conspiring to kill Americans in Iraq and asked the Dutch government to extradite him for prosecution. Authorities alleged al Delaema was one of several men calling themselves the Fighters of Fallujah who plotted attacks near that Iraqi city in October 2003. In 2010 a Dutch court reduced his sentenced to 8 years and released him.
(AP, 7/30/05)(AP, 10/13/10)
2005 Jul 30, Wim Duisenberg (b.1935), Dutch-born first chief of the European Central Bank who helped create the euro currency, was found dead at a home in southeastern France.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Aug 3, Dutch authorities seized 5 tons of cocaine, valued at $275 million, hidden in reels of steel cable in the Port of Rotterdam in what was described as one of the country's biggest drug busts. 13 suspects (aged 15-50) from the Netherlands, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Greece and the US, were arrested later.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 12, Armed men broke into an upscale Amsterdam home and kidnapped Claudia Melchers (37), the daughter of a millionaire whose fortune came from selling chemicals, including to Iraq in the 1980s. Her children were left unharmed. The kidnappers demanded 660 pounds of cocaine. Melchers was released 2 days later. It was not clear whether any ransom was paid.
(AP, 9/13/05)(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 13, The Dutch government said it plans to open an electronic file, effective Jan 1, 2007, on every child at birth as a tool to spot and protect the troubled kids of the future.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 26, Dutch bank ABN Amro said it had signed a contract with Banca Popolare Italiana and its allies to buy their 39.37 percent stake in Banca Antonveneta for a total outlay of 3.2 billion euros (3.85 billion dollars).
(AP, 9/26/05)
2005 Sep 27, Andre Rieu introduced violinist, Akim Camara (b.10/27/2001), during his 'Flying Dutchman Concert' at Parkstad Stadium in the Netherlands. Akim played Concerto G Major op.11 with the Johan Strauss Orchestra.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akim_Camara)
2005 Sep 28, In Australia a team from Holland, known more for its windmills than its sunshine, won a four-day, 1,860 mile, international solar-powered car race across deserts, notching up their third straight victory. The "Challenge," to design and build a car capable of crossing Australia on the power of daylight, was launched in 1987 and teams and individuals from corporations and universities throughout the world take part.
(AP, 9/29/05)
2005 Sep, Philips Corp. unveiled new LED technology for consumer lighting in Paris.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.58)
2005 Oct 6, A UN official said the International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued arrest warrants for Joseph Kony and 5 henchmen of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan cult notorious for raping, maiming and killing children.
(Reuters, 10/6/05)(Econ, 10/22/05, p.48)
2005 Oct 12, A Dutch court blocked the extradition of a Dutch terror suspect to the United States, saying his legal rights in U.S. custody could not be guaranteed.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 14, Dutch police detained seven suspects in an anti-terrorism operation in three cities, including the capital, aimed at thwarting a suspected plot to attack politicians and a government building.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 17, Dutch police arrested 45 members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang and seized an assortment of weapons during nationwide raids on the group's clubhouses. Prosecutors said those arrested face charges of murder, extortion, intimidation and weapons and drug trafficking.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 27, In the Netherlands a fire roared through a prison complex at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, killing 11 illegal immigrants awaiting deportation and injuring 15 other people.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Nov 1, A trade union said a strike at the Dutch operations of Royal Dutch Shell PLC over pensions will be broadened to include the company's natural-gas production in the north of the Netherlands.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 14, It was reported that India's top oil exploration firm Oil & Natural Gas Corp. and the world's largest steel maker, the Netherlands-based Mittal Group, plan to build an oil refinery in Nigeria. They offered to invest another $6 billion in building a power plant and railroads there.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 18, A Dutch television show claimed to have knocked down a chain of 4,155,476 dominoes in a new world record, but organizers conceded the event was overshadowed by the earlier shooting of an errant sparrow. The bird caused some 23,000 dominoes to fall on Nov 14. The record was later adjusted to 4,002,146 after a legal expert ruled that a person had illegally caused 153,340 dominoes to fall.
(AP, 11/18/05)(SFC, 11/23/05, p.A2)(www.dodemus.nl/)
2005 Dec 2, In the Netherlands a broad coalition of political parties unveiled a pilot program to regulate marijuana farming on the model of tobacco, which opponents say would be tantamount to legalizing growing the drug.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 5, Frits Philips (100), Dutch businessman, grandson of the founder of Philips, died. He turned a family business into Philips Electronics in 40 years of leadership.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/dfnu4)
2005 Dec 7, The Hague war crimes tribunal sentenced Miroslav Bralo (aka Cicko), a former Bosnian Croat soldier, to 20 years in jail on eight counts of war crimes and human rights abuses committed during the 1993 Muslim-Croat war in central Bosnia.
(Reuters, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 16, A Dutch court sentenced Henk Slebos, a Dutch businessman who oversaw the sale of dual-use nuclear technology to Pakistan (1999-2002), to a year prison.
(AP, 12/16/05)
2005 Dec 19, US federal authorities fined Dutch bank ABN Amro Holding NV $80 million for violating US money-laundering laws and sanctions against Iran and Libya. Nearly a decade of violations involved billions in transactions passing through bank offices in NY and Dubai, UAR.
(WSJ, 12/20/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 22, The Dutch government said it planned to send up to 1,400 additional troops to Afghanistan for expanded NATO peacekeeping.
(AP, 12/22/05)
2005 Dec 23, In the Netherlands a court jailed Frans van Anraat (63), a Dutch businessman, for 15 years after finding him guilty of complicity in war crimes for selling chemicals to Iraq used to carry out gas attacks, but acquitted him of genocide charges.
(Reuters, 12/23/05)
2005 In the Netherlands the fiercely anti-immigrant Freedom Party (PVV) was founded.
(Econ, 8/11/12, p.45)
2006 Jan 19, Lifeline Systems Inc. announced that it has signed a definitive merger agreement with Royal Philips Electronics under which Philips will acquire Lifeline, a leader in personal emergency response services. Royal Philips Electronics NV paid $750 million for Massachusetts based Lifeline.
(WSJ, 1/11/07, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/334w4c)
2006 Jan, In the Hague Col. Vidoje Blagojevic (56), Bosnian Serb wartime commander of the Bratunac brigade, was convicted of war crimes and complicity in genocide by the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal. In 2007 an appeals panel overturned the charge of complicity in genocide.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2006 Feb 1, In Amsterdam an experimental ban on smoking marijuana went into effect intended to reduce loitering and petty crime. “No toking" signs appeared as part of the ban on the street in "De Baarsjes," one of the city's poorer neighborhoods. Amsterdam soon began selling the "no toking" signs to prevent the official ones from being stolen as collector's items.
(AP, 2/4/06)
2006 Feb 3, Foreign Minister Ben Bot said Netherlands will send 1,200 additional troops to Afghanistan, the day after parliament gave the green light to the deployment.
(AP, 2/3/06)
2006 Feb 9, Some 58 containers were swept from the P&O Nedlloyd ship Mondriaan, which got caught in a storm about 9 miles off the coast of the island of Terschelling, in the North Sea. The next day thousands of tennis shoes, aluminum briefcases and children's toys washed onto the beach of a Dutch island, drawing crowds of treasure-hunting residents.
(AP, 2/10/06)
2006 Feb 14, Bilal Lamrani (21), a Dutch Muslim, was sentenced to three years in prison for plotting murder and attempting to recruit prison inmates to carry out terrorist attacks.
(AP, 2/14/06)
2006 Feb 24, Japan suspended all French poultry imports and threatened a similar ban on the Netherlands following reported cases of H5N1 bird flu.
(Reuters, 2/25/06)
2006 Feb 27, In the Netherlands the International Court of Justice heard arguments by Bosnia accusing Serbia of genocide, the first time a state has faced trial for humanity's worst crime.
(AP, 2/27/06)
2006 Mar 5, Milan Babic (50), the Serb leader of a rebel republic in Croatia and one of the key figures in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, committed suicide in prison in the Netherlands.
(AP, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 10, A Netherlands court convicted 9 Muslims of belonging to a terrorist group because they incited hatred for non-Muslims. Among the defendants was Mohammed Bouyeri, the convicted killer of filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
(AP, 3/10/06)
2006 Mar 11, In the Netherlands former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic (b.1941), the so-called "butcher of the Balkans" being tried for war crimes after orchestrating a decade of bloodshed during his country's breakup, was found dead in his prison cell. Milosevic spent nearly five years at a UN detention facility in Scheveningen, a suburb of The Hague. An autopsy showed that he died of a heart attack. A Dutch toxicologist said he took unprescribed pills that neutralized heart medication.
(SFC, 3/13/06, p.A3)(WSJ, 3/14/06, p.A1)(Econ, 3/18/06, p.83)
2006 Mar 15, In the Netherlands 2 Bosnian Muslim army commanders were convicted of war crimes for failing to rein in foreign Muslim volunteers who murdered and tortured Bosnian Croats and Serbs in a 1990s "holy war."
(AP, 3/16/06)
2006 Mar 17, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a Congolese militia leader accused of conscripting and enlisting children aged under 15 for warfare (1998-2002), became the first suspect sent for trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands.
(Reuters, 3/17/06)(WSJ, 3/18/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 21, Royal Dutch Shell said it paid $465 million Canadian dollars for the rights to explore 219,000 acres in Alberta’s oil sands.
(WSJ, 3/22/06, p.A14)
2006 Mar 22, In the Netherlands an appeals chamber of the UN war crimes court dropped the life sentence of Bosnian Serb Milomir Stakic and instead sentenced him to 40 years for overseeing detention camps in Bosnia.
(AFP, 3/22/06)
2006 Mar 27, The Dutch Equal Treatment Commission ruled that a Muslim woman who refuses to shake men's hands for religious reasons cannot be barred from a Dutch teacher-training program.
(AP, 3/28/06)
2006 Apr 19, US Immigration agents arrested 7 executives and 1,187 illegal immigrants employed by IFCO Systems, a Netherlands-based manufacturer of crates and pallets, as part of a crackdown on employers of illegal workers.
(AP, 4/19/06)(SFC, 4/21/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 27, A Dutch agency said the number of reported cases of legal euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide in the Netherlands increased in 2005 for the third year in a row. Doctors reported 1,933 cases in 2005, up from 1,886 in 2004 and 1,815 in 2003.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 May 8, In the Hague the UN war crimes court sentenced Ivica Rajic, a Bosnian Croat former militia leader, to 12 years in prison. Rajic admitted that forces under his command operating in the Muslim village of Stupni Do in central Bosnia in October 1993 "forced Bosnian Muslim civilians out of their homes and hiding places, robbed them of their valuables, willfully killed Muslim men, women and children and sexually assaulted Muslim women".
(AFP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 16, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born member of Parliament, said she will resign and leave Holland after the government said she was improperly granted citizenship. She became an internationally known opponent of some violent types of Islam.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 17, Under withering criticism, the Dutch immigration minister Rita Verdonk agreed to rethink her threat to revoke the citizenship of a Somali-born former lawmaker known for her opposition to fundamentalist Islam.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 22, A court found the former chief executive and chief financial officer of Dutch retailer Royal Ahold NV guilty of fraud, but ruled the pair will not have to serve prison time.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 23, The Dutch parliament approved new anti-terrorism measures that make it easier to arrest suspects without strong evidence and hold them longer without charge.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 31, Dutch pedophiles registered a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage.
(Reuters, 5/31/06)
2006 Jun 6, The Spanish interior ministry said that 67 suspects had been arrested for accessing child porn on the Internet over the past five days. The international police operation arrested 38 in France, 10 in Spain, 9 in Slovakia, 7 in Belgium and 3 in the Netherlands.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 7, A Dutch court convicted Guus Kouwenhoven (64) of violating a UN arms embargo imposed on the regime of former Liberian President Charles Taylor and sentenced him to eight years in prison. The court found that he had traded guns for timber rights and used his lumber company to smuggle weapons that were later used by militias to commit atrocities against civilians in West Africa.
(AP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 16, A Russian state vodka company won Stolichnaya brand rights back from a Dutch firm.
(WSJ, 6/17/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 27, Netherlands’ Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk reversed a politically divisive decision of six weeks earlier, when she announced Hirsi Ali's 1997 naturalization was invalid because she lied on her asylum application.
(AP, 6/28/06)
2006 Jun 30, The Dutch PM Jan Peter Balkenende and his Cabinet resigned after a split in its ranks over the citizenship case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a prominent Somali-born critic of Islam.
(AP, 6/30/07)
2006 Jul 21, The Netherlands’ military chief said Dutch commandos had killed 18 enemy fighters who set up positions in rugged hills overlooking a Dutch camp in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 7/21/06)
2006 Jul 28, Dutch retail giant Ahold has announced that its 1.1 billion-dollar (941,000-euro) settlement with US and Dutch investors over the company's accounting scandal that broke in 2003 and sent share prices plummeting, is now final.
(AFP, 7/29/06)
2006 Aug 1, Dutch Cardinal Johannes Willebrands (96), a key figure in the Roman Catholic Church's efforts to improve relations with other Christians and Jews, died.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 7, Dutch police arrested a Rwandan immigrant, identified as Joseph M. (38), and charged him with war crimes and torture for his alleged role in the 1994 genocide that tore apart his home country.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Aug 17, An outbreak of strain of bluetongue, a disease transmitted to sheep by insects but which is not contagious nor known to affect humans, was detected in the southern Netherlands. Belgium and Germany soon reported cases.
(AFP, 8/28/06)
2006 Aug 19, In Ivory Coast waste, which contained hydrogen sulphide, was unloaded from a Panamanian-registered ship, the Probo Koala, at Abidjan port and then dumped in at least eight open air sites, including the city's main rubbish dump. By mid-September 6 people had died and 16,000 had sought treatment. Dutch-based Trafigura Beheer BV, one of the world's leading commodities traders, said it had chartered the ship and said the material was a "mixture of gasoline, water and caustic washings" following the unloading of a cargo of gasoline in Nigeria. The sludge was later blamed for killing 15 people and sickening 100,000 more. In 2009 Greenpeace said it had obtained internal e-mails and other documents that show Trafigura Beheer BV executives were aware the sludge was hazardous.
(Reuters, 9/7/06)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.58)(AP, 9/17/09)
2006 Aug 28, In the Netherlands prosecutors at the International Criminal Court filed their first indictment, charging Thomas Lubanga, a former Congolese warlord, for allegedly abducting and recruiting children as young as 10 to fight in Congo's brutal civil war.
(AP, 8/29/06)
2006 Sep 27, At the Hague, Netherlands, a UN tribunal sentenced Momcilio Krajisnik (61), the former speaker of the Bosnian Serb parliament, to 27 years in prison for war crimes, but acquitted him of the harsher charge of genocide.
(AP, 9/27/06)
2006 Oct 20, Corus, an Anglo-Dutch steel-maker, accepted an $8.1 billion buyout bid from Tata Steel, a smaller Indian firm.
(Econ, 10/28/06, p.74)
2006 Nov 4, Swathes of Austria, Belgium, Croatia, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands and went dark for up to an hour in the late evening as cold Germans rushing to switch on heaters sucked up electricity from Europe's interconnected networks.
(AP, 11/5/06)
2006 Nov 6, In the Netherlands 6 people were arrested on suspicion of recruiting volunteers for jihad, or Islamic holy war, prosecutors said after a year-long investigation.
(AFP, 11/7/06)
2006 Nov 22, Dutch voters picked a new parliament in an election that could determine whether the country's tight immigration rules get even tougher or follow what the opposition calls a more humane path. Dutch PM Jan Peter Balkenende’s center-right Christian Democrats won the most seats in elections, but nearly complete returns showed a sharply splintered parliament with no alliance winning a clear mandate to govern.
(AP, 11/22/06)(AP, 11/23/06)(Econ, 11/25/06, p.50)
2006 Nov 30, Amsterdam city officials said they are shutting down nearly a third of the 350 prostitution "windows" in the famed Red Light District as part of a crackdown on crime.
(AP, 11/30/06)
2006 Dec 1, In the Netherlands a court convicted four Dutch Muslims of plotting terrorist attacks against political leaders and government buildings and sentenced them to up to eight years in prison. A man in a hooded coat killed an 8-year-old boy in the corridor of a Dutch grade school. Police said they arrested a 22-year-old suspect.
(AP, 12/1/06)
2006 Dec 4, Against a backdrop of protests, the defense minister gave citations to Dutch troops who served in the UN peacekeeping force that failed to prevent the slaughter of Muslims in the Srebrenica enclave during the Bosnian war.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 11, The Netherlands ended transmission of "free to air" analog television, becoming the first nation to switch completely to digital signals.
(AP, 12/11/06)
2006 Daniel Estulin, Lithuanian-born writer, authored "The Secrets of the Bilderberg Club," in which he argues that the international Bilderberg group largely runs the world. It has held a secretive annual forum of prominent politicians, thinkers and businessmen since it was founded in 1954 at the Bilderberg Hotel in Holland. Estulin published a second book, Los secretos del club Bilderberg, released in September 2006. The English version, The Secrets of the Bilderberg Club, was released in the US on September 22, 2007.
(AP, 8/19/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Estulin)
2006 Some 2,000 Netherlands’ forces took control of Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province.
(Econ, 3/14/09, p.48)
2000 Rembrandt’s “Portrait of a Lady" (1632) was sold in London to Dutch art dealer Robert Noortman (1946-2007) for $28.6 million.
(WSJ, 1/27/06, p.A6)
2006 The $100-million Betuwe Line, a high-speed freight line from Rotterdam to Germany, was expected to be completed at a cost of some $5.87 billion.
(WSJ, 11/3/04, p.A12)
2007 Jan 27, The Netherlands' government extradited Iraqi-born Wesam al Delaema (32), a naturalized Dutch citizen, to the US. He was charged with involvement in terror attacks on US troops in Iraq. In 2009 Delaema was sentenced in Washington DC to 25 years in prison. His actual term was up to the Netherlands. In 2010 a court in Rotterdam slashed the sentence to eight years and released him for time served.
(AP, 1/28/07)(SFC, 4/17/09, p.A6)(AP, 10/13/10)
2007 Feb 6, Dutch media reported that the parties of the incoming centre-left Dutch government agreed to grant amnesty for some 30,000 failed asylum seekers who came to the Netherlands before April 2001.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 13, Officials in the Ivory Coast said that Trafigura, a Dutch-based oil trading company, agreed to pay $197 million to secure the release of three executives from an Ivory Coast prison and settle claims that it dumped toxic waste that killed at least 10 people in the West African nation.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 27, The International Criminal Court's prosecutor in Netherlands named Ahmed Muhammed Harun, a former Sudanese junior minister, and Ali Mohammed Ali Abd-al-Rahmann (aka Ali Kushayb), a janjaweed leader, as suspects in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. Sudan rejected the legitimacy of the ICC, insisting it would try Darfur war criminals.
(Reuters, 2/27/07)(AFP, 2/27/07)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.55)
2007 Mar 5, Kosovo's former PM Ramush Haradinaj went on trial in the Netherlands at the UN tribunal on war crimes charges related to his time as a guerrilla leader in the war against Serb forces between 1998-99. Haradinaj, a former regional commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), resigned as prime minister in 2005 after being indicted for murder, rape and torture allegedly committed by forces under his command.
(Reuters, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 6, Dutch judges ruled that a chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang is not a criminal organization, rejecting prosecutors' attempts to have the group outlawed.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 8, The Netherlands said it has ratified an accord to open to a long-secret archive of Nazi death camp records in Germany, another step toward giving scholars access to a vast collection of historically invaluable Holocaust documents.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 12, New Jersey based Schering-Plough Corp. said it will buy the pharmaceuticals division of Akzo Nobel NV for 11 billion euros ($14.5 billion) in cash, acquiring the Organon brand of birth control and strengthening its drug pipeline with an anti-schizophrenia medication.
(AP, 3/12/07)
2007 Mar 21, In Afghanistan Dutch ministers urged the Afghan government to step up its presence and development in the troubled south, where Taliban insurgents are most entrenched, saying NATO cannot do it alone.
(AFP, 3/21/07)
2007 Apr 13, In Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ordered that Michel Bagaragaza, the former head of Rwanda's national tea industry who is accused of involvement in the mass slaughter, be tried by a court in the Netherlands.
(AFP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 18, Scientists in the Netherlands said they have discovered a fungus in elephant dung that will help them break down fibers and wood into biofuel.
(Reuters, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 20, In southern Afghanistan separate explosions killed two NATO soldiers. A Dutch soldier was killed in one explosion, the first fatality from hostile action among Dutch troops serving with NATO forces in the country.
(AP, 4/20/07)
2007 Apr 23, British bank Barclays Plc has agreed to buy Dutch rival ABN AMRO for about 67 billion euros ($91 billion) in shares as it attempts to fight off rivals to clinch the world's biggest bank takeover.
(Reuters, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 25, Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis, a Belgian-Dutch lender and Santander of Spain launched a blockbuster 72-billion-euro takeover battle for Dutch group ABN Amro, outgunning by far an agreed offer by Barclays.
(AFP, 4/25/07)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.85)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.84)
2007 May 1, Thirty people were arrested in raids across Belgium, England, and the Netherlands targeting suspected animal rights extremists.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 2, The International Criminal Court in the Hague said it has issued arrest warrants for the Sudanese government's humanitarian affairs minister and a janjaweed militia leader suspected of committing war crimes in Darfur.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 18, In the Netherlands a 400-pound gorilla escaped from his enclosure and ran amok in a Rotterdam zoo, biting one woman, dragging her around, and causing panic among dozens of visitors before he was finally subdued.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 26, The newly installed Dutch government said some 25,000 asylum-seekers whose applications for refuge were rejected will be allowed to stay, reversing the previous administration's hardline immigration policy. The amnesty will apply to asylum-seekers who arrived before April 1, 2001 and were found not to qualify but who remained in the country anyway.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 30, It was reported that coffee shops licensed to sell marijuana in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht will begin fingerprinting customers and scanning their IDs this summer to help prove they're following rules governing such sales.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 31, The Dutch news agency ANP reported that almost half of Rotterdam's coffee shops will be forced to stop selling cannabis because they are too close to secondary schools.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 Jun 3, Some 2,000 men and women participated in a series of four nude group photos in Amsterdam in the early hours of the morning as part of the latest project of US photographer Spencer Tunick.
(AP, 6/3/07)
2007 Jun 3, Pope Benedict XVI named four new saints from France, Malta, the Netherlands and Poland at a ceremony in St. Peter's Square. Among those honored was Sister Marie Eugenie de Jesus Milleret, a French nun who in 1839 founded the Religious of the Assumption to educate young girls; the Rev. George Preca of Malta, who founded the Society of Christian Doctrine in 1932 as a group of lay people who teach the faith to others; the Rev. Szymon z Lipnicy of Poland, a Franciscan monk who comforted Poles afflicted by the plague that broke out in Krakow from 1482-83 and died of it himself; and the Rev. Charles of St. Andrew (Dublin), who was born Karel Van Sint Andries Houben in the Netherlands in 1821.
(AP, 6/3/07)
2007 Jun 4, Thousands of survivors of Europe's worst massacre since World War II filed a lawsuit against the UN and the Dutch government for their failure to protect civilians in the Srebrenica safe haven when Bosnian Serb forces overran it in 1995 and slaughtered some 8,000 men.
(AP, 6/4/07)
2007 Jun 6, It was reported that Dutch students have developed powdered alcohol which they say can be sold legally to minors. The latest innovation in inebriation, called Booz2Go, is available in 20-gramme packets that cost 1-1.5 euros ($1.35-$2). Alcohol powder, classified as a flavoring, was sold in the United States three years ago.
(Reuters, 6/6/07)
2007 Jun 11, In the Netherlands an international conference on endangered species banned almost all trade in sawfish, large shark-like rays, whose long snouts bristling with teeth are in high demand among collectors.
(AP, 6/11/07)
2007 Jun 12, In the Netherlands the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted Milan Martic (52), a wartime leader of Croatia's rebel Serbs, of murder, torture and persecution and sentenced him to 35 years in prison for the 1991-1995 brutal ethnic cleansing campaign of non-Serbs in Croatia.
(AP, 6/12/07)(WSJ, 6/13/07, p.A1)
2007 Jun 14, In the Netherlands four African states (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe), after an 18-year ban, were allowed to put their ivory stocks on the market in a one-time sale as part of a hard-fought compromise reached with other Africans who tried to block the sale. The 171-member Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, approved the deal by consensus.
(AP, 6/14/07)
2007 Jun 20, A Dutch government-funded agency said China has overtaken the United States as the top emitter of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, because of surging energy use amid an economic boom. However consumption and emission levels per head remained a mere fraction of America’s.
(AP, 6/20/07)(Econ, 6/13/09, p.45)
2007 Jun 25, In the Netherlands former Liberian president Charles Taylor boycotted the resumption of his war crimes trial.
(AP, 6/25/07)
2007 Jul 12, Authorities announced a major crackdown on organized crime in Amsterdam's Red Light District, for the first time bringing national police investigators and tax authorities to bear on what had long been seen as a local problem.
(AP, 7/13/07)
2007 Aug 2, In the Netherlands Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch maker of consumer goods and food products, announced that it would cut 20,000 jobs worldwide, 11 percent of its total workforce, over the next four years.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 10, A Dutch cruise ship rescued 14 African migrants after their boat capsized in rough Mediterranean waters as they tried to reach Europe, while authorities searched for 11 other passengers who were feared drowned.
(AP, 8/11/07)
2007 Aug 13, AkzoNobel, a Dutch chemicals group under Hans Wijers, made a cash offer for the British firm ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) under John McAdam for $16 billion. The deal turned Akzo into the world’s biggest maker of paints.
(Econ, 10/04/08, p.72)(www.ici.com/main/cms/cmRender.asp?i=2162)
2007 Aug 17, The UN announced that the Netherlands has agreed to host the tribunal that will prosecute suspects in the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 8/17/07)
2007 Aug 27, An official said the Dutch government will spend $38 million over the next four years to prevent both the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and right-wing nationalism.
(AP, 8/27/07)
2007 Aug 28, Jose Maria Sison (68), a Philippine communist leader, accused of commanding a rebel uprising from exile for more than 20 years was arrested by Dutch police in Utrecht on suspicion of ordering the murder of two former allies in his home country. He was accused of ordering the killings in 2003 and 2004 of Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara, who were gunned down in the Philippines.
(AP, 8/29/07)
2007 Aug, Dutch schools were forced to offer afternoon child-care following a government effort to get house-bound Dutch mothers to work.
(Econ, 9/8/07, p.55)
2007 Sep 8, In the Netherlands Carlos Hartmann (41), of Tecumseh, Mich., killed Thijs Geers (22), a Dutch student, on a train platform in the southern city of Roosendaal. Hartmann hoped to punish the Netherlands for its government's support of the war in Iraq and confessed to axing the student to death after failing to find a soldier to kill.
(AP, 9/11/07)
2007 Sep 26, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema (b.1917), the Dutch World War II resistance hero better known as the "Soldier of Orange," died at his home in Hawaii. His fame in the Netherlands leaped after he published his book, "Soldaat van Oranje" (Soldier of Orange) in 1971. He became known outside the country after the book was made into a film of the same name by director Paul Verhoeven in 1977, starring Rutger Hauer in the title role.
(AP, 9/29/07)(SFC, 10/9/07, p.B4)
2007 Oct 3, A Dutch court rejected a prosecution appeal against the release of Philippine communist leader Jose Maria Sison, accused of being involved in murders in the Philippines.
(AFP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 4, Dutch authorities said their customs officers had found 100 dead beetles stuffed with cocaine whilst examining a parcel from Peru.
(Reuters, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 12, The Netherlands said it will ban the sale of hallucinogenic mushrooms, rolling back one element of the country's permissive drug policy after a teenager on a school visit jumped to her death after taking the narcotic.
(AP, 10/12/07)
2007 Oct 13, Dutch police arrested 11 Greenpeace activists who boarded a cargo ship to stop it unloading newsprint paper they suspected was made from ancient trees felled in Canadian forests.
(AP, 10/13/07)
2007 Oct 8, A consortium of Belgian, Scotch and Spanish banks announced that shareholders of ABN AMRO, a Dutch bank, had accepted a $101 billion offer in the world’s biggest banking transaction ever.
(Econ, 10/13/07, p.17)
2007 Oct 30, Nordin Benallal (27), a Belgian gangster dubbed "The Eel" for his skill at slipping away from Belgian prison authorities, was caught in the Netherlands two days after his latest jailbreak.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Nov 26, High school students clashed with riot police in Amsterdam and demonstrated in cities across the Netherlands to protest a national increase in classroom hours.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 26, Amsterdam based Royal Philips Electronics announced the purchase of Genlyte Group, based in Louisville, Kentucky, for $2.7 billion. The deal made Philips the biggest lighting firm in the American market.
(www.newscenter.philips.com/about/news/press/20071126.page)
2007 Nov, Geert Wilders, Dutch member of Parliament, revealed plans to air on television an expose of the wickedness of the Koran.
(Econ, 2/9/08, p.57)
2007 Dec 12, The UN Yugoslav war crimes tribunal at The Hague sentenced former Bosnian Serb general Dragomir Milosevic (b.1942) to 33 years imprisonment for the shelling of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war, one of the court's toughest sentences. In 2009 UN judges trimmed the sentence from 33 to 29 years but upheld his convictions for leading troops who terrorized Sarajevo with a deadly rain of shells and sniper bullets.
(AP, 12/12/07)(AP, 11/12/09)
2007 Ayaan Hirsi Ali (b.1969), Somalia born writer and resident at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, authored her autobiography “Infidel." In the Netherlands it was published under the title “My Freedom."
(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.P12)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.87)
2007 The Netherlands launched its €2.3 billion “Room for the River" project in an effort to make the country more resilient to flooding.
(Econ, 1/14/12, p.62)
2008 Jan 12, In southern Afghanistan Dutch troops killed two of their own men during a nighttime battle in Uruzgan province, and separately two allied Afghan soldiers they mistook for enemies. About 1,650 Dutch troops were deployed in Uruzgan as part of the NATO mission there. 14 Dutch troops have died since their mission began last year.
(AP, 1/13/08)
2008 Feb 5, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to the Beatles who introduced the West to transcendental meditation, died at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop.
(AP, 2/6/08)(Econ, 2/16/08, p.95)
2008 Mar 11, Three generals regarded as national heroes in Croatia went on trial at the Hague, accused of orchestrating the killing of at least 150 Serbs in a 1995 military campaign that unleashed widespread murder and pillage.
(AP, 3/11/08)
2008 Mar 13, The Dutch parliament voted unanimously to outlaw bestiality and pornography involving animals.
(AP, 3/14/08)
2008 Mar 15, Alitalia, Italy’s state-owned national airline, accepted a takeover offer worth $217 made by air France-KLM, a French-Dutch airline group. The Italian government accepted the offer on March 17.
(Econ, 3/22/08, p.73)
2008 Mar 20, In the Netherlands a new attraction officially opened in Oegstgeest called Corpus. The $31 million project organized led by businessman Henri Remmers featured a 115-foot seated human shape on the outside and large-scale exhibits of the human anatomy inside.
(SSFC, 4/6/08, p.E7)
2008 Mar 23, Network Solutions, an American network provider, said it had suspended a website that Dutch MP Geert Wilders had reserved to post his anti-Islamic film, which has sparked wide condemnation and fears of a backlash.
(AP, 3/23/08)
2008 Mar 27, Geert Wilders, a Dutch lawmaker, released his 15-minute film “Fitna," which linked verses of the Koran to violent images from terrorist attacks.
(SFC, 3/28/08, p.A4)
2008 Mar 31, Malaysia's Islamic opposition party delivered a protest note to the Netherlands' embassy over the release of an anti-Islam movie by a maverick Dutch lawmaker, while hard-line Muslims in neighboring Indonesia demanded the death of the filmmaker.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Apr 3, Alitalia edged closer to bankruptcy protection after Air France-KLM abruptly broke off talks to buy the struggling national airline and Alitalia's chairman of seven months resigned in frustration.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 3, The UN tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled that there was not enough evidence to convict former Kosovo PM Ramush Haradinaj of murder, torture and rape of Serbs and non-Albanians during the Kosovo war.
(AP, 4/4/08)
2008 Apr 18, In Afghanistan the son of the Netherlands' top military officer was killed by a roadside bomb, the day after his father assumed command of the Dutch armed forces.
(AP, 4/18/08)
2008 Apr 29, The International Criminal Court in The Hague published an arrest warrant for Bosco Ntaganda (35), known as "the Terminator," a Congo militia leader wanted for allegedly using child soldiers.
(Reuters, 4/29/08)
2008 May 23, The International Court of Justice awarded Singapore sovereignty over a disputed island at the eastern entrance of the Singapore Straits. The ICJ ruled in favor of Singapore in the 28-year dispute with Malaysia over a tiny but strategic uninhabited island the size of half a football field. The court, however, gave Malaysia ownership of a smaller uninhabited outcropping. Sovereignty over a third disputed cluster of rocks was left to be determined later between the countries when they sort our their territorial waters.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 25, The Amiya Scan, a Dutch freighter, was hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia. The ship and its crew of 4 Russians and 5 Filipinos were freed on June 25.
(AP, 6/26/08)
2008 May 26, Dutch scientists claimed they have completed the first sequencing of an individual woman's DNA.
(AP, 5/26/08)
2008 Jun 5, Dutch police arrested Aqueel Ur Rehman Abbasi, a 26-year-old Pakistani man, sought in Spain on terrorism charges. He was arrested in his prison cell in Vught where he was being held by the immigration and naturalization services.
(AFP, 6/6/08)
2008 Jul 1, A smoking ban went into effect in cafes, restaurants and bars across the Netherlands, as the country joins a growing list of European countries to tighten rules on tobacco use in public places. Smoking marijuana in the Netherlands' infamous "coffee shops" is still permitted under the new law, as long the drug is not mixed with tobacco.
(AFP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 2, Deutsche Bank acquired the Dutch corporate banking arm of ABN AMRO from Fortis, a Benelux bank, for $1.1 billion in cash.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.83)
2008 Jul 3, Former Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba arrived in the Netherlands to face war crimes charges before the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 11, In the Netherlands health authorities announced a Dutch woman, infected during a holiday to Uganda by the contagious Marburg virus, had died overnight. The Marburg virus is similar to Ebola and causes heavy bleeding. About 100 people who may have had contact with the woman were under surveillance.
(AFP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 30, Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic sat in a UN jail cell after being flown to the Netherlands in the dead of night to face charges of genocide against Muslims and Croats during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Aug 12, Georgia's Pres. Mikhail Saakashvili said his government will declare that its breakaway regions are occupied territories and will designate Russian peacekeepers as occupying forces. Russia ordered a halt to military action in Georgia, after five days of air and land attacks sent Georgia's army into headlong retreat and left towns and military bases destroyed. More than 2,000 people were reported killed. A Dutch television journalist was killed overnight when Russian warplanes bombed the central Georgian city of Gori. Russia later counted 133 civilian deaths in South Ossetia. Rights activists later said fewer than 100 civilians were killed in South Ossetia.
(AP, 8/12/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.43)(WSJ, 9/12/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 19, The Dutch Navy and a squad of US Coast Guard raiders seized 4.6 tons (4,200 kilograms) of cocaine from a Panamanian-flagged freighter that had set sail from Venezuela. The freighter was boarded on Aug 17 and it took 36 hours of searching to find the drugs.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, Italian police said a gang of men badly beat a Dutch couple and raped the woman while they camped in an isolated field outside Rome during a cycling tour of Europe. The attackers also stole some US$2,200.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Sep 9, The Iraqi oil ministry said Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to a gas joint venture with Iraq worth up to four billion dollars, becoming the first Western oil major to gain access to the violence-wracked country's vast energy reserves.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 10, A Dutch court dismissed a bid by Bosnian Muslim survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre to hold the Netherlands liable for its troops' failure to protect the so-called safe haven.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Mar 26, TimeRime BV was founded by Marijn Bom, Jaap Joziasse, Gerard Pastwa and Pico Wilbrenninck, as a spin-off of the Dutch webdevelopment company Hoppinger.com.
(www.timerime.com/)
2008 Sep 28, The governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg took partial control of struggling bank Fortis NV.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Oct 15, The Shell Anglo-Dutch group said a Nigerian court has ordered it to hand over land around its giant Bonny oil terminal to the local population, a key demand of armed rebels in the volatile region. Shell said ruling was given some months ago but we have appealed.
(AFP, 10/15/08)
2008 Nov 1, In southern Afghanistan Dutch Major General Mart de Kruif replaced Canadian Major General Marc Lessard as head of 19,000 mostly British, Canadian, Dutch and US NATO-led soldiers of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
(AP, 11/1/08)
2008 Nov 7, An environmentalist group and four Nigerians filed suit against Royal Dutch Shell PLC in the Netherlands, claiming the company was negligent in cleaning up oil spills in Nigeria.
(AP, 11/7/08)
2008 Nov 21, Amsterdam said it will order the closure of dozens of coffee shops that sell cannabis near schools in accordance with new legislation.
(AP, 11/21/08)
2008 Nov 22, Dutch electronics giant Philips said it will cut "about five percent" of its 32,000 strong workforce in the medical division worldwide, affecting 1,600 workers.
(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Dec 6, Amsterdam unveiled plans to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafes in its ancient city center as part of a major effort to drive organized crime out of the tourist haven.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 19, Three Danish soldiers and one from the Netherlands were killed in separate incidents in Afghanistan, losing their lives just as the commitment of some countries to the fight in Afghanistan begins to wane.
(AP, 12/19/08)
2008 Netherlands ended a record period of economic expansion that lasted nearly 26 years.
(Econ, 5/21/16, p.68)
2008 In the Netherlands Saban Baran (38) was convicted of leading a gang notorious for forcing more than 100 women into prostitution, tattooing some of them to mark them as the gang's property. Prosecutors also say some women who came from Germany and eastern Europe were forced to have breast implants and illegal abortions while working in brothels in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities. In 2009 he fled while on a temporarily release from prison, where he was serving a 7½ year term, to visit his wife and newborn baby.
(AP, 9/17/09)
2009 Jan 5, Ahmed Aboutaleb (47), a Moroccan immigrant, was installed as mayor of Rotterdam, the Netherlands' second largest city, in a move hailed as a significant step for the integration of minorities in the European Union nation.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 19, The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled that the United States defied its order when authorities in Texas on Aug 5, 2008, executed a Mexican convicted of rape and murder.
(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Jan 21, Germany banned the production, sale or possession of a synthetic marijuana-like drug known as "Spice," effective as of Jan 22, becoming the 4th nation to ban the substance, marketed as an herbal room-freshener, after Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 26, In the Netherlands the first-ever trial of the International Criminal Court began at The Hague with Thomas Lubanga, a Congolese militia commander, denying he committed war crimes by recruiting hundreds of child soldiers to kill and rape.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Feb 10, The British government banned Dutch right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders from visiting the country to show his anti-Islam film "Fitna" at the Houses of Parliament. In a telephone interview Wilders called the government's decision "cowardly" and vowed to defy it.
(AP, 2/10/09)
2009 Feb 11, Judges at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal voted to suspend the trial of ultranationalist Serb leader Vojislav Seselj after the prosecution said its case was being undermined by witness intimidation. The decision came after 71 prosecution witnesses had already been heard and with only a handful still to testify.
(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 Feb 23, Swedish power company Vattenfall said it had made a friendly 8.5-billion-euro (10.9-billion-dollar) offer for Nuon of the Netherlands in a takeover aimed at creating one of Europe's biggest energy groups.
(AP, 2/23/09)
2009 Feb 25, A Turkish Airlines plane with 135 people aboard slammed into a muddy field while attempting to land at Amsterdam's main airport. Nine people were killed and more than 50 were injured, many in serious condition.
(AP, 2/25/09)
2009 Feb 26, At The Hague UN judges in the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal acquitted former Serb President Milan Milutinovic of ordering a deadly campaign of terror by Serb forces against Kosovo Albanians in 1999. The court convicted five other senior Serbs and gave them prison sentences of between 15 and 22 years. The marathon trial started July 10, 2006.
(AP, 2/26/09)
2009 Mar 4, The International Criminal Court at The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. He is the first sitting head of state the court has ordered arrested. The French medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was pulling staff out of Darfur after the Sudanese government ordered them to leave. Sudan ordered at least 10 humanitarian groups expelled from Darfur.
(AP, 3/4/09)(AFP, 3/4/09)
2009 Mar 12, Dutch police arrested Giovanni Strangio (30), an Italian man wanted for the August 15, 2007, mob killings of six people in the western German city of Duisburg.
(AP, 3/13/09)
2009 Mar 17, In the Netherlands the UN criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia reduced the jail sentence of Bosnian Serb leader Momcilo Krajisnik from 27 to 20 years, quashing some convictions from a 2006 judgment.
(AP, 3/17/09)
2009 Mar 23, In the Netherlands Joseph Mpambara (40), a Hutu man, was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for the slaying of two Tutsi mothers and at least four of their children during Rwanda's 1994 genocide. The Hague District Court acquitted Mpambara of involvement in the massacre of hundreds of other Tutsis who had sought shelter in a church. He was also acquitted of raping four women and killing one of them in a separate incident.
(AP, 3/23/09)
2009 Mar 30, Malaysia's national car maker Proton and Detroit Electric, a Dutch-based company, signed a $555 million deal to make zero emission electric cars that they said would be more powerful that any existing model.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 31, At the Hague Afghan President Hamid Karzai and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton offered an olive branch to Taliban fighters who reject al-Qaida and pressed an international conference for help in strengthening Afghanistan's security forces.
(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 31, In Yemen Jan and Heleen Janszen, a Dutch couple, were kidnapped in a suburb of Sanaa and taken to a mountainous area near the capital. They were released on April 14 after Yemen's government paid more than a quarter million dollars in ransom.
(AFP, 3/31/09)(SFC, 4/1/09, p.A2)(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 6, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made an unannounced visit to northern Afghanistan to meet with her country's troops and view rebuilding efforts. She pressed President Karzai to review carefully a new law that critics say legalizes marital rape. In southern Afghanistan an insurgent rocket attack hit the Netherlands' main military base, killing one Dutch soldier and wounding 5 of his colleagues and 2 Afghan soldiers.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 10, In the Netherlands a man (44) pulled a gun in Rotterdam’s Laurenshof cafe after an argument and shot a patron inside, then rushed outside where he shot three more people. Several people chased the gunman when he ran outside, overpowered and disarmed him, and wrestled him to the ground until police arrived.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 18, Somali pirates attacked two ships off the Horn of Africa, seizing the Belgian-flagged Pompei carrying 10 crew. NATO forces intervened in the other assault, chasing the pirates down. Dutch commandos then freed 20 fishermen on a Yemeni dhow hijacked earlier. Seven pirates attempted to attack the Norwegian-flagged MV Front Ardenne but fled after crew took evasive maneuvers and alerted warships in the area. NATO warships and helicopters pursued the Somali pirates for seven hours after they attacked the tanker, and the high-speed chase only ended when warning shots were fired at the pirates' skiff. NATO forces boarded the skiff, where they found a rocket-propelled grenade, and interrogated, disarmed and released the pirates. The Pompei and its crew were released on June 28.
(AP, 4/18/09)(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Apr 29, Lebanon released four generals held for nearly four years in the 2005 truck-bomb assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri after a UN-backed tribunal in the Netherlands ordered them freed, setting off celebrations with fireworks and dancing.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 30, In the Netherlands 5 people died when a car slammed into a crowd at the Queen's Day festival attended by members of the royal family in the western city of Apeldoorn. A policeman as well as the assailant died the next day from their injuries. The suspect was identified by Dutch media as Karst Tates (38). Neighbors said Tates recently was fired from his job as a security guard and was to be evicted from his home in the small eastern town of Huissen because he could no longer afford the rent. An injured woman died a week later bringing the total to 7 victims.
(AFP, 4/30/09)(AP, 5/1/09)(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 1, In the Netherlands robbers at the Scheringa Museum for Realism in Spanbroek stole "Adolescence," a 1941 gouache by Salvadore Dali and "La Musicienne," an oil painting from 1929 by Polish-born art deco painter Tamara de Lempicka. The museum houses the art collection of wealthy Dutch banker Dirk Scheringa and his wife.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 7, Somali pirates captured the Netherlands Antilles-flagged MV Marathon in the Gulf of Aden. The ship listed 19 Ukrainian crew members. One of the crew members died from a gun shot wound. On June 23 the Dutch Defense Ministry reported that the ship was released.
(AP, 5/7/09)(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 May 11, In the Netherlands thieves pried open the emergency door of the IJsselstein City Museum near Utrecht. They made off with six 17th- and 19th-century landscape paintings, the second major art heist in 10 days in the Netherlands.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 15, Hugh Van Es (67), a Dutch photojournalist, died in Hong Kong. He covered the Vietnam War and recorded the most famous image of the fall of Saigon in 1975, a group of people scaling a ladder to a CIA helicopter on a rooftop.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 17, The International Criminal Court said Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, a Sudanese rebel leader, has turned himself in to face war crimes charges for an attack that killed 12 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur in September 2007.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 Jun 4, About 375 million voters across the 27-nation European Union began 4 days of voting, to appoint candidates to 736 seats on the assembly in the second-largest election in the world after India's. Voting began in Britain and the Netherlands.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 7, Zimbabwe PM Morgan Tsvangirai launched a three-week trip to the West. He spoke at The Hague saying he is seeking re-engagement, not touring with a "begging bowl" asking for aid. Pres. Robert Mugabe launched a new pact aimed at tearing down trade barriers across 19 African nations with appeals for external investors and an end to domestic conflicts.
(AP, 6/7/09)(AFP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 15, The Hague-based International Criminal Court ordered former Congolese rebel warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba to stand trial on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, rape and pillaging.
(Reuters, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 30, The Dutch Supreme Court upheld the war crimes conviction of businessman Frans van Anraat for selling chemicals to Iraq, which were turned into poison gas and unleashed in 1988 by the regime of Saddam Hussein on Kurds and Iranians. The court shaved six months off Anraat’s 17-year sentence because his case took so long.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jul 20, A UN war crimes court in the Hague convicted Milan Lukic and Sredoje Lukic, two Bosnian Serb cousins, for a "callous" 1992 killing spree that included locking scores of Muslims in two houses and burning them alive in Visegrad. He sentenced Milan to life in prison and Sredoje to 30 years.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Aug 28, Iceland's parliament approved a controversial deal to pay back billions of euros (dollars) lost by British and Dutch savers in the collapse of the online Icesave bank. The deal provided for the payment of 3.8 billion euros by 2023 to the British and Dutch governments for the compensation they forked out to disgruntled savers.
(AFP, 8/28/09)
2009 Sep 2, Dutch prosecutors said they will charge an Arab cultural group under hate speech laws for publishing a cartoon that suggests the death of 6 million Jews during World War II is a fabrication.
(AP, 9/2/09)
2009 Sep 15, In the Netherlands the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal announced it has approved the early release from prison of former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic (79) after she served two-thirds of her 11-year sentence for persecution.
(AP, 9/15/09)
2009 Sep 20, Trafigura, a Netherlands-based oil trading company, said it has agreed to a settlement with people who claim they fell ill after a tanker dumped hundreds of tons of waste around the Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan in 2006. Trafigura paid Ivory Coast's government euro152 million (US$197 million) in 2007 to assist in cleaning up the waste without admitting responsibility.
(AP, 9/20/09)
2009 Oct 14, A hot air balloon crashed in a southern Chinese resort town with dramatic limestone formations, killing four Dutch tourists.
(AP, 10/14/09)
2009 Oct 27, At The Hague Radovan Karadzic boycotted his UN trial for a second day while prosecutors began outlining their genocide case against the former Bosnian Serb leader.
(AP, 10/27/09)
2009 Oct 30, ING, the biggest bank in the Netherlands, said that it would dismember itself by splitting its banking and insurance business and selling its American online banking arm.
(Econ, 10/31/09, p.85)
2009 Nov 1, Mohamud Said Omar (43) was arrested at the request of US authorities in an asylum seeker's center in Dronten, Netherlands. US authorities suspected Omar of bankrolling the purchase of weapons for Islamic extremists and helping other Somalis travel to Somalia in 2007 and 2008. He had a US green card and was also suspected of recruiting youth in Minneapolis for Islamic terrorism in Somalia.
(AP, 11/13/09)
2009 Nov 5, In the Netherlands the UN war crimes tribunal decided that former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic will be appointed a lawyer to represent him whenever he fails to appear in court.
(AP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 5, A consortium grouping US and European oil giants Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC signed a $50 billion deal to develop one of Iraq's most prized oil fields, as the OPEC nation looks to revamp its battered energy sector. The deal to develop the 8.6 billion West Qurna Stage 1 field is the third such agreement in less than a week between a foreign oil consortium and Iraq, which sorely needs foreign company expertise and funding to revive an oil sector hammered by years of neglect, sanctions and, most recently sabotage.
(AP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 13, The Dutch government announced to bring the polluter-pays principle into the home garage. As of 2012 rather than an annual road tax for their cars, drivers will pay a few cents for every kilometer on the road, in a plan aimed at breaking chronic traffic jams and cutting carbon emissions.
(AP, 11/14/09)
2009 Nov 18, The United States attended a meeting of the International Criminal Court's management board at The Hague for the first time in a sign it has stopped shunning the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal.
(AP, 11/18/09)
2009 Nov 23, UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, announced today that its renewable jet fuel process technology was used to convert second-generation, renewable feedstocks to green jet fuel for a biofuel demonstration flight by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
(http://tinyurl.com/yb877n3)(SFC, 11/24/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 2, Turkish diplomat Ahmet Uzumcu was elected to be director of the 188-nation Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, based in The Hague. He takes over next July. He said that he will pursue the last seven holdouts (Angola, Egypt, Israel, North Korean, Myanmar, Somalia and Syria) to get them to sign a disarmament treaty and submit weapons stockpiles for inspection.
(AP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 2, Somali pirates on speedboats tried to board the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged BBC Togo, but were repelled after firing on the vessel. 13 pirates then fled to a larger fishing boat 150 nautical miles (280km) south of Salalah where a Dutch frigate captured them.
(AP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 4, Amsterdam City councilwoman Marijke Vos planted a sapling, in the Amsterdamse Bos park. It was derived from a 150-year-old chestnut tree that once cheered Anne Frank as her family hid from the Nazis. 149 Others will be planted around the world.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 20, Dutch sports carmaker Spyker said it has made a new bid for Sweden's Saab Automobile, two days after General Motors said it would close the loss-making unit.
(AFP, 12/20/09)
2009 Dec 30, The Netherlands announced it will immediately begin using full body scanners for flights heading to the United States, issuing a report that called the failed Christmas Day airline bombing a "professional" terror attack.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Luuk van Middelaar, Dutch political philosopher, authored “The Passage to Europe: How a Continent Became a Union." In 2012 it won the European Book Prize. In 2013 it came out in English.
(Econ, 5/25/13, p.86)
2009 In the Netherlands actor and comedian Herman Koch authored his novel “The Dinner." It went on to sell over 1 million copies in 24 countries and in 2012 became available in English.
(Econ, 8/11/12, p.72)
2009 In the Netherlands 6 people died this year from Q-fever. Some 2,300 had become infected by Coxiella burnetti, the infectious bug responsible for the disease. The bug is released into the air during birthing or miscarriages by infected goats. 40,000 pregnant goats were slated to be destroyed in early 2010.
(Econ, 1/9/10, p.52)
2010 Jan 11, Dutch brewer Heineken said it will buy the beer-making operations of Mexico’s Femsa, the maker of Dos Equis and Sol beers, in an all-share deal valued at $5.5 billion, excluding debt.
(SFC, 1/12/10, p.D3)
2010 Jan 13, Edgar Vos (78), "the emperor of Dutch fashion," died of a heart attack while on vacation in Florida. Vos built a chain of 15 stores across the Netherlands, where he sold designer clothes cut to bring out the best from all figures and tailored to most budgets.
(AP, 1/14/10)
2010 Jan 21, A Dutch airlift brought 106 children from quake-ravaged Haiti to new lives in the Netherlands and Luxembourg, as anxious families waited to hug children they had been in the process of adopting for months.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 26, General Motors agreed to sell Saab, its Swedish subsidiary, to Spyker Cars, a Dutch maker of sports cars, for $74 million in cash and preference shares worth $326 million.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.76)
2010 Feb 3, At The Hague appeals judges said the International Criminal Court was wrong when it decided that Sudan's Pres. Omar al-Bashir can't be charged with genocide in Darfur. The unprecedented ruling could lead al-Bashir's indictment with humanity's worst crime.
(AP, 2/3/10)
2010 Feb 16, Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it was freezing executive pay and revamping bonus policy in the wake of a shareholder rebellion at its annual meeting last year.
(AP, 2/16/10)
2010 Feb 20, The Dutch coalition government collapsed over whether to extend the country's military mission in Afghanistan, leaving the future of its 1,600 soldiers fighting there uncertain. An early election is now expected.
(AP, 2/20/10)
2010 Mar 1, Daniel Houghton (25), a former MI6 spy, was arrested after British intelligence posed as the potential buyer of top secret files on intelligence gathering techniques. Prosecutor Piers Arnold later said Houghton, who is a dual Dutch and British national, is accused of copying top secret files from the domestic agency MI5 to CD and DVDs while working for the MI6 overseas intelligence service between September 2007 and May 2009. On Sep 3, 2010, Houghton was sentenced to one year in prison. He was expected to walk free as he has already spent 184 days in custody.
(AP, 3/3/10)(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Mar 5, Dutch anti-Islam maverick Geert Wilders (46) took his cinematic assault on the Quran to Britain's House of Lords, sparking heated debate inside the building and angry protests outside. Wilders screened his 15-minute film "Fitna" to about 60 people, including a half-dozen peers, in a wood-paneled committee room in Parliament. The film associates the Quran with terrorism, homophobia and repression of women.
(AP, 3/5/10)
2010 Mar 8, In Australia Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina joined forces for a 2.96 billion US dollar bid for Australia's Arrow Energy, hoping for a bigger slice of the country's booming liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector.
(AP, 3/8/10)
2010 Mar 12, A union representing Dutch nurses launched a national campaign against demands for sexual services by patients who claim it should be part of their standard care.
(Reuters, 3/11/10)
2010 Mar 25, A Netherlands court fined the owner of what was the biggest marijuana-selling "coffee shop" in the country almost euro10 million ($13.34 million) for violating liberal Dutch drug laws, in what is seen as a test for authorities seeking to rein in the growth of such cafes.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Apr 4, Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean seized the Taipan, a Germany-flagged freighter. The Dutch navy captured 10 Somalis hours after the seizure. In 2012 the Somalis were convicted on piracy charges and sentenced to prison terms of 2-7 years.
(SFC, 10/20/12, p.A2)
2010 Apr 9, In the Netherlands the Political Reformed Party, known by its Dutch acronym SGP, a fundamentalist Christian political party led entirely by men, was told by the Netherlands' Supreme Court that it must accept women in leadership roles.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 20, The Dutch Supreme Court overturned the acquittal of Guus Kouwenhoven, a businessman accused of supplying arms to former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor, and ordered a new appeals hearing in the case. He had been convicted in 2006 of breaching a UN arms embargo by trading weapons for timber in Liberia and sentenced to eight years imprisonment, but the conviction was overturned in 2008.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 May 4, Royal Dutch Shell said it spilled nearly 14,000 tons of oil into the creeks of the Niger Delta in 2009 and blamed thieves and militants for the environmental damage.
(SFC, 5/5/10, p.A2)
2010 May 6, Julio Alberto Poch (57), a pilot who allegedly flew death flights for Argentina's military dictatorship, was extradited from Spain. Spain acted on Argentina's request, arresting him in front of his passengers and family during a stop in Valencia on what was supposed to be his final flight back to the Netherlands before retiring from Transavia.
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 12, A Libyan Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330-200 carrying 104 people crashed on approach to Tripoli's airport. Ruben van Assouw, a Dutch boy (9), was the only known survivor. The Royal Dutch Tourism Board said 61 of the dead came from the Netherlands.
(AP, 5/12/10)(AFP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 19, Royal Dutch Shell PLC announced it will spend more than $2 billion to sharply reduce the burning off of natural gas at its oil wells in Nigeria, gases that when burned contribute to global warming and sicken people living nearby.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 Jun 4, A Dutch court ordered 10 suspected Somali pirates to be extradited to Germany, where Hamburg prosecutors want to charge them with hijacking a German container ship.
(AP, 6/4/10)
2010 Jun 9, The Netherlands held parliamentary elections. Voters appeared likely to shift the Netherlands to the right in national elections dominated by concerns over the rising national debt and discontent over immigration. Dutch politicians scrambled the next day to sort out who will form the country's next government, after polarized voters backed parties on both the right and the left with very different ideas on budget cuts and Muslim immigration. With 99.5 percent of votes counted, the pro-business VVD led Labor 31 seats to 30 in the 150-seat parliament.
(AP, 6/9/10)(AP, 6/10/10)
2010 Jun 17, A Dutch court sentenced five Somali pirates, the first to stand trial in Europe, to five years in prison for attacking a Dutch Antilles-flagged ship in 2009.
(AP, 6/17/10)
2010 Jun 17, Royal Dutch Shell PLC warned Nigeria that $40 billion of planned investments in the oil-rich nation could be in jeopardy if lawmakers pass a proposed bill to overhaul the petroleum industry. Government officials say the bill would allow more oil money to return to Nigeria's people. The bill also would require the government-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., which partners with all foreign oil firms, to seek profits like a private business and not rely on government subsidies.
(AP, 6/17/10)
2010 Jul 6, Britain's Queen Elizabeth (84) addressed the UN for the first time since1957. The queen's 10-minute speech to a special session of the General Assembly was finished before Netherlands and Uruguay returned to their soccer match in Cape Town. Netherlands moved to the finals after beating Uruguay 3-2.
(Reuters, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 9, Prosecutors at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague cited Ratko Mladic's diaries, seized in a raid on his wife's Belgrade home in February, in a motion to reopen the trial of former Bosnian Croat political leader Jadranko Prlic and five other political and military Croat officials that ended two months ago.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 11, In South Africa Spain beat Holland for soccer’s World Cup.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 23, A Dutch court slapped a one million euro fine on Trafigura, a Swiss-based company whose chartered ship dumped hazardous waste the Ivory Coast says killed 17 people on its soil. It was also found guilty of concealing what the charge sheet referred to as the "harmful nature" of the waste on board the Probo Koala ship that arrived at the port of Amsterdam on July 2, 2006, but was redirected to the Ivory Coast.
(AFP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 27, Dutch judges gave the green light for a teenage girl's bid to become the youngest person to sail around the world solo, thwarting a bid to have Laura Dekker (14) kept in child care.
(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Aug 1, Dutch troops ended their mission in Afghanistan after four "proud" years, in a departure experts say signals the beginning of a drawdown of foreign forces that will leave a worrying void. Troops held a "change of command" ceremony at the main military base in central Uruzgan province where most of the country's 1,950 soldiers have been deployed. About 150 Dutch fighting forces were left in country, and they are set to leave next week.
(AFP, 8/1/10)(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, UNESCO added five cultural sites to its World Heritage List, including the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long-Hanoi in Vietnam. The other new sites include the historic monuments of Dengfeng in China, the archaeological site Sarazm in Tajikistan, the Episcopal city of Albi in France and a 17th-century canal ring in Amsterdam.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 5, In the Netherlands Naomi Campbell testified before a war crimes tribunal that she had received some "dirty-looking stones" after a 1997 dinner party with former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor. Still, the supermodel said she didn't know if the stones were actually diamonds or if the gift came from Taylor himself. Campbell said that she gave the stones to a friend, Jeremy Ratcliffe, who was the director of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, intending he use them for charity.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 17, Amsterdam police found 7,000 kg of marijuana and hashish in a warehouse near Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, after arresting a 35-year-old man on suspicion of selling narcotics. The estimated street value was 40 million euros (32.8 million pounds).
(Reuters, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 20, Conny Mus (59), a veteran Dutch correspondent in the Middle East who covered conflicts from Romania's revolution to the wars in Iraq, died while on vacation in his home country.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 21, Laura Dekker, a 14-year-old Dutch sailor, departed in secrecy from Gibraltar on her quest to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world, avoiding the media because her manager said she didn't want the attention.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 23, In the Netherlands the monumental chestnut tree that cheered Anne Frank while she was in hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam was toppled by wind and heavy rain.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 25, Cosan, Brazil’s biggest sugar and ethanol producer, signed a $12 billion joint venture with Royal Dutch Shell.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.41)
2010 Sep, The FBI and its counterparts in Ukraine, the Netherlands and Britain took down a cyber-theft ring they first got wind of in May 2009 when a financial services firm tipped the bureau's Omaha, Neb., office to suspicious transactions. Since then, the FBI's Operation Trident Breach has uncovered losses of $14 million and counting.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Oct 1, In the Netherlands more than 100 people protesting the outlawing of squatting at unused buildings clashed with police in Amsterdam's historic center, throwing stones, setting fires and erecting barricades.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 10, Curacao, St Maarten, Bonaire, Saba and St Eustatius were scheduled to go their own ways. The former Dutch Caribbean colonies of Curacao and St. Maarten became autonomous countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in a change of constitutional status dissolving the Netherlands Antilles.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.38)(Reuters, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 14, Dutch Queen Beatrix swore in her country's new right-wing minority Cabinet, ushering in a new era of budgetary austerity and tighter immigration rules.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 22, In the central Netherlands a collision between the German cargo ship Duisburg Ruhror and a small Dutch passenger ferry on a canal took the life of ferry skipper Hendrik Plomp (56). Divers soon recovered his body.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Police in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands arrested at least 10 people on suspicion of planning an Islamist militant attack in Belgium.
(Reuters, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 26, The Dutch navy said it has captured 20 suspected pirates off the Somali coast in two operations in the last week and is holding them on a warship on suspicion of involvement in hijacking a South African yacht.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 28, More than 250,000 classified US State Department documents were released by online whistleblower WikiLeaks. Among the leaked memos was information that Iranian Red Crescent ambulances were used to smuggle weapons to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during its 2006 war with Israel. Memos said the "IRC shipments of medical supplies served also to facilitate weapons shipments." Documents also detailed concerns by US officials in Baghdad about Iran’s influence on Iraq. Memos also said King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. One cable revealed that the US kept nuclear weapons in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Turkey.
(AP, 11/28/10)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.35)
2010 Nov 29, A Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship, Karam 1, sank after colliding with the Dutch tanker Alessandro DP, 10 miles (16 km) off Cape Emine in the Black Sea. 5 sailors were rescued and 5 were missing.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Dec 3, The Netherlands' justice minister and five southern Dutch cities said they will implement new restrictions on marijuana cafes after a wave of drug-related gangland violence.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 7, In the Netherlands a teacher (27) was arrested on suspicion of molesting dozens of very young children. The man's computers containing child pornography were seized and he later confessed to dozens of sex crimes allegedly committed over the past year and a half.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 9, Netherlands arrested a young hacker who confessed to participating in attacks by WikiLeaks sympathizers on websites, including MasterCard, PayPal and Visa.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 21, Netherlands-based Royal DSM NV, the world’s largest maker of vitamins, agreed to buy Martek Biosciences, a US maker of nutritional ingredients for baby food, for $1.09 billion.
(SFC, 12/22/10, p.D3)
2010 Dec 24, Dutch police arrested 12 Somali men in the key port city of Rotterdam on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack. Dutch authorities on Dec 26 cleared five of the 12 Somali men who were detained Christmas Eve on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack. By Dec 30 the remaining Somalis were released but 3 were still considered suspect.
(AP, 12/25/10)(AP, 12/27/10)(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 The Netherlands enter for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries sent Cees van Casteren to Bolivia to help local vintners break into Europe. Bolivia's modern wine industry had started in the 1960s when the Kohlberg family brought vines from Europe to make wine to relieve a family member's heart condition.
(Econ, 4/25/20, p.24)
2011 Jan 2, In Iran Sahra Bahrami, a Dutch-Iranian woman, was sentenced to death for drug smuggling. Bahrami reportedly was arrested in Dec 2009 after taking part in anti-government demonstrations. She also faced trial and the possibility of another death sentence, likely within two months, for allegedly belonging to an armed opposition group.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 6, In the Netherlands the daily Het Parool reported that prostitutes in Amsterdam will be required to pay taxes this year. Over 3,000 sex workers were affected by the move.
(SFC, 1/7/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 26, Environmental groups accused Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell of destroying lives and the environment in the Niger Delta, and urged Dutch MPs to intervene as the company defended its record.
(AFP, 1/26/11)
2011 Jan 29, In Iran Zahram Bahrami, an Iranian-Dutch woman detained after participating in protests against Iran's disputed presidential election in 2009, was hanged. She was allegedly hanged for possessing and selling drugs. The Dutch government froze official contacts with Iran to protest the hanging.
(AP, 1/29/11)(SSFC, 1/30/11, p.A4)
2011 Feb 27, In Libya hundreds of armed anti-government forces backed by rebel troops who control the city closest to the capital Tripoli prepared to repel an expected offensive by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi surrounding Zawiya, a city of 200,000. Armed forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi captured 3 Dutch marines and their helicopter during a botched evacuation mission after landing near Sirte in a Lynx helicopter from the navy ship HMS Tromp.
(AP, 2/27/11)(AP, 3/3/11)
2011 Mar 2, In the Netherlands prosecutors at the International Criminal Court said they will open a formal investigation into possible crimes against humanity in Libya.
(AP, 3/2/11)
2011 Mar 11, In the Netherlands the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, once among West Africa's most powerful figures, ended with judges expected to take months to reach a verdict on whether he can be linked to murders and amputations during Sierra Leone's civil war.
(AP, 3/11/11)
2011 Apr 3, Dutch marines killed 2 pirates and captured 16 others during an operation to free a hijacked Iranian fishing boat of Somalia.
(www.dailybulletin.com/ci_17767176)
2011 Apr 8, Netherlands’ officials said the government will cut 12,000 military jobs as part of spending cuts to balance the budget by 2015.
(SFC, 4/9/11, p.A2)
2011 Apr 9, In the Netherlands Tristan van der Vlis (24), opened fire at the Ridderhof mall in Alphen aan den Rijn with an automatic rifle killing 6 people and wounded least 17 others. He fired more than 100 rounds in a few minutes and ended the rampage by shooting himself fatally in the head.
(AP, 4/10/11)(AP, 4/11/11)
2011 Apr 15, In the Netherlands Gen. Ante Gotovina (55), a commander hailed by Croats as a hero of the Balkan conflict, was convicted of war crimes by a UN court and sentenced to 24 years in prison for a campaign of shelling, shootings and expulsions aimed at driving Serbs out of a Croatian border region in 1995.
(AP, 4/15/11)
2011 Apr 23, Max van der Stoel (86), former Dutch human rights watchdog for Iraq and the first High Commissioner on National Minorities at the 54-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), died.
(AP, 4/24/11)
2011 May 21, In the Netherlands the Salesian order's top official, Delegate Herman Spronck, confirmed in a statement that a priest, identified by RTL Nieuws as 73-year-old "Father Van B.," had served on the board of "Martijn," a group that campaigns to end the Dutch ban on adult-child sex.
(AP, 5/21/11)
2011 May 27, The Dutch government said it would start banning tourists from buying cannabis from "coffee shops" and impose restrictions on Dutch buyers by the end of the year.
(Reuters, 5/27/11)
2011 Jun 16, Capital One Financial agreed to pay $9 billion in cash and stock for ING Direct USA, the US subsidiary of ING Group, a Dutch banking and insurance giant.
(SFC, 12/29/11, p.D6)(http://tinyurl.com/3v6mthz)
2011 Jun 23, A Dutch court acquitted right-wing politician Geert Wilders of hate speech charges finding that his inflammatory comments about Muslims were protected by rules governing discourse in a free society.
(SFC, 6/24/11, p.A5)
2011 Jun 27, The International Criminal Court in the Netherlands issued arrest warrants for Moammar Gadhafi, his son Seif, and his intelligence chief for crimes against humanity in the Libyan leader's four-month battle to cling to power.
(AP, 6/27/11)
2011 Jun 28, The Dutch parliament agreed with the Dutch Party for the Animals (pvdD) and passed a bill banning the slaughter of livestock without stunning it first, removing an exemption that has allowed Jews and Muslims to butcher animals according to centuries old dietary rules.
(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A2)(Econ, 12/21/13, p.80)
2011 Jul 5, An appeals judges ruled that the Netherlands was responsible for the deaths of three Bosnian Muslim men slain by Serbs during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, ordering the Dutch government to compensate the men's relatives.
(AP, 7/5/11)
2011 Jul 7, In the Netherlands a large section of the roof of a soccer stadium collapsed during off-season construction work in Enschede, killing one person and leaving 10 hospitalized.
(AP, 7/7/11)
2011 Jul 9, Interpol, at the request of the Netherlands-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon, issued its highest-level international alerts against four Hezbollah men indicted in the 2005 slaying of Lebanon's former prime minister.
(AP, 7/9/11)
2011 Jul 20, The Dutch government announced plans to equip 125 police officers with mobile devices that can scan detainees' fingerprints to check whether they are illegal immigrants.
(AP, 7/20/11)
2011 Jul 20, Dutch prosecutors released some details about four Dutch citizens arrested on suspicion of involvement in cyber attacks as part of the loosely-knit hackers group known as "Anonymous." They said the suspects are thought to have belonged to a splinter group called AntiSec NL, which hacked the sites of dating service Pepper.nl and communications software maker Nimbuzz, among others.
(AP, 7/20/11)
2011 Aug 3, British officials said they have seized about 300 million pounds ($492 million) worth of cocaine in a record-setting drug bust on a pleasure boat. 1.2 tons of cocaine were found hidden in a specially-designed compartment on a boat docked in southern England in June and it took six days of searching the Louise to find the drugs. Six men arrested were all Dutch nationals.
(AP, 8/3/11)
2011 Aug 12, A Dutch court sent two Somalis to jail for up to seven years for hijacking a South African yacht last year and seizing a South African couple who are still missing. Three others also were convicted of piracy. The five men were caught by the Dutch navy in the Gulf of Aden in November, heavily armed with machine guns and bazookas.
(AP, 8/12/11)
2011 Aug 22, Royal Dutch shell said sabotage in Nigeria has led to six oil spills from one Shell pipeline since the start of the month, while damage to another line has caused a temporary production halt.
(AFP, 8/22/11)
2011 Sep 6, At the Hague, Netherlands, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal sentenced Gen. Momcilo Perisic, the former chief of the Yugoslav army, to 27 years imprisonment for providing crucial military aid to Bosnian Serb forces responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and for a deadly four-year campaign of shelling and sniping in Sarajevo.
(AP, 9/6/11)
2011 Sep 29, In the Netherlands author Hella Haasse (93), an award-winning author best known for chronicling colonial life in the Dutch East Indies, died. Haasse's first novel, "Oeroeg" (1948), was an instant hit and has been read at school by generations of Dutch children.
(AP, 9/30/11)
2011 Oct 7, The Dutch government said it would move to reclassify high-potency marijuana alongside hard drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy.
(SFC, 10/8/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 2, Royal Bank of Scotland said it has sold its 918 tenanted pubs in Britain to Dutch brewer Heineken for 422 million pounds, another step in its exit from non-core businesses following a government bailout.
(Reuters, 12/2/11)
2011 Dec 20, American authorities said they had asked the world’s leading scientific journals to withhold research on bird flu after researcher teams in Madison and Rotterdam engineered the virus so that it could be transmitted through the air from ferret to ferret. In January scientists agreed to suspend their research for 60 days. On April 20, 2012, the US reversed its stance. On April 27 the Dutch government gave Ron Fouchier permission to publish his paper. A 2nd paper by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison was published in May.
(www.economist.com/node/21542156)(SFC, 1/21/12, p.A4)(Econ, 5/5/12, p.78)(Econ, 6/23/12, p.81)
2011 Dec 23, The International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague freed Rwandan rebel Callixte Mbarushimana and returned him to France after dismissing murder and rape charges against him. He spent 11 months in detention and was the first war crimes suspect to be arrested and freed without trial since the court began work in 2002.
(AP, 12/23/11)
2011 In the Netherlands Charlotte van den Berg (20), a student working part-time in Amsterdam’s city archives, discovered letters from Jewish Holocaust survivors complaining that the city was forcing them to pay back taxes and late fines on property seized after they were deported to Nazi death camps. By 2014 a review found 217 cases in which the city had demanded that returning Jews pay the taxes and penalty fees.
(SSFC, 4/20/14, p.A9)
2011 Japanese and Dutch scientists said had created a version of bird flu that could be transmitted between mammals by the respiratory route. The announcement prompted the Netherlands to treat the relevant academic papers as sensitive goods subject to export controls.
(Econ, 4/25/20, p.20)
2012 Jan 6, In Peru Dutch citizen Joran Van der Sloot said he would "sincerely confess" to killing a Peruvian woman in 2010 in a plea strategy that aimed to reduce his eventual prison sentence, prompting judges to suspend the trial until Jan 11.
(Reuters, 1/6/12)
2012 Jan 11, In Peru Joran van der Sloot (24) pleaded guilty to the 2010 murder of a Peruvian woman he met at a Lima casino who was killed five years to the day after the unsolved disappearance in Aruba of an American teen in which he remains the main suspect. On Jan 13 he was sentenced to 28 years in prison. Due to time already served, his sentence would end in June 2038.
(AP, 1/11/12)(AP, 1/13/12)
2012 Jan 16, Gustav Leonhardt (b.1928), Dutch keyboard player and father of the early-music movement, died in Amsterdam.
(Econ, 1/28/12, p.90)
2012 Jan 21, Dutch sailor Laura Dekker (16) set foot aboard a dock in St. Maarten, ending a yearlong voyage aboard a sailboat named "Guppy" that apparently made her the youngest person ever to sail alone around the globe. She had set out from St. Maarten on Jan. 20, 2011.
(AP, 1/21/12)
2012 Feb 8, In the Netherlands organizers of the legendary Eleven Cities Tour skating marathon ruled the ice is to thin for it to go ahead.
(AP, 2/9/12)
2012 Mar 14, The International Criminal Court at The Hague convicted Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga of using child soldiers, a verdict hailed as a legal landmark in the fight against impunity for the world's most serious crimes.
(AP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 19, UPS under Scott Davis announced that it would buy TNT Express, a Dutch company, for $6.8 billion.
(Econ, 3/24/12, p.67)
2012 Apr 5, Dutch PM Mark Rutte denounced Suriname's decision to grant amnesty to President Desi Bouterse for crimes committed under his earlier military dictatorship as "totally unacceptable" and recalled the country's ambassador from its former colony in protest.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 21, In the Netherlands two trains in Amsterdam were involved in a head-on collision that seriously wounded 42 people. One passenger died the next day.
(AFP, 4/22/12)
2012 Apr 22, A prize-winning, super-energy-saving 10-watt LED bulb from Dutch electronics giant Philips, went on sale to coincide with Earth Day. The bulb, said to last over 20 years, has won the US Department of Energy's "Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize" and was now available from retailers for $50, down from an initial $60 price tag.
(AFP, 4/22/12)
2012 Apr 23, Dutch PM Mark Rutte and his Cabinet resigned after failing to reach agreement on reducing the country's budget to meet European guidelines.
(AP, 4/23/12)
2012 Apr 26, In the Netherlands an international court convicted former Liberian President Charles Taylor (64) of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity for supporting notoriously brutal rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone in return for "blood diamonds." Taylor became the first head of state convicted by an international court since the post-World War II Nuremberg military tribunal.
(AP, 4/26/12)
2012 Apr 27, A Dutch judge upheld the government's plan to introduce a "weed pass" to prevent foreigners from buying marijuana in coffee shops in the Netherlands.
(AP, 4/27/12)
2012 May 30, In the Netherlands international judges sentenced former Liberian President Charles Taylor to 50 years in prison for atrocities in Sierra Leone during the 1990s.
(AP, 5/30/12)(SFC, 5/31/12, p.A2)
2012 Jul 1, A Russian Soyuz space capsule landed in Kazakhstan bringing an end to a 193-day mission for American astronaut Donald Petit, Dutchman Andre Kuipers and Russian Oleg Kononenko.
(SFC, 7/2/12, p.A2)
2012 Jul 10, In the Netherlands the International Criminal Court sentenced Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga to 14 years in prison, a potential landmark in the struggle to protect children during wartime. Lubanga was found guilty in March of recruiting and using children in his Union of Congolese Patriots militia. An appeal in 2014 upheld his conviction.
(AP, 7/10/12)(SFC, 12/2/14, p.A2)
2012 Jul 15, Sewing needles were found in 5 sandwiches on flights originating in Amsterdam. One passenger on a flight to Minneapolis was injured. The other needles were on two flights to Atlanta and one to Seattle. The sandwiches were made in the Amsterdam kitchen of catering company Gate Gourmet.
(AP, 7/17/12)
2012 Jul 27, The Netherlands said it has suspended part of its development aid to Rwanda because of Kigali's alleged support for rebels in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AFP, 7/27/12)
2012 Aug 13, Dutch sailors taking part in NATO's pirate-busting operation Ocean Shield helped rescue the crew of a Somali dhow hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden.
(AFP, 8/14/12)
2012 Sep 11, Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics NV, the largest maker of lights, said it plans to cut another 2,200 jobs by 2014 to save €300 million ($383 million) a year.
(AP, 9/11/12)
2012 Sep 12, The Netherlands held national elections. Dutch caretaker PM Mark Rutte led his conservative VVD party to victory. The VVD was forecast to take 41 seats in the 150-member Dutch parliament, compared to Labor's 39 seats.
(AP, 9/12/12)(AP, 9/13/12)
2012 Sep 28, Shareholders of Singapore-based conglomerate Fraser & Neave agreed to sell their 39.7 percent stake in Asian Pacific Breweries, the owner of Tiger and other popular Asian brands, to Heineken. Heineken NV is spending another €3.2 billion ($4.0 billion) to gain control over the Tiger beer brand as part of a strategy to significantly expand its operations in Asia.
(AP, 9/28/12)
2012 Oct 2, The US National Institute for Public Health and the Environment said a salmonella outbreak traced to smoked salmon has sickened hundreds of people in the Netherlands and the United States. It has been traced to Dutch company Foppen, which sells fish to many major Dutch supermarkets and to stores around the world.
(AP, 10/2/12)(http://tinyurl.com/m3wv4tr)
2012 Oct 11, Nigerian farmers asked a Dutch court to rule that oil company Shell is liable for poisoning their fish ponds and farmland with leaking pipelines. Royal Dutch Shell PLC long argued that the case, which was launched in 2008, should be heard in Nigeria.
(AP, 10/11/12)
2012 Oct 16, In Rotterdam, Netherlands, thieves grabbed seven paintings from the Kunsthal gallery of works by celebrated artists including Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Henri Matisse and vanished into the night. The paintings were estimated to be worth roughly $100 million if sold at auction.
(AP, 10/17/12)(AP, 10/18/12)
2012 Oct 18, Sylvia Kristal (b.1952), Dutch film star, died in Amsterdam. She was best known for her role in 4 of 7 “Emmannuelle" films.
(Econ, 11/3/12, p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Kristel)
2012 Nov 5, In the Netherlands Queen Beatrix swore in the new center-left coaltion of PM Mark Rutte. The new government brought togethere the liberal VVD party and the center-left Labor Party.
(SFC, 11/6/12, p.A2)
2012 Nov 28, A majority of Dutch parties said the Netherlands no longer needs a law making it a crime to insult God, which hasn't been invoked in the past half-century.
(AP, 11/28/12)
2012 Dec 3, In the Netherlands volunteer soccer linesman Richard Nieuwenhuizen (42) died a day after he was beaten by players from Osdorp following a match against his club Buitenboys in the city of Almere. The offenders, aged 14-17, were all ethnic Moroccans.
(Econ, 1/12/13, p.46)(http://tinyurl.com/cdpsf42)
2012 Dec 5, The 148m (485-foot) Baltic Ace sank after colliding with the 134m (440-foot) container ship Corvus J in darkness near busy shipping lanes some 65 kilometers (40 miles) off the coast of the southern Netherlands. 5 bodies were recovered and 6 others remained missing.
(AP, 12/6/12)(SFC, 12/7/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 7, The Dutch government approved a NATO request to send two batteries of Patriot missile defense systems to Turkey, following in Germany's footsteps.
(AP, 12/7/12)
2012 Dec 12, Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan said he would formally ban students from smoking marijuana at school, making the Dutch capital the first city in the Netherlands to do so.
(AP, 12/12/12)
2013 Jan 7, The Dutch military shipped Patriot missiles to Turkey, a fellow NATO member, after the alliance agreed in December to deploy the anti-missile systems along Turkey's southern border with Syria. Fighting in Syria continued unabated.
(AP, 1/7/13)
2013 Jan 16, In the Netherlands Alexander Dolmatov (36), a rocket engineer who feared arrest in Russia after an opposition protest turned violent in May, was taken to the prison-like deportation center in Rotterdam. The next morning he was found dead in his cell. Dutch authorities had denied his asylum request on Dec 14.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Jan 28, The Netherlands' Queen Beatrix announced that she is ending her reign after 33 years and passing the crown to her eldest son, Willem-Alexander (45), who has long been groomed to be king.
(AP, 1/28/13)
2013 Feb 1, The Netherlands nationalized SNS Reaal bank and expropriated its bonds in a $14 billion rescue. Investors in the subordinated bonds were wiped out.
(Econ, 3/16/13, p.72)(http://tinyurl.com/bllbeqf)
2013 Feb 26, The Hague Appeals Court ruled that a 2005 law, which makes it mandatory for all people older than 14 to carry ID cards and show them to police upon request, does not have a religious exemption.
(AP, 2/26/13)
2013 Mar 1, A Dutch court convicted Yvonne Basebya (66), a Rwandan-born Dutch woman, of inciting genocide in Rwanda's 1994 mass murders of ethnic Tutsis by members of the Hutu tribe — the first conviction of a Dutch citizen for the crime. She was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for her role.
(AP, 3/1/13)
2013 Mar 11, The Clinton Foundation announced that grants for over $700,000 will go toward efforts in Haiti to plant trees, build a coffee farm and train farmers. Heineken NV announced that it would invest $40 million to expand a brewery and help farmers who supply it with sorghum.
(AP, 3/12/13)
2013 Mar 25, TNT Express NV, a Dutch-based package delivery company, said it will restructure operations, taking €150 million ($195 million) in charges and cutting 4,000 jobs, or 6 percent of its work force, by the end of 2015. A takeover by UPS was blocked by European regulators in January.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 27, The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague convicted two senior Bosnian Serbs of war crimes in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin were each sentenced to 22 years in prison. In 2016 appeals were rejected.
(SFC, 3/28/13, p.A3)(SFC, 7/1/16, p.A2)
2013 Apr 8, In Amsterdam President Vladimir Putin defended Russia's treatment of homosexuals, as 1,000 gay rights activists waved pink and orange balloons and blasted out dance music to press home their protest.
(Reuters, 4/8/13)
2013 Apr 8, In Egypt Dutch journalist Rena Netjes was arrested by Egyptian citizens while reporting in Cairo, accused of being a spy and handed to authorities who detained her overnight.
(AP, 4/9/13)
2013 Apr 11, Netherlands-based Royal Philips NV said it has developed a working prototype of an LED lamp that will confine the fluorescent bulb to the recycling bin of history.
(AP, 4/11/13)
2013 Apr 11, The Dutch Cabinet brokered a deal with unions that scraps planned salary freezes for government and healthcare workers.
(AP, 4/12/13)
2013 Apr 13, Netherlands' Queen Beatrix officially reopened the Rijksmuseum, the country's national museum, after a 10-year, 375 million euro ($480 million) renovation.
(AP, 4/13/13)
2013 Apr 23, A Dutch court sentenced diplomat Raymond Poeteray (61) to 12 years in prison for delivering confidential NATO and European Union documents to Russian agents. He was arrested in March 2012 in connection with a German investigation.
(AP, 4/23/13)
2013 Apr 24, A Dutch court ordered Hans van Anraat, convicted of selling Saddam Hussein raw materials for mustard gas, to pay compensation to victims of chemical weapon attacks by the late Iraqi dictator's regime. The landmark ruling was largely symbolic for the 16 survivors as the businessman is serving a prison sentence for selling the chemicals and is believed to be destitute.
(AP, 4/24/13)
2013 Apr 25, Spanish agents arrested a Dutch citizen, identified as S.K. (35), for using a vehicle to hack into networks. He was accused of attacking the Swiss-British antispam watchdog group Spanhaus.
(SFC, 4/29/13, p.A3)
2013 Apr 30, In the Netherlands Beatrix ended her 33-year reign as queen. Willem-Alexander became the first Dutch king in more than a century and pledged to use his ceremonial position as head of state to help steer his country through uncertain economic times.
(AP, 4/30/13)
2013 Apr 30, UAE state news agency WAM said that Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) would own 60% of the Bab joint venture's equity and Royal Dutch Shell would hold the rest.
(AP, 4/30/13)
2013 May 15, Dutch sociologist Saskia Sassen was awarded Spain's Prince of Asturias social sciences prize for her work in the field of globalization and urban sociology. The jury said that one of her greatest scientific contributions was "her concept of the 'global city', now accepted and used worldwide."
(AP, 5/15/13)
2013 May 29, The EU granted France, Spain, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia more time to bring their budget deficits under control to support the bloc's shrinking economy. The European Commission approved France’s request to postpone by 2 years the target of cutting its budget deficit to 3% of GDP.
(AP, 5/29/13)(Econ, 6/1/13, p.55)
2013 May 29, A UN court in the Netherlands convicted six Bosnian Croat political and military leaders of persecuting, expelling and murdering Muslims during Bosnia's war and said leaders in neighboring Croatia helped hatch and execute their plan to carve out a Croat state in Bosnia.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 Jun 8, In Yemen Judith Spiegel, a Dutch journalist, was kidnapped along with her partner Boudewijn Berendsen. Both were reported released on Dec 10.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Jun 15, Yemeni police confirmed the kidnapping of Judith Spiegel, a Dutch journalist, along with her partner Boudewijn Berendsen, earlier this month. In July the couple appealed for help, saying their captors have threatened to kill them in days unless the Dutch government meets unspecified demands.
(Reuters, 7/16/13)(http://tinyurl.com/n4zl2pj)
2013 Jul 17, A Romanian museum official said that ash from the oven of a woman whose son is charged with stealing 7 multi-million-dollar paintings from Rotterdam’s Kunsthal Musum (Nov 16, 2012) contains paint, canvas and nails. Olga Dogaru has claimed to have burned the stolen paintings last February after police began searching the village of Caracliu, where she lived. On July 22 Olga Dogaru told a Bucharest court that she did not burn the paintings in her stove.
(SFC, 7/18/13, p.A2)(AP, 7/22/13)
2013 Jul 23, Dutch judges blocked the extradition of a terror suspect, identified as Sabir K., to the United States, saying he was tortured in Pakistan after his 2010 arrest and it is unclear whether American authorities had any involvement. US authorities have accused him of working with al-Qaida from 2004 to 2010, and of plotting a suicide attack on an American military base in Afghanistan.
(AP, 7/23/13)
2013 Aug 5, In Britain Dutch scientists served hamburgers made from cow stem cells at a public tasting in London. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, underwrote the 250,000-euro ($330,000) project, which began in 2006.
(AP, 8/5/13)
2013 Aug 13, In Romania a trial opened on artwork stolen last october in the Netherlands. Lawyers for the defendents said the paintings have not been burned and that the gang responsible would like to cut a deal so the artwork can be returned.
(SFC, 8/14/13, p.A2)
2013 Aug 23, The Belgian prosecutor's office said a three-nation investigation (Belgium, Netherlands, Poland) has led to one of the biggest seizures of synthetic drugs in Europe, a haul of core products to create Ecstasy pills with a street value of 1.3 billion euros ($1.75 billion).
(AP, 8/23/13)
2013 Sep 6, The Netherlands supreme court ruled that the Dutch state is liable for the deaths of three Bosnian Muslims who were expelled from a UN compound at Srebrenica in 1995.
(AFP, 9/6/13)
2013 Sep 12, The Netherlands sought to "close a difficult chapter" with its former colony Indonesia by publicly apologising for mass killings carried out by the Dutch army in the 1940s war of independence.
(AFP, 9/12/13)
2013 Sep 16, Representatives from 15 Caribbean nations gathered in St. Vincent to seek slavery reparations from Britain, France and the Netherlands.
(SFC, 9/17/13, p.A2)
2013 Sep 21, The Italian government announced that police in The Netherlands have arrested Francesco Nirta, a senior mafia boss and one of Italy's 10 most wanted men.
(AP, 9/21/13)
2013 Sep 24, In the Netherlands the commission that vets cases of euthanasia said cases rose by 13% in 2012 from 2011, the sixth consecutive year of increases. 4,188 cases were recorded in 2012.
(AP, 9/24/13)
2013 Sep 26, A Russian court ordered two Greenpeace activists to be detained for two months over a protest on an Arctic oil platform, as the Netherlands called for the activists' immediate release and threatened legal action against Moscow.
(AFP, 9/26/13)
2013 Oct 4, The Netherlands launched legal proceedings against Russia, saying it had unlawfully detained activists and others on the Dutch-registered ship last month as it protested against drilling in the Arctic.
(Reuters, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, Russia shrugged off Dutch legal action over its detention and prosecution of Greenpeace activists for piracy, saying the group's protest at an Arctic oil platform had been "pure provocation."
(Reuters, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 7, Dutch coastguards scrambled helicopters and divers to search for three sailors missing in the North Sea after their ship sank following a collision with a fishing trawler.
(AFP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 9, The Dutch foreign minister apologized to Moscow for the detention of a Russian diplomat in The Hague, saying his right to diplomatic immunity had been violated. Dutch child protection services said earlier they were investigating a complaint from neighbors of diplomat Dmitry Borodin about his treatment of his children.
(Reuters, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 15, Dutch police said a total of 15 people have been arrested since July, related to cocaine packages stashed aboard planes arriving from Latin America. Seven of them employed by the same company at Schiphol.
(AFP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, In Russia unknown attackers posing as electricians broke into the apartment of a Dutch diplomat, forced him to the ground, hit him and drew a heart containing the letters LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) on a mirror in pink lipstick.
(Reuters, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 18, The Netherlands Supreme Court said municipalities are entitled to to tax dog ownership because they have to pick up the bill for keeping public parks and streets clean.
(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 23, Russia said it will boycott maritime court hearings sought by the Netherlands in a bid to free 30 crew members of a Greenpeace ship who were detained during a protest against Arctic oil drilling. Russia dropped piracy charges against 30 people involved in a Greenpeace protest against Arctic oil drilling, replacing them with lesser offences and cutting the maximum jail sentence they face to seven years from 15.
(AFP, 10/23/13)(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 28, A major storm, dubbed the St Jude storm, lashed southern Britain, the Netherlands and parts of France, knocking down trees, flooding low areas and causing travel chaos. 5 deaths were reported.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Nov 1, Dutch PM Mark Rutte said the Netherlands will send 380 soldiers and four Apache attack helicopters to war-torn Mali following an appeal for more UN peacekeepers.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 5, Lyon-based Interpol said it was waiting for information from Dutch authorities after a rights group said it had identified 1,000 paedophiles by offering online sex with a computer-generated girl (10).
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 20, The International Criminal Court's vexed relationship with Africa took center stage on the opening day of the annual summit of its 122 member states at The Hague.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 29, Standard & Poor's stripped the Netherlands of its triple-A credit rating, saying that the country's growth prospects have deteriorated and it is not performing as well as peers.
(AP, 11/29/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Germany Heinrich Boere (92), who murdered Dutch civilians as part of a Nazi Waffen SS hit squad during World War II but avoided justice for six decades, died in a prison hospital while serving a life sentence.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 3, Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it has completed building the hull of the world's largest floating facility, which has been constructed to process natural gas off the coast of western Australia.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 6, Romania's Interior Ministry said Adrian Procop (21), a Romanian man accused of stealing seven masterpieces from a Dutch museum, was arrested in Britain after months on the run. Procop entered the Kunsthal museum at night in Oct 2012 with a friend, Radu Dogaru, and stole artworks worth 18 million euros ($24 million).
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Russell Shorto authored “Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City."
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.95)
2014 Jan 8, Dutch pension asset manager PGGM, one of the largest in the country, said it was divesting from five Israeli banks because they finance Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 23, Dutch authorities said they have detained Jean Baptiste M. (54), a former Rwandan politician suspected of compiling death lists during the country's 1994 genocide, and would send him home for court hearings.
(Reuters, 1/23/14)
2014 Jan 30, Royal Dutch Shell said it will suspend drilling in offshore Alaska after a US court decision and as the oil major streamlines operations following a slump in annual profits.
(AFP, 1/30/14)
2014 Feb 10, In the Netherlands former health minister Els Borst (81), a woman who drafted the nation's landmark 2002 law permitting euthanasia, was found dead in her garage. Police ruled out natural causes.
(AP, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, German and Dutch authorities arrested five men in a sting operation against a website allegedly used to sell illegal drugs and weapons.
(AP, 2/13/14)
2014 Feb 27, Uganda shrugged off foreign aid cuts and int’l criticism of its tough new anti-gay law, saying it could do without Western aid. Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands cut aid over Uganda’s anti-gay law.
(AFP, 2/27/14)(SFC, 2/28/14, p.A4)
2014 Feb, In the Netherlands the Allard Pierson museum opened the "Crimea — Gold and secrets of the Black Sea" exhibition. In April curators said they are not sure where to return the objects on display when it ends in August due to Russia’s takeover of Crimea.
(AP, 4/4/14)
2014 Mar 7, Congolese warlord Germain Katanga was convicted of being an accessory to war crimes including murder and pillage - only the second conviction in the 12-year history of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
(Reuters, 3/7/14)
2014 Mar 22, The Netherlands-based ICC said Charles Ble Goude, wanted by the International Criminal Court in connection with a wave of violence after Ivory Coast's 2010 elections, is in its court's custody and is on his way to its jail in The Hague.
(Reuters, 3/22/14)
2014 Mar 23, China and the Netherlands signed a trade pact pledging Dutch dairy expertise to help Chinese producers boost the quality and quantity of their milk. It was part of a raft of deals and memoranda of understanding inked on the 2nd day of a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is in the Netherlands with a large trade delegation.
(AP, 3/23/14)
2014 Mar 24, Belgium and Italy said they had moved excess nuclear materials to the United States for disposal or downgrading under the terms of past agreements, at the start of a nuclear summit in the Netherlands.
(Reuters, 3/24/14)
2014 Mar 24, Japanese and US leaders said Japan will turn over hundreds of kilograms of sensitive atomic material of potential use in bombs to the United States to be downgraded and disposed. This was shortly before leaders from 53 countries, including Obama and Abe, were due to hold a two-day summit at The Hague aimed at preventing al Qaeda-style militant groups from acquiring nuclear bombs.
(Reuters, 3/24/14)
2014 Mar 25, In the Netherlands 35 countries pledged to turn international guidelines on nuclear security into national laws, a move aimed at preventing terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear material.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Dutch police detained 28 anti-nuclear demonstrators at a reactor ahead of a visit by a delegation of energy sector bosses.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, In the Netherlands US President Barack Obama, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye met to discuss North Korea's security threat.
(AP, 3/26/14)
2014 Mar 28, Netherlands’ public prosecutor said Milutin Graic (41), wanted in Croatia on suspicion of war crimes during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, has been arrested in Roosendaal.
(Reuters, 3/28/14)
2014 Apr 9, The Dutch government scrapped a trade mission to Russia that was intended to forge closer ties between the two countries' energy sectors, blaming developments in eastern Ukraine.
(AP, 4/9/14)
2014 Apr 10, The Dutch government announced that relatives of three men killed during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre will each receive 20,000 euros ($28,000) in compensation. Seven months earlier the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the Netherlands was liable in the deaths of the three Bosnian Muslims because Dutch troops serving in a UN peacekeeping force should not have turned the men over to Bosnian Serb forces.
(AP, 4/10/14)
2014 Apr 13, In the Netherlands Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya won the Rotterdam Marathon, but failed in his bid to break the course record on a windy day in the port city.
(AP, 4/13/14)
2014 Apr 26, The Dutch donned crazy orange-colored outfits and celebrated their first ever "King's Day" — a national holiday held in honor of the newly installed monarch, King Willem Alexander. King's Day replaced the traditional "Queens' Day" festival held this time of year.
(AP, 4/26/14)
2014 May 1, Dutch police stormed a Greenpeace ship and ended environmentalists' attempts to block a Russian tanker carrying oil from the Arctic Ocean from mooring at Rotterdam Port. 31 activists were detained.
(AP, 5/1/14)
2014 May 22, EU parliamentary elections began in Britain and the Netherlands at the start of 4 days of balloting across the 28 members.
(SFC, 5/23/14, p.A5)
2014 May 23, The Int’l. Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague sentenced Germain Katanga, a Congolese militia leader, to 12 years in prison for his role in a 2003 attack where more than 200 civilians were killed.
(SFC, 5/24/14, p.A3)
2014 Jul 3, In the Netherlands an Amsterdam court ruled that the traditional figure known as Black Pete, the sidekick to the Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus, is a negative stereotype of black people and the city must rethink its involvement in holiday celebrations involving him.
(AP, 7/3/14)
2014 Jul 11, Aruba's PM Mike Eman and several legislators launched a hunger strike to protest what they say is meddling by the Dutch government in local financial affairs. This came after the Dutch government asked Aruba's governor to hold off on signing the 2014 budget into law pending an evaluation of it.
(AP, 7/13/14)
2014 Jul 16, A civil court in The Hague court cleared the Netherlands of liability in the deaths of the most of the 8,000 Bosnian Muslims slain in the July, 1995, Srebrenica massacre, but did order the nation to compensate the families of more than 300 men turned over to Bosnian Serb forces and later killed.
(AP, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 17, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 with 298 people on board was shot down over eastern Ukraine. Officials strongly suspected the Boeing 777 was downed by a missile fired by Ukrainian separatists backed by Moscow. More than half of the dead passengers, 189 people, were Dutch. Twenty-nine were Malaysian, 27 Australian, 12 Indonesian, 9 British, 4 German, 4 Belgian, 3 Filipino, one Canadian, one New Zealand and 4 as yet unidentified. All 15 crew were Malaysian.
(Reuters, 7/18/14)
2014 Aug 14, In the Netherlands Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan said the controversial winter holiday character Black Pete would change in appearance over the next four years to make him less of an offensive racial figure and eventually just resemble someone who has climbed through a chimney.
(SFC, 8/15/14, p.A5)
2014 Aug 19, Statistics Netherlands said sanctions Russia has imposed on agricultural products from the EU will cut Dutch exports by "at least 300 million euros" ($400 million), based on 2013 figures.
(Reuters, 8/19/14)
2014 Sep 28, In the Netherlands a tricked-out truck, sporting outsized tires and a powerful engine, surged off the track after driving over a line of prop cars, crashing through a barricade and into the audience in the eastern town of Haaksbergen. 3 people died in the accident.
(AFP, 9/29/14)
2014 Nov 12, Netherlands authorities announced the arrest of 12 people with suspected links to militant Islamists.
(Reuters, 11/13/14)
2014 Nov 16, Authorities in the Netherlands said they have identified a "highly pathogenic" strain of bird flu at a farm in the central area of the Netherlands and announced a temporary ban on all transport to and from poultry farms across the country. They said it was the highly contagious H5N8 strain first detected in Europe less than two weeks ago.
(Reuters, 11/16/14)
2014 Nov 20, Dutch authorities said a case of bird flu has been confirmed at a chicken farm, the second infection identified in the country this week.
(AP, 11/20/14)
2014 Nov 21, Dutch authorities said they will slaughter poultry at a cluster of three farms after new cases of bird flu were found in Kamperveen, in the 3rd outbreak this week.
(SFC, 11/22/14, p.A2)
2014 Nov 26, Dutch researchers sought to add a new, largely untapped renewable energy source to the world's energy mix with the opening of a "Blue Energy" test facility. Blue energy takes advantage of the difference in salt concentration between sea water and fresh water to produce electricity.
(AP, 11/26/14)
2014 Nov 30, The Netherlands Economic Affairs Ministry said in a statement that poultry at the farm in the town of Zoeterwoude were suffering from an H5 strain of bird flu and that all 28,000 birds there were being slaughtered.
(AP, 11/30/14)
2014 Dec 5, Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court withdrew their crimes against humanity charges against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. Kenyatta said he was "vindicated" after the ICC's decision.
(Reuters, 12/5/14)(SFC, 12/6/14, p.A4)
2014 Dec 8, A Dutch court ruled in a preliminary judgment that Uber, a California-based ride-sharing service, must stop working with drivers who charge fares but do not possess a taxi license.
(AP, 12/8/14)
2014 Dec 11, In Vienna, Austria, several states (Britain, Norway, Netherlands and the US) pledged to back a UN nuclear agency (IAEA) request for 4.6 million euros ($5.7 million) as soon as possible to pay for its monitoring of an extended, interim nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
(AP, 12/11/14)
2014 Dec 15, A Dutch privacy watchdog ordered Google to make changes to the way it handles users' personal data or face fines of up to 15 million euros ($18.7 million).
(AP, 12/15/14)
2014 Dec 17, The United States slapped sanctions on Dutch and Swiss oil trading firms for their dealings with the Syrian government. This put Netherlands-based Staroil B.V. as well as two Swiss-based firms, Rixo International Trading Ltd and Bluemarine SA, on its list of sanctioned entities, which effectively cuts them off from the US financial system.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2015 Jan 7, It was announced that Royal Dutch Shell will pay more than $80 million to people in Bodo, a Nigerian fishing community "devastated" by two serious oil spills in 2008. The clean-up could take years.
(AFP, 1/7/15)
2015 Jan 27, A Netherlands judge approved the extradition of Vladimir Drinkman to the US. He was one of four Russians and a Ukrainian charged in a data breach that netted at least 160 million credit and debit card numbers resulting in losses of hundreds of millions over seven years.
(SFC, 1/28/15, p.A2)
2015 Feb 10, In the Netherlands a "distributed denial of service" attack was responsible for taking down several of government websites for hours.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 13, The Netherlands extradited Vladimir Drinkman to the US. The Russian was suspected of involvement in a huge data breach that racked up hundreds of millions of dollars in losses over seven years for US companies. Drinkman was arrested in the Netherlands in June 2012.
(AP, 2/13/15)
2015 Feb 18, The Dutch Safety Board said Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp and the Dutch government ignored the danger of earthquakes caused by gas extraction at the massive Groningen gas field for decades.
(Reuters, 2/18/15)
2015 Mar 11, In the Netherlands a court ruled that the Dutch government must pay compensation to nine widows and children of Indonesian men summarily executed in their country's war for independence, a ruling that could open the door to many more claims.
(AP, 3/11/15)
2015 Mar 27, In The Netherlands trains, trams and planes ground to a temporary halt in and around Amsterdam as a huge power outage hit the Dutch capital and surrounding towns. Power was soon restored.
(AFP, 3/27/15)
2015 Apr 7, Dutch businessman Willy Selten was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. He was at the center of a Europe-wide fraud in which falsely labeled horsemeat led to thousands of tons of meat being recalled.
(Reuters, 4/7/15)
2015 Apr 7, FedEx said it has agreed to take over TNT Express, a Dutch delivery firm, for $4.8 billion in an all cash offer of $8.75 per TNT share.
(SFC, 4/8/15, p.C3)
2015 Apr 8, Royal Dutch Shell said it will pay the equivalent of 13.67 pounds in cash and stock for each share of British rival BG Group, 50 percent more than the April 7 closing price.
(AP, 4/8/15)
2015 Apr 27, The Netherlands turned out in orange as King Willem-Alexander turned 48 and the whole country celebrated King's Day.
(AP, 4/27/15)
2015 May 13, In the Netherlands an appeals court cleared Albert Heringa of any criminal responsibility for helping his mother (90) take her life in 2008.
(SFC, 5/14/15, p.A2)
2015 May 27, Dutch police detained 20 people, 14 of them members of the Bandidos motorcycle gang, and seized weapons including five rocket-propelled grenade launchers and six automatic handguns. The 19 men and one woman were suspected of crimes including drug trafficking, extortion and money laundering.
(AP, 5/27/15)
2015 Jun 2, The Dutch Safety Board made a draft report on last year's crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 available to representatives of Malaysia, Ukraine, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands. It did not publicize details of the confidential draft.
(AP, 7/1/15)
2015 Jun 17, In southern Portugal a bus carrying Dutch tourists crashed, killing 3 tourists and injuring 30 others and the Portuguese bus driver.
(AP, 6/18/15)
2015 Jun 24, A Dutch court ordered the state to slash greenhouse gas emissions nationwide by at least 25 percent by 2020.
(AFP, 6/24/15)
2015 Jun 28, In the Netherlands Mitch Henriquez (42), from the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba, died in the hands of police. Preliminary findings from an autopsy indicated that Henriquez died of asphyxiation after being held in a chokehold and pinned down by five white police officers.
(Reuters, 7/2/15)
2015 Jul 2, Dutch police fired warning shots and arrested 34 people during a third straight day of unrest triggered by the June 28 death of a Caribbean man in police custody. A temporary ban on public gatherings was imposed in a neighborhood hit by rioting.
(Reuters, 7/2/15)
2015 Jul 3, Dutch police have detained some 200 people for ignoring a ban on public assembly imposed in a neighborhood hit by four days of late-night rioting following the death of a man in police custody.
(AP, 7/3/15)
2015 Jul 30, Royal Dutch Shell announced deep cuts to jobs and investment on as the global energy giant prepares for a prolonged period of low oil prices.
(AP, 7/30/15)
2015 Aug 4, Russia tightened controls on imports of cut flowers from the Netherlands, a move that comes amid a strain in ties over the downing of a Malaysia Airlines plane in Ukraine.
(AP, 8/4/15)
2015 Aug 24, An international arbitration panel said Russia must compensate the Netherlands for seizing a Greenpeace ship protesting at an oil platform in Arctic waters in breach of an international treaty regulating the laws of the sea. The Arctic Sunrise, sailing under a Dutch flag, was seized by Russian authorities in September 2013 during a protest against an offshore oil platform.
(AP, 8/24/15)
2015 Sep 8, Joost Zwagerman (b.1963), Dutch writer, poet and essayist, committed suicide. In 2017 “The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories," edited by Zwagerman, was published.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joost_Zwagerman)(Econ, 3/11/17, p.79)
2015 Sep 14, The Netherlands said police will carry out spot border checks in response to a surge in asylum seekers into the European Union.
(Reuters, 9/14/15)
2015 Sep 24, The International Criminal Court unveiled at least 60 new war crimes charges against Dominic Ongwen, the deputy leader of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, including the use of child soldiers and keeping sex slaves.
(AFP, 9/24/15)
2015 Sep 28, At the Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon tribunal set up to try the killers of former Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri fined journalist Karma Khayat 10,000 euros for obstruction of justice. The judge found her guilty of obstruction of justice because she failed to remove the broadcasts from the Al-Jadeed TV website and social media as ordered.
(AFP, 9/28/15)
2015 Oct 13, The Dutch Safety Board concluded that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine by a Russian-made Buk missile in its final report on the crash on July 17, 2014, that killed all 298 people on board, most of them Dutch.
(Reuters, 10/13/15)
2015 Nov 10, Dutch electronics giant Philips announced the inking of a multi-million-euro contract with Canada's Mackenzie Health to install and run a raft of state-of-the-art hospital equipment over the next 18 years.
(AFP, 11/10/15)
2015 Dec 10, A Dutch court convicted six men of belonging to a network recruiting young Muslims to join the Islamic State jihadist group, handing them jail terms of up to six years.
(AFP, 12/10/15)
2015 Dec 16, Dutch police fired warning shots and arrested 14 demonstrators when a protest by hundreds of people against the opening of a refugee center turned violent, leaving several injured.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 18, A Dutch appeals court ruled that Royal Dutch Shell may be held liable for oil spills at its subsidiary in Nigeria, potentially opening the way for other compensation claims against multinationals in the Niger Delta and elsewhere.
(Reuters, 12/18/15)
2015 In the Netherlands the flow of refugees rose to a record 59,100 this year.
(SFC, 1/9/16, p.A2)
2016 Jan 1, The Netherlands took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.
(Econ, 1/9/16, p.10)
2016 Jan 11, In the Netherlands police, politicians and intelligence officials from more than 50 countries met at The Hague to discuss how to improve coordination in the fight against extremist violence and crack down on foreigners traveling to fight in conflict-torn countries like Syria and Iraq.
(AP, 1/11/16)
2016 Jan 12, In the Netherlands five sperm whales beached on Texel Island. All 5 died before anyone could attempt a rescue operation. Sperm whales began to wash up on German, Dutch, French and British shores. Over the next two months 29 beached whales surprised scientists after only 82 previous beaching of sperm whales had been documented since the 1990s. In 2017 German scientists said the mass beachings could have been due to solar storms.
(AP, 1/13/16) (Reuters, 9/5/17)
2016 Jan 27, Judges at the International Criminal Court gave its prosecutor a green light to launch a new inquiry into allegations of war crimes during a brief but bloody 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
(AFP, 1/27/16)
2016 Feb 8, Bosnian Serb Gen. Zdravko Tolimir, jailed for life for committing genocide during the Balkans wars, died of natural cases in a UN detention center at The Hague.
(AFP, 2/12/16)
2016 Feb 11, The Netherlands said it would create a 300-strong rapid response security team that could be deployed for border control anywhere, but primarily within the European Union.
(Reuters, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 23, A Dutch passenger train derailed after hitting a maintenance crane during rush hour, killing one person and injuring several others.
(Reuters, 2/23/16)
2016 Mar 16, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Saudi Arabian Oil Co. said they will split up the assets of their joint US venture, which will see the kingdom's state-owned producer take full ownership of America's biggest oil refinery. The Port Arthur, Texas, refinery, had been part of a 50-50 joint venture between the two companies called Motiva Enterprises LLC, which formed in 1998.
(AP, 3/17/16)
2016 Mar 24, At The Hague Florence Hartmann, now a freelance journalist, was arrested outside the UN war crimes tribunal just before the court convicted Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. Her attorney said it was almost certainly an attempt by the UN to make her serve out a previous sentence for contempt of court. The tribunal convicted her in 2009 for publishing confidential material, giving her a fine which was later converted into a seven-day prison sentence. Hartmann was released on March 29.
(AP, 3/28/16)(AP, 3/29/16)
2016 Mar 27, Dutch police found ammunition in the house of a French national arrested in Rotterdam on suspicion of plotting an attack. The man (32), thought to be called Anis B., was detained on suspicion of receiving orders from the Islamic State group to attack targets in France along with Reda Kriket, who was detained near Paris last week.
(AFP, 3/28/16)
2016 Apr 6, Dutch voters went to the polls and rejected a key EU pact with Ukraine in a referendum triggered by grassroots eurosceptic groups and seen as a yardstick on ties with Brussels.
(AFP, 4/6/16)(Reuters, 4/7/16)
2016 Apr 20, A Dutch court quashed a $50 billion award Russia had been ordered to pay the former majority shareholders of Yukos, a major win for Moscow in the high-stakes dispute over the dismantling of what was once Russia's largest oil producer. The Dutch court said a Hague-based arbitration panel in 2014 did not have jurisdiction to rule in the case because the arbitration was based on an energy treaty that Russia had signed but had not ratified.
(AP, 4/20/16)
2016 Apr 26, Dutch prosecutors said the former spokesman of Geert Wilder, the far-right Dutch politician who wants to ban Muslim immigration in Europe, embezzled nearly 180,000 euros ($203,000) in party funds to finance a luxury lifestyle.
(Reuters, 4/26/16)
2016 May 18, The Dutch finance minister said the country's national debt declined last year for the first time since 2006 as the economy reaped the benefits of reforms and recovered from the global economic turmoil of recent years. The 2015 national debt was 442 billion euros, 10 billion less than the previous year. The debt equals 65.1 percent of gross domestic product.
(AP, 5/18/16)
2016 May 30, European Union ministers meeting in the Dutch capital endorsed a "Pact of Amsterdam" aimed at improving living conditions in towns and cities throughout the 28-nation bloc.
(AP, 5/30/16)
2016 Jun 1, Dutch prosecutors raided a string of locations and seized cash and hundreds of thousands of fraudulent letters in an investigation into worldwide mail scams. The next day US law enforcement authorities said the scams had defrauded "elderly and vulnerable" Americans out of tens of millions of dollars.
(AP, 6/2/16)
2016 Jun 22, It was reported that the Dutch Ocean Cleanup Foundation has developed floating barriers to try to collect trash from the world's oceans, and will launch a 100 meter-long prototype in the North Sea this week to see how it fares during storms. Chief Executive Boyan Slat (21) first had the idea for the system as a teenager.
(Reuters, 6/22/16)
2016 Jun 24, Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch anti-immigrant PVV party, said the Netherlands should hold its own referendum on whether to leave the European Union following Britain's vote in favor of exiting the bloc.
(Reuters, 6/24/16)
2016 Jun 28, A Dutch court ruled that Aydin Coban (38) can be extradited to Canada to face charges of using a computer to harass and blackmail teenager Amanda Todd. She committed suicide in October 2012, a month after releasing a widely-viewed YouTube video in which she detailed her suffering.
(Reuters, 6/28/16)
2016 Jul 12, An international tribunal at The Hague rejected China's extensive claims in the South China Sea in a landmark ruling that also found the country had aggravated the regional dispute and violated the Philippines' maritime rights by building up artificial islands that destroyed coral reefs and by disrupting fishing and oil exploration. China immediately rejected it.
(AP, 7/12/16)
2016 Jul 14, A Dutch court sentenced a Turkish-born man (44) to 30 days imprisonment for calling the country's king a "murderer, rapist and thief," in a rare use of a law against insulting the monarch. He has spent two weeks in pretrial detention and will not have to serve any prison time.
(AP, 7/14/16)
2016 Jul 14, In the Netherlands Mark Langedijk (41), a long-term alcoholic, chose to end his life by lethal injection saying he could no longer go on.
(AP, 12/1/16)
2016 Jul 22, A Dutch court convicted four men in absentia for travelling to Syria to join extremists, including the Islamic State group, and sentenced them to six years in prison. All four suspects were believed to be in Syria, where some 260 Dutch citizens have gone to fight in recent years.
(AP, 7/22/16)
2016 Sep 6, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, during a visit to the Netherlands, said the Dutch government will assist Israel in improving water and gas supplies to energy-strapped Gaza.
(Reuters, 9/6/16)
2016 Sep 9, The Dutch government says it is extending its involvement in a military training mission in Iraq until the end of 2017.
(AP, 9/9/16)
2016 Sep 28, A Dutch-led inquiry into the July 2014 downing of Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine said the Boeing 777 was shot down by a BUK missile system from an area in eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists, and that the system was brought in from Russia and then taken back there. Russian missile-maker Almaz-Antey said the BUK missile was fired from territory held by the Ukrainian army and the prosecutors' findings were not supported by technical evidence.
(AFP, 9/28/16)(Reuters, 9/28/16)
2016 Sep 29, In China Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde opened what he calls the world's largest air purifier in Beijing, beginning the first leg of a China tour to raise awareness of environmental problems. The seven-meter-high (7.66-yard-high) Smog Free Tower, part of the Smog Free Project started by the artist, creates a bubble of clean air enabling citizens to experience clean air for free.
(Reuters, 9/29/16)
2016 Sep 30, Investigators said Italian police have found two Van Gogh paintings that were stolen from an Amsterdam museum in 2002 hidden in a farmhouse near an organized crime syndicate's Naples-area stronghold. Investigators seized some 20 million euros ($22 million) worth of assets, including farmland, villas and apartments, which they say are linked to two Camorra drug kingpins, Mario Cerrone and Raffaele Imperiale.
(AP, 9/30/16)
2016 Oct 5, A trio of European scientists has won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing molecular machines that could one day be injected to fight cancer or used to make new types of materials and energy storage devices. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Scotland's J. Fraser Stoddart and Dutchman Bernard Feringa developed molecules that produce mechanical motion in response to a stimulus, allowing them to perform specific tasks.
(Reuters, 10/5/16)
2016 Oct 10, Royal Dutch Shell confirmed that it had signed an initial deal with Iran's National Petrochemical Company, paving the way for its return to the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 10/10/16)
2016 Nov 27, Dutch officials said they have culled 190,000 ducks on a farm where inspectors have confirmed the presence of a highly infectious strain of bird flu.
(AFP, 11/27/16)
2016 Nov 28, Belgium and the Netherlands signed a deal for a peaceful exchange of land between them for the mere fact that it makes sense to do so. Belgium gave up a tiny peninsula on the Meuse river linked only to the Netherlands and got in return a nearby piece from its neighbor.
(AP, 11/28/16)
2016 Nov 29, The Dutch parliament voted to ban face veils in some public places, a law the government said was essential for security but which opponents said pandered to anti-Muslim sentiment.
(Reuters, 11/29/16)
2016 Dec 2, The Dutch government backed a multi-year inquiry into the end of its colonial period in Indonesia in the 1940s, when troops from the Netherlands are accused of massacres in Southeast Asia's largest nation.
(Reuters, 12/2/16)
2016 Dec 7, Netherlands said it will gradually phase out subsidizes for renewable energy and shift its climate change strategy to areas such as energy saving and carbon capture.
(Reuters, 12/7/16)
2016 Dec 9, In the Netherlands police acting on a tip-off from the Dutch intelligence agency arrested a 30-year-old "terrorist" suspect and seized an arsenal of weapons in the port city of Rotterdam.
(Reuters, 12/9/16)
2016 Dec 9, Dutch populist anti-Islam Dutch MP Geert Wilders was found guilty on of discrimination against Moroccans, but acquitted of hate speech in a closely-watched trial ahead of next year's key elections. Judges decided not to impose any sentence or fine, and Wilders immediately vowed to appeal against what he said was a bid to "neutralize" him ahead of the March polls.
(AFP, 12/9/16)
2016 Dec 14, A Dutch court ruled that a priceless collection of gold artifacts from Crimea that was on loan to a Dutch museum when Russia seized the peninsula must be returned to Ukraine and not Crimea.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Mark Spoerer, German historian, authored “C&A: A family business in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom 1911-1961."
(Econ, 10/29/16, p.57)
2017 Jan 21, Authorities in the Netherlands and Spain arrested five male and two female suspects, all Dutch nationals, over the last 24 hours over the robbery of $72 million in jewelry, one the world's biggest ever heists, from Amsterdam's airport in 2005.
(AFP, 1/21/17)
2017 Jan 26, Britain’s High Court ruled that Royal Dutch Shell cannot be sued in London over oil spills in Nigeria, in a setback to attempts to hold British multinationals liable at home for their subsidiaries' actions abroad. The court also said the claimants should be able to use Nigerian courts.
(Reuters, 1/26/17)
2017 Jan 26, German geologist Kay Holtzmann, contracted by the Dutch-British multinational Royal Dutch Shell's Nigeria subsidiary, wrote a letter to the Bodo Mediation Initiative saying the company "fiercely opposed" environmental testing and is concealing data showing thousands of Nigerians are exposed to health hazards from a stalled cleanup of the worst oil spills in the West African nation's history.
(AP, 3/24/17)
2017 Jan 27, It was reported that Belgium has sealed an agreement with France and the Netherlands to draw up passenger lists and introduce passport checks on Thalys and Eurostar international rail services.
(AP, 1/27/17)
2017 Feb 1, In the Netherlands a major computer malfunction crippled traffic at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport for hours, causing delays or cancellations of more than 100 flights at one of Europe's largest transportation hubs. The outage was caused by faulty hardware.
(Reuters, 2/1/17)
2017 Feb 16, Dutch artist and illustrator Dick Bruna (89), creator of beloved children's character Miffy the white rabbit, died in Utrecht. Miffy, the white bunny with two dots for eyes and a cross for her mouth, was inspired by a rabbit seen hopping around the garden during a family seaside holiday in 1955.
(AFP, 2/17/17)
2017 Feb 21, Dutch lawmakers voted in favor of tolerating the cultivation of cannabis, a move that could bring to an end a key paradox of the relaxed Dutch policy on marijuana and hashish.
(AP, 2/21/17)
2017 Feb 24, Guatemala's immigration office ordered the expulsion of a ship run by a Dutch nonprofit organization that performs free abortions onboard in international waters. The ship, operated by Women on Waves, travels the globe offering abortion services to women in countries where the procedure is illegal.
(AP, 2/25/17)
2017 Mar 7, A European Union court struck down a 2013 decision by EU regulators to block a planned takeover of Dutch-based package delivery company TNT Express by United Parcel Services Inc.
(AP, 3/7/17)
2017 Mar 11, The Netherlands barred Turkey's foreign minister from landing in Rotterdam in a row over Ankara's political campaigning among Turkish emigres, and President Tayyip Erdogan retaliated, branding his NATO partner a "Nazi remnant". Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency said family minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya will travel to the Dutch city of Rotterdam by land. Dutch authorities expelled Kaya for seeking to woo the vote of expatriate Turks for a key referendum at home.
(Reuters, 3/11/17)(AFP, 3/12/17)
2017 Mar 12, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on international organizations to "raise their voices" against the Netherlands after it escorted a minister out of the country and prevented another one from landing in the country.
(AP, 3/12/17)
2017 Mar 14, Hundreds of Twitter accounts were hijacked amid the ongoing diplomatic feud between Turkey and two European nations, Germany and the Netherlands. Most if not all high-profile accounts soon returned to normal.
(AP, 3/15/17)
2017 Mar 15, Millions of Dutch flocked to the polls in a test of the "patriotic revolution" promised by far-right MP Geert Wilders. PM Mark Rutte's conservative VVD party won the elections with 33 seats. Wilders increased his bloc from 15 in 2012 to 20. The Denk party, catering to Dutch Muslims, won three seats.
(AFP, 3/15/17)(AP, 3/16/17)(Econ, 3/18/17, p.59)
2017 Mar 15, Turkey said its red meat association has ordered a consignment of prize Dutch cattle to be sent back to the Netherlands, saying it no longer wants to farm the cows due to the diplomatic crisis between the countries.
(AFP, 3/15/17)
2017 Mar 22, At the Hague International Criminal Court judges sentenced former Congolese VP Jean-Pierre Bemba to a year in jail and fined him 300,000 euros for bribing witnesses during his war crimes trial in an unprecedented case before the ICC.
(AFP, 3/22/17)
2017 Mar 24, The International Criminal Court at The Hague awarded $250 dollars as "symbolic" damages to each victim of former Congolese warlord Germain Katanga, a sum swiftly dismissed as meaningless by those who lost homes and loved ones in a militia attack on their village 14 years ago.
(AFP, 3/24/17)
2017 Mar 27, In the northern Netherlands two people were killed when a train hit a car at a rail crossing near Harlingen.
(AP, 3/27/17)
2017 Apr 4, A Dutchman convicted of cyberbullying lost his appeal against being extradited to Canada to face charges linked to the 2012 suicide of Amanda Todd (15), who suffered online harassment. Aydin C. was sentenced last month to almost 11 years in jail, after being found guilty of 72 charges including computer sex crimes.
(AFP, 4/4/17)
2017 Apr 6, Dutch public broadcaster NOS reported that as many as 100 Dutch citizens of Turkish descent are being prevented from leaving Turkey. NOS said those affected, many of whom had been to Turkey on holiday or to see their families, had all been publicly critical of President Tayyip Erdogan.
(Reuters, 4/6/17)
2017 Apr 14, Dutch prosecutors said they have arrested eight people suspected of involvement in robbing or extorting money from tourists by forcing them to pay extreme prices for journeys from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport into the popular Dutch city.
(AP, 4/14/17)
2017 Apr 21, Dutch timber trader Guus Kouwenhoven (74) was convicted as an accessory to war crimes for selling weapons to Liberia's then-President Charles Taylor between 2000 and 2003 in violation of a UN embargo. He was sentenced to 19 years in prison. Kouwenhoven was initially sentenced to eight years by the Dutch district court for Den Bosch in 2008 on weapons smuggling charges, but was acquitted on appeal.
(Reuters, 4/21/17)
2017 Apr, In the southern Netherlands police searching a barn discovered a large quantity of a synthetic drug that is popular in the Arab world. The pills with captagon logos contained amphetamines and caffeine. They also uncovered laboratory equipment, a pill making machine and some 80 kilograms (176 pounds) of amphetamines and MDMA, also known as ecstasy.
(AP, 5/10/17)
2017 May 4, In the Netherlands an asylum-seeker (33) from Eritrea was sentenced to 12 years in prison for raping a 17-year-old woman last September after attempting to strangle and drown her.
(AP, 5/4/17)
2017 May 9, A Dutch appeals court ruled that Russian authorities knowingly plunged oil giant Yukos into bankruptcy in 2006 by ordering it to pay huge tax bills, the latest ruling in a long-running battle over the assets of a Dutch Yukos subsidiary.
(AP, 5/9/17)
2017 May 15, Massachusetts-based Thermo Fisher said it will pay $35 for each share of Patheon NV, based in the Netherlands, a 35 percent premium to the company's last closing price of $26. The $5.2 billion deal will give the scientific instrument maker more access to the contract development and manufacturing organization market.
(AP, 5/15/17)
2017 May 16, Boyan Slat, a 22-year-old Dutchman, said it would be possible to reduce by half the millions of tons of plastic garbage in the Pacific by deploying floating barriers.
(Reuters, 5/16/17)
2017 May 18, A Dutch court convicted 20 people of insulting or threatening Sylvana Simons, a former dancer and television presenter of Surinamese descent, in a racially charged case that shocked the nation. One person was acquitted.
(AP, 5/18/17)
2017 May 19, Organizations from Netherlands and Qatar said they are joining forces to get 6,000 Syrian refugees into higher education courses, a move aimed at helping them integrate in the countries where they live now and rebuild their own nation if they are able to return.
(AP, 5/19/17)
2017 Jun 20, The Dutch Senate approved legislation that obliges all new migrants to sign a declaration pledging to respect "the values and rules of Dutch society" as part of a civic integration test to help them gain citizenship or residency.
(AP, 6/20/17)
2017 Jun 25, In Belgium thousands of protesters demanded that Belgium immediately shut down two nuclear reactors because of safety concerns. People from Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands formed a human chain across the border triangle of the three countries over the safety of the pressure vessels at the Tihange 2 and Doel 3 reactors in Belgium.
(AP, 6/25/17)
2017 Jun 27, A Dutch court ruled that the state was partly to blame for the deaths of hundreds of Muslims in Srebrenica, as the 1995 genocide cast another shadow over the country two decades on.
(AFP, 6/27/17)
2017 Jul 11, In the Netherlands an appeals judge confirmed that a 12-year-old boy does not have to undergo chemotherapy if he does not want it.
(AP, 7/11/17)
2017 Jul 18, An international tribunal ordered Russia to pay damages and costs of nearly 5.4 million euros ($6.2 million) to the Netherlands for unlawfully seizing a Greenpeace ship protesting at an oil platform in Arctic waters. The Arctic Sunrise, sailing under a Dutch flag, was seized by Russian authorities in September 2013 during a protest against an offshore oil platform.
(AP, 7/18/17)
2017 Jul 20, European and US authorities said they had shut down AlphaBay and Hansa Market and arrested their operators. AlphaBay, the largest so-called darknet market, was taken down in early July at the same time that authorities arrested Alexandre Cazes (25), a Canadian man living in Bangkok. Dutch police said they had taken control of Hansa market in June. Two men accused of operating Hansa were arrested in Germany.
(SFC, 7/21/17, p.C1)
2017 Jul 26, The Netherlands' highest court told the government it must fund an Islamic school in Amsterdam that authorities had tried to ban, tapping into a divisive debate about the role of Muslim culture in Dutch society.
(Reuters, 7/26/17)
2017 Jul 29, Dutch police arrested five Romanian men suspected of stealing iPhones worth 500,000 euros ($590,000) in a dangerous heist on a moving truck.
(AP, 7/31/17)
2017 Aug 3, Researchers said euthanasia has become a common way to die in the Netherlands, accounting for 4.5 percent of deaths, and that requests are increasing from people who aren't terminally ill.
(AP, 8/3/17)
2017 Aug 10, Dutch investigators detained two men suspected of being involved in the illegal use of pesticide at poultry farms that sparked a food safety scare in several European countries.
(AP, 8/10/17)
2017 Aug 23, A Dutch court sentenced a 47-year-old woman to 40 hours of community service for threatening the country's prime minister in a Facebook post. The woman from Leiden posted an image of PM Mark Rutte with a noose around his neck.
(AP, 8/23/17)
2017 Aug 25, Hungary said it is recalling its ambassador to the Netherlands and suspending high-level diplomatic ties in response to critical remarks by the Dutch ambassador about Hungary. Scheltema was critical of Hungary's unwillingness to participate in a European Union plan to relocate asylum-seekers from Greece and Italy. He also criticized the Hungarian government's campaign against billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros and drew parallels between the government's efforts to "create enemies" and those of the Islamic State group.
(AP, 8/25/17)
2017 Sep 7, A Dutch court ordered the government to take immediate action to limit air pollution, as emissions in various parts of the country were in breach of European rules.
(Reuters, 9/7/17)
2017 Sep 7, Britain, France and the Netherlands sent water, emergency rations and rescue teams to their stricken territories in the Caribbean hit by Hurricane Irma.
(AFP, 9/7/17)
2017 Sep 11, The Dutch government said it will continue contributing to the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali and NATO's force in Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/11/17)
2017 Sep 13, Netherlands' Justice Minister Stef Blok said he has revoked the Dutch citizenship of four people the government alleges traveled to a foreign conflict zone to join a terrorist organization.
(AP, 9/13/17)
2017 Sep 25, Unilver, an Anglo-Dutch behemoth, said it will buy Carver Korea, a Korean beauty firm for 2.27 billion euros.
(Econ, 9/30/17, p.61)
2017 Sep 26, In the Netherlands the bodies of a couple, reportedly 63 and 62, were discovered in Katlijk, a rural village with some 600 inhabitants that lies 140 km (87 miles) northeast of Amsterdam. Police detained the son (14) the same evening on suspicion of involvement in the deaths. The boy soon confessed to killing his parents with a knife.
(AP, 9/29/17)
2017 Oct 3, In the Netherlands a former spokesman for Geert Wilders was convicted of buying cocaine, alcohol and clothes and funding personal travel with money embezzled from the Dutch anti-Islam lawmaker's party. He was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
(AP, 10/3/17)
2017 Oct 5, In the Netherlands thousands of primary school teachers went on a one-day strike to back demands for better pay and conditions.
(AP, 10/5/17)
2017 Oct 5, In the Netherlands Eberhaard van der Laan (62), the popular mayor of Amsterdam who ran the city with both a firm hand and compassionate touch, died after a long battle with lung cancer.
(AP, 10/6/17)
2017 Oct 10, The Netherlands' new center-right, four-party coalition led by PM Mark Rutte published its policy blueprint for the coming four years, including everything from a raft of tax cuts to an experiment with state-sanctioned cannabis plantations. It included plans to shut all coal-fired power plants by the year 2030.
(AP, 10/10/17)(Reuters, 10/10/17)
2017 Oct 18, A report on human trafficking published at least 1,320 underage Dutch girls between the ages of 12 and 17 fall victim to sexual exploitation in the Netherlands each year.
(Reuters, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 26, Netherlands PM Mark Rutte presented his third government, a new coalition that is set to move the country further to the right.
(AP, 10/26/17)
2017 Nov 2, The Dutch defense minister announced an investigation after soldiers revealed fresh allegations of harassment, abuse, assault and rape in the army.
(AFP, 11/2/17)
2017 Nov 3, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands issued a statement late today critical of Egypt’s detention of Ibrahim Metwaly, who was helping investigate the 2016 murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni. Metwaly was taken by airport security in September while heading to Geneva to attend a UN conference on enforced disappearances.
(Reuters, 11/5/17)
2017 Nov 8, In the Netherlands Iranian political activist Ahmad Mola Nissi (52), who founded an Arab nationalist group seeking an independent state inside Iran, was shot dead at The Hague. A suspect was detained at the scene. Nissi had established the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA), which seeks a separate state in the country's oil-rich southwestern Khuzestan province.
(Reuters, 11/9/17)
2017 Nov 9, German police detained a 29-year-old man suspected of trading narcotic drugs internationally over the internet through anonymous websites and sending them by mail to customers in Germany. A day earlier, in Ingolstadt in Bavaria, police had arrested a man who had ordered marijuana and amphetamines. In cooperation with Dutch authorities, police soon seized 400,000 euros ($470,840) and 75 kg (165 lb) of ecstasy, marijuana, cocaine, amphetamine and heroin at the apartments of the suspect and at his mother in the Netherlands.
(Reuters, 11/22/17)
2017 Nov 9, The International Criminal Court (ICC) approved a prosecution request to investigate war crimes allegedly committed in Burundi by the government and government-linked groups against political foes from April 2015 to October 2017.
(Reuters, 11/9/17)
2017 Nov 13, In the Netherlands Laura Hansen (22), who had traveled to Syria and Iraq to support her family while her husband fought with the Islamic State group, was convicted of supporting terrorist acts and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Judges suspended 13 months of Hansen's sentence, meaning she won't have to go to prison following the conviction since she spent a year in pretrial detention.
(AP, 11/13/17)
2017 Nov 14, In the Netherlands Human rights lawyers presented evidence to International Criminal Court prosecutors alleging that forces loyal to Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter, a key player in Libya's ongoing power struggle, are responsible for crimes including murder, torture and persecution.
(AP, 11/14/17)
2017 Nov 29, At The Hague appeals judges at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal upheld the convictions of six Bosnian Croats found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1990s.
(Reuters, 11/29/17)
2017 Nov 29, At The Hague Slobodan Praljak (72), a convicted Bosnian Croat war criminal, died after drinking from a small bottle in court. Praljak drank from a bottle shortly after judges at the tribunal upheld his sentence for involvement in a campaign to drive Muslims out of a would-be Bosnian Croat mini-state in Bosnia in the early 1990s. A toxicological test revealed potassium cyanide in Praljak’s blood.
(AP, 11/29/17)(SSFC, 12/3/17, p.A7)
2017 Dec 1, Dutch authorities said two men suspected of having fought for an al Qaeda-linked group in Syria were among four Syrian migrants arrested in the Netherlands.
(Reuters, 12/1/17)
2017 Dec 8, The Dutch government ordered the country's farmers to keep all poultry indoors after H5 bird flu was discovered at a duck farm.
(AP, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 11, High winds and heavy snow in Europe stranded thousands of travelers, kept schoolchildren at home and even played havoc with international diplomacy. A second day of snowfall closed schools and disrupted travel across parts of Britain and the Netherlands.
(AFP, 12/11/17)(Reuters, 12/11/17)
2017 Dec 13, The Dutch government said it is joining Austria's lawsuit against Germany at the European Court of Justice over plans for a road toll for foreign drivers.
(Reuters, 12/13/17)
2017 Dec 14, In the Netherlands a man (37) was arrested late today in a mosque in Maastricht shortly after a man and a woman were killed and two other people were injured.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 15, In the Netherlands judges at the International Criminal Court ruled that former Congo DRC warlord Thomas Lubanga, convicted in 2012 of using child soldiers, is liable for $10 million in reparations to victims in the African nation.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 20, A court in the Netherlands banned the Dutch branch of the Bandidos motorcycle club, ruling in a civil case that the biker gang is a threat to public order.
(AP, 12/20/17)
2017 Dec 27, A Dutch court said that the government could not be accused of doing too little to improve the quality of the air, although emissions in various parts of the country are in breach of European rules.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Netherlands stood as the world’s fifth largest exporter of goods. A third of its GDP came from exporting goods and services.
(Econ, 3/11/17, p.72)
2018 Jan 17, It was reported that the Dutch government has told the highest representative of Eritrea in the Netherlands to leave the country as the government saw mounting evidence of Eritrea continuing to force tax payments from people who fled the country.
(AP, 1/17/18)
2018 Jan 17, Air France-KLM canceled 228 European flights to and from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport planned for Jan. 18, as a storm is expected to disrupt traffic at the Dutch national airport.
(Reuters, 1/17/18)
2018 Jan 18, In the Netherlands at least 260 flights were scrapped and falling roof tiles led to the closure of airport terminals as powerful winds toppled trees and blew trucks off the road. Three people were killed in the Netherlands, three in Germany and one person in Belgium.
(Reuters, 1/18/18)(AFP, 1/18/18)(SFC, 1/19/18, p.A5)
2018 Jan 26, A Dutch newspaper and television show jointly reported that the Netherlands' spy service in 2014 broke into the computers used by a powerful Russian hacking group, often nicknamed Cozy Bear, and may be sitting on evidence relating to the breach of the US Democratic National Committee.
(AP, 1/26/18)
2018 Jan 31, A Dutch appeals court convicted a man for helping his ailing, 99-year-old stepmother take her own life a decade ago, a case that has become a focal point in the fierce debate in the Netherlands about end-of-life issues. The city court in Den Bosch gave Albert Heringa a suspended six-month sentence.
(AP, 1/31/18)
2018 Feb 1, A mining watchdog advised the Dutch government to significantly reduce the amount of gas extracted from the Groningen region, saying a cut is necessary to lower the risk of damage from subsequent earthquakes.
(AP, 2/1/18)
2018 Feb 14, In the Netherlands former prime minister Ruud Lubbers (b.1939), died in Rotterdam. He had governed the country from 1982 to 1994.
(SSFC, 2/18/18, p.C12)
2018 Feb 14, Former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili vowed to press on with his fight, as the stateless politician arrived in the Netherlands to join his family after being expelled from Ukraine.
(AFP, 2/14/18)
2018 Feb 22, Dutch anti-smoking activists vowed to fight after prosecutors rejected their call for a criminal investigation into four major tobacco companies on charges including attempted murder or manslaughter, on the grounds that such a case would be unlikely to lead to a conviction.
(AP, 2/22/18)
2018 Feb 26, US delivery giant UPS said it is suing the European Union's antitrust regulator for blocking a merger with Dutch firm TNT Express, which later was snapped up by UPS rival FedEx Corp.
(AP, 2/26/18)
2018 Mar 6, The Maersk Honam container vessel, a unit of Danish shipping firm A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S built in 2017, caught fire in the Arabian Sea. 23 crew members were safely evacuated from the vessel, but four remained missing.
(Reuters, 3/7/18)
2018 Mar 7, The EU’s executive branch pointed the finger at Belgium, Cyprus, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands for "aggressive" tax policies designed to undercut others to attract multinational companies.
(AP, 3/7/18)
2018 Mar 9, In the Netherlands trams ground to a halt across Amsterdam and the Rijksmuseum was evacuated after workers hit an electricity cable in the Dutch capital, causing a power outage that left 28,000 homes without electricity.
(AP, 3/9/18)
2018 Mar 15, Anglo-Dutch consumer giant Unilever chose The Netherlands over London to host its headquarters, dealing a blow to Britain's efforts to keep multinational companies onside following Brexit.
(AFP, 3/15/18)
2018 Mar 21, The Netherlands held municipal elections. Thierry Baudet (35) and his Forum for Democracy won two seats in the March 2017 parliamentary election and was expected to make major gains. Baudet has been called sexist and racist for various remarks, including saying last year that women "generally excel less in many occupations and lack ambition" and that Dutch "people are being homeopathically diluted by mixing them with all the peoples of the world". The Christian Democrats emerged with the most votes — around 13.5 percent — slightly ahead of PM Mark Rutte's center-right Party of Freedom and Democracy. The right-wing populist party of anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders gained footholds for the first time in dozens of municipalities.
(Reuters, 3/21/18)(AP, 3/22/18)
2018 Mar 22, A new study from the Netherlands-based Ocean Cleanup Foundation said that the mass of floating plastic between San Francisco and Hawaii contains 1.8 trillion pieces of trash and covers an area nearly four times the size of California. This was sixteen time more than previous thought.
(SFC, 3/23/18, p.A1)(SSFC, 4/1/18, p.C14)
2018 Mar 27, In the Netherlands an appeals court ruled that Dutch police were liable for the April 9, 2011, mall shooting in which six people were killed as the gunman should never have been granted an gun license.
(AFP, 3/27/18)
2018 Apr 4, At The Hague Britain and Russia accused each other of duplicity and untrustworthiness. London slammed as "perverse" a Russian proposal for a joint probe into the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia at the start of a meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
(AFP, 4/4/18)(AFP, 4/4/18)
2018 Apr 25, European law enforcement agencies said a British and Dutch-led operation brought down webstresser.org, a website linked to more than four million cyberattacks around the world, with banking giants among the victims. Authorities in five countries including the Netherlands, Serbia, Croatia and Canada, with support from Scotland and Europol, targeted six members of the crime group.
(AFP, 4/25/18)
2018 Apr 26, In the Netherlands Russian officials brought purported Syrian witnesses for a briefing at The Hague headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Moscow says they were filmed in "staged videos" in the aftermath of the April 7 reported chemical weapons attack in Douma. Britain and France denounced this as a stunt and an "obscene masquerade".
(AP, 4/26/18)
2018 Apr 27, A two-day operation led by Belgian prosecutors seized servers and data from Islamic State propaganda outlets in a multi-country effort aimed at tracking down radicals and crimping the group's ability to spread its violent message. The operation involved authorities in the US, Canada, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Romania.
(AP, 4/27/18)
2018 May 2, The European Union's executive branch proposed a budget to finance new priorities like defense and border control as well as compensating for Britain's departure from the bloc. Dutch PM Mark Rutte says the new seven-year budget is unacceptable because it will mean the Netherlands' EU bill will increase too much.
(AP, 5/2/18)
2018 May 3, A team of experts from the OPCW returned to the Netherlands from their mission after going to Damascus on April 14. Inspectors for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had completed their work at the site of a suspected gas attack in the Syrian town of Douma.
(Reuters, 5/4/18)
2018 May 5, Dutch police shot and arrested a man know for confused behavior after three people were stabbed in the center of The Hague.
(SSFC, 5/6/18, p.A4)
2018 May 18, The Netherlands announced that it will ban the use of coal in electricity generation in the coming decade and shut down two of its five coal-fired plants at the end of 2024 unless they switch fuels.
(Reuters, 5/18/18)
2018 May 24, Dutch prosecutors said a detailed analysis of video and photos by an international team of investigators has unequivocally established that the Buk missile that brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine nearly four years ago came from a Russia-based military unit in Kurst. Russia's military denied that any Russian missile complex had ever crossed the border between Russia and Ukraine.
(AP, 5/24/18)(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 25, The Netherlands and Australia announced they were holding Moscow legally responsible for its role in the July 17, 2014, missile attack and downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine nearly four years ago.
(AP, 5/25/18)
2018 May 30, At The Hague hundreds of Rohingya victims appealed to judges at the International Criminal Court to grant prosecutors jurisdiction to investigate deportations from Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh.
(Reuters, 5/31/18)
2018 Jun 4, The Dutch government apologized and agreed to compensate military personnel who contracted illnesses including cancer after working with paint containing the toxic element chromium-6. The apology followed publication of a critical report into the use of paint containing chromium-6 by staff at five NATO storage depots in the Netherlands from 1984-2006.
(AP, 6/4/18)
2018 Jun 8, At The Hague International Criminal Court appeals judges overturned the convictions of former Congolese Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba for atrocities committed by his forces in Central African Republic. Bemba was sentenced in 2016 to 18 years in prison.
(AP, 6/8/18)
2018 Jun 11, Dutch King Willem-Alexander started a tour of three Baltic countries in Riga, Latvia, where he met with Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis. He is scheduled to go to Estonia on July 12 and will be in Lithuania on July 14. The trip was to coincide with the Baltic nations celebrating the centenary of their declarations of independence from the Russian Empire.
(AP, 6/11/18)
2018 Jun 18, In the Netherlands a van ran into a small group of pop music fans near the Pinkpop festival, killing one person and injuring three others before fleeing the scene. A suspect turned himself in to police hours later.
(AP, 6/18/18)
2018 Jun 26, The Dutch Upper House of parliament passed a law banning the wearing of face-covering veils in public buildings, such as schools, government offices and hospitals.
(AP, 6/26/18)
2018 Jun 27, At The Hague the world's chemical weapons watchdog won new powers to assign blame for attacks with banned toxic munitions. The rare special session agreed that the OPCW's secretariat "shall put in place arrangements to identify the perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic." Russia and 23 other countries voted against the move, which was initiated by Britain.
(Reuters, 6/27/18)(AFP, 6/27/18)(AP, 6/28/18)
2018 Jul 4, Police in Brazil searched the offices of Philips and executed arrest warrants for two people linked to the Dutch electronics company as part of an investigation into suspected fraud in the supply of medical equipment to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics and the Rio de Janeiro Health Department.
(AP, 7/4/18)
2018 Jul 5, Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a second arrest warrant for Mahmoud al-Werfalli, a Libyan National Army (LNA) commander accused of executing dozens of prisoners.
(Reuters, 7/5/18)
2018 Jul 6, The Dutch Intelligence service AIVD said two Iranian embassy staff have been expelled. No further information was provided.
(Reuters, 7/6/18)
2018 Jul 20, The Netherlands and Turkey said they were resuming full diplomatic ties for the first time since Dutch officials barred two Turkish ministers from attending an election rally in 2017.
(AFP, 7/20/18)
2018 Aug 3, Netherlands-based Heineken, the world's second-largest brewer, said it has struck a deal to expand in China, the world's biggest beer market.
(AP, 8/3/18)
2018 Aug 20, Dutch cyber security expert Arjen Kamphuis (47), a WikiLeaks associate, was last seen in Bodo, Norway. On Sept. 12 a fisherman found some of Kamphuis's personal belongings floating in the waters about 50 km (30 miles) east of Bodo.
(AFP, 9/13/18)
2018 Aug 24, Dutch PM Mark Rutte distanced his government from a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest being organized later this year by anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders.
(AP, 8/24/18)
2018 Aug 26, Spanish police arrested Joseph Brech (55) in a mountainous area near the town of Castelltercol some 50 km (30 miles) from Barcelona for the brutal 1998 rape and killing of Dutch boy Nicky Verstappen (11). The boy vanished two decades ago on August 9 at a summer camp in southern Limburg province.
(AFP, 8/27/18)
2018 Aug 30, Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders said he had canceled a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest following death threats and concerns other people could be put at risk.
(AP, 8/31/18)
2018 Aug 31, In the Netherlands two visiting American citizens were wounded in a knife attack at Amsterdam's busy main railway station. Police shot and wounded a 19-year-old Afghan man immediately after the attack and questioned him as a suspect.
(AP, 9/1/18)
2018 Sep 1, Dutch former defence minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (45) was appointed as the United Nation's envoy to Iraq, to head a mission which plays an essential role in the country's political and economic spheres.
(AFP, 9/1/18)
2018 Sep 4, Dutch prosecutors said bank ING has paid 775 million euros ($897 million) to settle a huge money laundering case in the Netherlands.
(AP, 9/4/18)
2018 Sep 5, Freddie Oversteegen (b.1925), Dutch communist resistance member, died in Driehuis. She, her sister, and friend Hannie Schaft had worked to sabotage the Nazi military presence in the Netherlands during WWII. They used dynamite to disable bridges and railroad tracks. Additionally, they aided Jewish children by smuggling them out of the country or helping them escape concentration camps. They also lured soldiers to the woods under the pretense of a romantic overture and then killed them.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Oversteegen)
2018 Sep 6, The Hague-based International Criminal Court said it had jurisdiction to probe the forced exodus of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar as a possible crime against humanity.
(AFP, 9/6/18)
2018 Sep 7, Turkey's foreign ministry said the country and the Netherlands have taken a further step in normalizing relations by re-appointing ambassadors to each other's capitals.
(AP, 9/7/18)
2018 Sep 8, Engineers set to sea from San Francisco to deploy a trash collection device to corral plastic litter floating between California and Hawaii in an attempt to clean up the world's largest garbage patch in the heart of the Pacific Ocean. The system was created by The Ocean Cleanup, an organization founded by Dutch innovator Boyan Slat (24).
(AP, 9/9/18)
2018 Sep 11, The Hague-based International Criminal Court said its work would continue "undeterred" after Washington threatened to prosecute its officials if Americans are charged with war crimes committed in Afghanistan.
(AFP, 9/11/18)
2018 Sep 11, The Hague-based International Criminal Court said its work would continue "undeterred" after Washington threatened to prosecute its officials if Americans are charged with war crimes committed in Afghanistan.
(AFP, 9/11/18)
2018 Sep 14, In the Netherlands four people who say Tibetan Buddhist teachers abused them physically or psychologically presented the Dalai Lama with written accounts from 12 alleged victims and appealed to him to address the problem.
(AP, 9/14/18)
2018 Sep 14, Swiss authorities said that the Netherlands arrested and expelled two suspected Russian spies earlier this year who allegedly tried to hack a Swiss laboratory that conducts tests for the UN-backed chemical weapons watchdog.
(AP, 9/14/18)
2018 Sep 16, A weekend report by respected Dutch daily NRC linked 20 of 39 bishops and cardinals to (sexual) abuse. The paper reported that four bishops committed abuse and a further 16 senior clergymen transferred priests who had been accused of abuse to new locations.
(AP, 9/17/18)
2018 Sep 18, A Dutch firm started building the country's first recycling plant to turn plastic from used nappies into household items like garden furniture or flower pots.
(AFP, 9/18/18)
2018 Sep 20, In the Netherlands a train slammed into an electric cargo bike in the southern town of Oss, killing four young children and leaving two other people critically injured.
(AP, 9/20/18)
2018 Sep 27, In the Netherlands anti-terror units found a large quantity of bomb-making materials including fertilizer likely to be used in a car bomb following the arrest of seven terror suspects in the cities of Arnhem and Weert.
(AFP, 9/28/18)
2018 Oct 4, The US Justice Department charged seven Russian military intelligence officers with hacking anti-doping agencies and other organizations. Britain and the Netherlands condemned the Russian GRU military intelligence for a series of alleged global cybercrimes. Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of Russian parliament, denounced the accusations as fake.
(AP, 10/4/18)
2018 Oct 5, Anglo-Dutch consumer goods multinational Unilever, whose brands include Knorr and Dove, said it has scrapped a plan to consolidate its headquarters in the Netherlands following opposition from British shareholders.
(AP, 10/5/18)
2018 Oct 8, Russia's foreign ministry said four Russians, accused by the Netherlands last week of hacking, were traveling with technical equipment intended to test their embassy's IT systems in the Hague.
(Reuters, 10/8/18)
2018 Oct 9, The Dutch government lost a legal appeal against a landmark 2015 court ruling which ordered it to slash greenhouse gases by at least 25 percent by 2020.
(AFP, 10/9/18)
2018 Oct 15, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang reaffirmed pledges to open up his country to foreign investment as a way of promoting commerce between his country and the Netherlands.
(AP, 10/15/18)
2018 Oct 16, In the Netherlands former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed for a sense of urgency as he launched the Global Commission on Adaptation that aims to accelerate and expand ways the world can prepare for climate change.
(AP, 10/16/18)
2018 Oct, At The Hague four alleged members of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency were caught red-handed with a car full of electronic gear in a carpark next to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
(AFP, 10/6/18)
2018 Nov 1, A court in the Netherlands banned Ryanair from transferring 16 pilots overseas following the closure of its Dutch base in Eindhoven, saying that the move appeared to be a reprisal by the budget carrier for strikes by Dutch employees.
(AP, 11/1/18)
2018 Nov 5, In Poland a North Korean worker who claims he is a victim of modern slavery in a Polish shipyard filed a criminal complaint against a Dutch shipbuilder that bought products from the Polish firm. Dutch lawyer Barbara van Straaten filed the case on the worker's behalf.
(AP, 11/8/18)
2018 Nov 9, Dutch officials said they will prosecute a nursing home doctor for euthanizing an elderly woman with dementia, the first time a doctor has been charged since the Netherlands legalized euthanasia in 2002.
(AP, 11/9/18)
2018 Nov 9, A court in the Netherlands convicted 34 people for blocking a highway last year to prevent anti-racism demonstrators from protesting at a festive parade featuring the Dutch version of Santa Claus and his helpers, called Black Petes.
(AP, 11/9/18)
2018 Nov 12, The Netherlands resumed visa and passport services in Pakistan following a brief suspension, denying that its embassy had closed over security concerns after the country gave shelter to the lawyer of a Christian woman in a blasphemy case.
(Reuters, 11/12/18)
2018 Nov 17, In the Netherlands scattered confrontations broke out between supporters and opponents of the divisive helper of the Dutch version of Santa Claus, amid a fierce and increasingly polarized debate about the helper known as Black Pete.
(AP, 11/17/18)
2018 Nov 27, Britain's Information Commissioner's Office said it fined Uber 385,000 pounds ($491,000) and Dutch officials imposed a 600,000-euro ($679,000) fine for failing to protect customers' data during a cyberattack in 2016.
(AP, 11/27/18)
2018 Nov 30, In the Netherlands a rotating roster of preachers continued to lead a non-stop, round-the-clock service at a small Protestant chapel in The Hague in an attempt to shield a family of Armenian asylum-seekers from deportation. The Tamrazyan family has been living in the Netherlands for nearly nine years, as their asylum application and various appeals proceeded slowly through the courts. The Council of State, the country's highest administrative court, has ruled they must return to their home country, which is considered safe by the Dutch government.
(AP, 11/30/18)
2018 Dec 5, Police arrested dozens of suspected mobsters in Europe and South America in dubbed "Operation Pollina," a huge international swoop targeting Italy's notorious 'Ndrangheta mafia clan. Police seized four tons of cocaine, 120 kilos of ecstasy and two million euros (dollars) in cash across Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Suriname.
(AFP, 12/5/18)
2018 Dec 6, A Dutch court gave the go-ahead for a cull of hundreds of red deer in a nature reserve north of Amsterdam, in a wildlife management case that has sparked fierce opposition from animal rights activists.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 12, In the Netherlands Sarah Papenheim (21), a native of Minnesota, was fatally stabbed at her home in an apartment building near Erasmus University, where she had been studying since 2016. A suspect (23) was arrested the same day.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 12, Eight European Union nations (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom) underlined their commitment to the Iran nuclear deal while urging Tehran to stop its "destabilizing regional activities" especially the launch of ballistic missiles.
(AP, 12/12/18)
2018 Dec 14, The Amsterdam Appeals Court confirmed the maximum 10 years and eight months sentence imposed in March last year on the man identified by Dutch authorities as Aydin C., who was convicted of fraud and blackmail via the internet for the online abuse.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 18, In the Netherlands an appeals court has upheld a ban on a Dutch arm of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club, agreeing with a lower court's conclusion that the biker gang forms a threat to public order.
(AP, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 18, The Dutch Supreme Court upheld the war crimes conviction of timber dealer Guus Kouwenhoven, who was found guilty last year of selling arms to former Liberian leader Charles Taylor, and of complicity in war crimes committed by Taylor's forces in Liberia and Guinea from 2000 to 2003.
(AP, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 18, In the Netherlands Humeyra Ergincanli (16) was shot dead in front of fellow students in her high school's bicycle shed. Suspect Bekir E. (31) was arrested shortly after the shooting at the Rotterdam Design College.
(AP, 12/18/18)(AP, 12/21/18)
2018 Dec 29, Dutch police on horseback broke up a "Yellow Vest" protest in The Hague and arrested eight people after the demonstration turned violent.
(AP, 12/29/18)
2019 Jan 2, The Dutch Coast Guard said up to 270 containers had fallen off the Panamanian-flagged MSC ZOE, one of the world's biggest container ships, in rough weather near the German island of Borkum and floated southwest toward Dutch waters. Three missing containers contained an organic peroxide, a flammable and highly toxic compound. In Feb. the estimate of fallen containers was raised to 345.
(Reuters, 1/2/19)(AP, 1/3/19)(AP, 2/6/19)
2019 Jan 4, Dutch authorities said they will hold Swiss shipping line MSC liable for the cost of cleaning up debris from more than 270 cargo containers that fell off one of its vessels and washed up on shore. Roughly 35 containers have been located and the remainder were lost at sea.
(Reuters, 1/4/19)
2019 Jan 15, The Int'l. Criminal Court at The Hague acquitted former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo over post-electoral violence that killed 3,000 people, the latest in a series of blows for beleaguered ICC prosecutors.
(AFP, 1/15/19)
2019 Jan 16, International Criminal Court judges at the Hague said that former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and Mr. Ble Goude, a former government minister, should be released immediately following their acquittal on charges of involvement in deadly post-election violence in 2010.
(AP, 1/16/19)
2019 Jan 17, Turkey deported Dutch journalist Ans Boersma (31) after Turkish officials said Ankara received a tip-off from police in the Netherlands that she had suspected links to a jihadist group in Syria. Boersma was a person of interest in an ongoing investigation into militant activity.
(AFP, 1/17/19)(Reuters, 1/17/19)
2019 Jan 18, At The Hague ICC judges said former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo must spend at least another two weeks in detention at the International Criminal Court, despite being acquitted this week of involvement in deadly post-election violence.
(AP, 1/18/19)
2019 Jan 28, The Netherlands refused an Italian request to take in 47 migrants on a humanitarian ship that is being blocked from Italian ports, saying there was a need to distinguish between genuine refugees and economic migrants.
(Reuters, 1/28/19)
2019 Jan 30, In the Netherlands a round-the-clock prayer service to stop an Armenian family being deported was ended after 96 days, after the government agreed to make an exception to immigration rules. Hundreds of supporters of the Tamrazyan family have held rites non-stop at the Bethel church in The Hague since Oct. 26 to block their deportation.
(Reuters, 1/30/19)
2019 Feb 6, The Dutch water authority said that at least 345 containers fell off the MSC Zoe freighter on Jan. 2. The previous estimate was 291. The ship's owner raised the estimate after unloading the final containers at the port of Gdansk in Poland.
(AP, 2/6/19)
2019 Feb 6, In the Netherlands a man (31) was fatally shot by police near the central bank in Amsterdam. Detectives the next day said he was carrying a fake weapon and may have been attempting to incite officers into killing him.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In the Netherlands thousands of students skipped classes to march for action on climate change, following the example of young demonstrators in Belgium and other countries for the first time.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 12, Dutch fisherman protested outside parliament in a last-ditch attempt to avert a European Union ban on the practice of using electric shocks to stun fish before scooping them up in nets.
(AP, 2/12/19)
2019 Feb 14, Chinese tech company SenseNets closed an open database that stored the records of individuals "fully accessible to anyone," after Dutch security researcher Victor Gevers reported leaks of personal information on 2.6 million people in Xinjiang to SenseNets. The database had been exposed since last July.
(AFP, 2/19/19)
2019 Feb 27, Dutch officials said that an estimated 90,000 small bottles of Russian vodka, found last week on a Chinese freighter in the port of Rotterdam, will likely be sold at auction or destroyed.
(AP, 2/27/19)
2019 Mar 8, Dutch prosecutors said Uber has agreed to an out-of-court settlement of more than 2 million euros ($2.24 million) linked to an illegal service the ride hailing company offered in the Netherlands.
(AP, 3/8/19)
2019 Mar 10, In the Netherlands thousands of people, many warding off rain under umbrellas, packed a central square in Amsterdam to march for more progressive climate policies.
(AP, 3/10/19)
2019 Mar 12, Dutch police arrested two men in Amsterdam for their suspected involvement in the coordinated Islamic State attacks on Paris in November 2015 that killed 130 people. One suspect (29) will be held in restrictive custody for at least two weeks, while the other suspect (31) had to be released for health reasons.
(Reuters, 3/15/19)
2019 Mar 18, Dutch police launched a huge manhunt for a gunman who killed three people and wounded nine others in a suspected terror attack inside a tram in Utrecht. Turkish-born suspect Gokmen Tanis (37) was arrested after a seven-hour manhunt by security forces. Two other suspects were also in custody, but were soon released. Another suspect was arrested the next day. On March 20, 2020, Tanis was sentenced to life in prison for killing four people.
(AFP, 3/18/19)(Reuters, 3/19/19)(SFC, 3/20/19, p.A2)(SFC, 3/21/20, p.A3)
2019 Mar 20, In the Netherlands right wing populist Thierry Baudet's Forum for Democracy emerged from the sidelines into the Dutch political mainstream as the biggest winner in provincial elections that determine the makeup of the parliament's upper house and also impact the coalition government of PM Mark Rutte.
(AP, 3/21/19)
2019 Apr 7, In Australia Dutchman Wiebe Wakker completed an epic 95,000 km (59,000 mile) journey by electric car in Sydney in a bid to prove the viability of such vehicles in tackling climate change.
(AFP, 4/7/19)
2019 Apr 15, Ties van der Meer of the Dutch Donor Child Foundation said that three more people contacted him over the weekend because they suspect they may also have been conceived using the sperm of Dr. Jan Karbaat (d.2017), who had used his own sperm to father 49 children, without telling their mothers.
(AP, 4/15/19)
2019 May 18, In Israel singer Duncan Laurence (25) brought the Netherlands victory with a doleful piano ballad, "Arcade," its first win in the Eurovision song contest since the 1970s. His victory means the Netherlands will host next year's edition.
(AP, 5/19/19)
2019 May 23, Britain and the Netherlands kicked off four days of phased voting for the 28 members states of the European Parliament.
(AP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 27, Nasdaq Nordic, which owns most stock exchanges in the Nordic-Baltic region, withdrew its offer to acquire Norway's main exchange, saying " under the current circumstances the minimum acceptance condition for completion" cannot be satisfied. This paved the way for rival Netherlands-based Euronext to proceed with its buyout.
(AP, 5/27/19)
2019 May 28, In the Netherlands around 80 flights to and from Amsterdam Schiphol were canceled as a 24-hr nationwide public transport strike made it hard for passengers and staff to get to Europe's third largest airport.
(Reuters, 5/28/19)
2019 May 29, Dutch judges banned biker club Hells Angels and ordered all its chapters to close in the Netherlands as authorities pursue a clampdown on so-called outlaw motorcycle gangs.
(AFP, 5/29/19)
2019 May, In the Netherlands around 18,000 building projects, worth billions of euros, risked being shelved after the country's highest court ruled that the way Dutch builders and farmers dealt with nitrogen emissions breached European law.
(Reuters, 10/4/19)
2019 Jun 7, A Dutch court outlawed the No Surrender motorcycle gang in another victory for prosecutors in their fight against what they consider to be violent groups.
(SFC, 6/8/19, p.A2)
2019 Jun 10, Twelve orphaned children of French jihadists were flown home from camps in Syria, along with two Dutch orphans who were handed over to the Netherlands.
(AFP, 6/10/19)
2019 Jun 19, Dutch-led int'l. team charged three Russians (Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov) and one Ukrainian (Leonid Kharchenko) with murder over the 2014 shooting down of flight MH17 above rebel-held eastern Ukraine in which 298 people were killed.
(AFP, 6/19/19)
2019 Jun 26, Dutch national railway company NS said that it will pay reparations to Jews, Roma and Sinti whom it transported to camps in the Netherlands during WWII, from where they were sent to Nazi concentration camps.
(SFC, 6/27/19, p.A2)
2019 Jun 26, Dutch police said they had seized 2.5 tons of methamphetamine last week, in what they said was the largest haul of the drug to date in Europe, with a street value estimated in the "hundreds of millions of euros".
(Reuters, 6/26/19)
2019 Jun 27, The Dutch intelligence agency (AIVD) warned of the escalating threat of state-backed cyber espionage, saying the Netherlands was particularly vulnerable as a hub for international business, telecoms and human rights groups.
(Reuters, 6/27/19)
2019 Jul 7, The US women's soccer team claimed a fourth World Cup in a 2-0 win over Netherlands.
(SFC, 7/8/19, p.C1)
2019 Jul 8, The Int'l. Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands convicted Bosco Ntaganda, a former rebel commander known as "The Terminator," of 18 counts of crimes against humanity for his role in a bloody ethnic conflict in the Congo DRC in 2002-2003.
(SFC, 7/9/19, p.A4)
2019 Jul 9, Director-General Fernando Arias of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), based in the Netherlands, said traces of what could be a byproduct of a nerve agent or poison gas were found late last year at Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Center in Barzah.
(AP, 7/9/19)
2019 Jul 18, An Amsterdam court convicted a 38-year-old career criminal of organizing the murder of an Iranian who lived in the Netherlands, but said the motive for the killing remains unclear. The victim, Iranian-born Ali Motamed, was gunned down outside his home by two hit men on Dec. 15, 2015.
(AP, 7/18/19)
2019 Jul 19, The Dutch government accepted that the state was partially liable for the deaths in 1995 of 350 Muslim males who were expelled from a UN base and killed by Bosnian Serb forces at Srebrenica.
(Reuters, 7/19/19)
2019 Jul 19, Dutch film actor Rutger Hauer (75) died at his home in the Netherlands. His films included "Turkish Delight" (1973), "Nighthawks" (1981) "Blade Runner" (1982), "Ladyhawke" (1985), "Escape from Sobibor" (1987), "Sin City" (2005), "Batman Begins" (2005) and "The Hitchhiker" (2006).
(SFC, 7/26/19, p.A9)
2019 Jul 25, Soaring temperatures broke records in Germany, France, Britain and the Netherlands as a heatwave gripped Europe for the second time in a month.
(Reuters, 7/25/19)
2019 Jul 25, Soaring temperatures broke records in Germany, France, Britain and the Netherlands as a heatwave gripped Europe for the second time in a month. The Paris area recorded 108.7 degrees F; 105.3 F in the Netherlands; 105.3 F in Belgium; 108.7 F in Germany and 98.4 F at Heathrow Airport.
(Reuters, 7/25/19)(SFC, 7/26/19, p.A2)
2019 Aug 1, In the Netherlands a partial ban on face-covering clothing took effect. It covered public transportation, government buildings and health and education institutions.
(SFC, 8/2/19, p.A4)
2019 Aug 3, In the Netherlands one of Europe's biggest annual Gay Pride parades kicked off on the canals of Amsterdam, with over 500,000 visitors from around the world expected to cheer on 80 boats representing a wide variety of organizations from the LGBTI+ community.
(Reuters, 8/3/19)
2019 Aug 27, The Dutch Data Protection Agency (DPA) said Microsoft is remotely collecting data from users of Windows Home and Windows Pro, in a potential breach of privacy rules.
(Reuters, 8/27/19)
2019 Sep 12, Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever released a list of its global tea suppliers, bolstering a drive to stamp out worker exploitation and modern-day slavery on plantations.
(Reuters, 9/12/19)
2019 Sep 17, The Dutch government said it plans to reform a business tax rule that allows wealthy multinationals to reduce the amount of tax they pay on their profits.
(AP, 9/17/19)
2019 Sep 17, Dutch-Palestinian Ismail Zeyada went to court in the Netherlands seeking damages from two former Israeli military commanders, Benny Gantz and Amir Eshel, for their roles in a 2014 airstrike on a Gaza house that killed six members of his family.
(AP, 9/17/19)
2019 Sep 18, Derk Wiersum, a Dutch lawyer in a high-profile case against a group of men charged with drug-related killings, was gunned down in front of his Amsterdam home.
(AP, 9/18/19)
2019 Sep 25, An advisory commission urged the Dutch government to adopt a broad package of measures including lowering the speed limit on some roads and buying up old, inefficient cattle farms to reduce the country's nitrogen emissions.
(AP, 9/25/19)
2019 Sep 27, Thousands of Dutch children skipped school to join a global climate strike, blocking traffic and asking their leaders "how dare you?" in a reference to Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg's speech at the United Nations.
(Reuters, 9/27/19)
2019 Oct 1, In the Netherlands an appeals court ruled that the statute of limitations does not apply to allegations of colonial era crimes committed by Dutch forces in Indonesia.
(SFC, 10/2/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 1, Dutch police arrested a man on suspicion of involvement in lawyer Derk Wiersum’s Sept. 18 slaying in Amsterdam.
(AP, 10/3/19)
2019 Oct 4, The Dutch government said it would spend hundreds of millions of euros to mitigate nitrogen emissions, in a move it hopes will pave the way for thousands of building projects to be restarted.
(AP, 10/4/19)
2019 Oct 4, Dutch health authorities ordered a major recall of processed meats from grocery stores after saying they had linked a spate of food poisonings over the past two years to a likely single source. Experts had been testing the DNA of listeria bacteria involved in cases that affected 20 people in all, killing three of them and causing one woman to miscarry.
(Reuters, 10/4/19)
2019 Oct 12, Dutch police said they had detained 130 protesters with environmental group Extinction Rebellion who blocked locations in downtown Amsterdam to draw attention to climate change.
(Reuters, 10/12/19)
2019 Oct 14, Greenpeace activists boarded two Royal Dutch Shell oil platforms in the British North Sea in protest against plans to leave parts of the giant structures in place after production shuts down.
(Reuters, 10/14/19)
2019 Oct 15, In the Netherlands six young adults and their father were receiving medical treatment after Dutch police acting on a tip-off discovered them locked away in a secret room at an isolated farm. The family, according to local news reports, had been waiting for the end of time.
(Reuters, 10/15/19)
2019 Oct 15, Signify, a Dutch-based lighting company, said it has agreed to buy US firm Cooper Lighting Solutions from Eaton Corp. for $1.4 billion in cash to boost its presence in North America.
(Reuters, 10/16/19)
2019 Oct 16, Police in the Dutch city of The Hague closed its central parliament square to keep out farmers protesting over what they see as attempts to blame them for nitrogen pollution.
(Reuters, 10/16/19)
2019 Nov 1, Netherlands' Environmental Assessment Agency said the country is unlikely to reach its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 49% by 2030 despite a tough package of measures agreed in June.
(AP, 11/1/19)
2019 Nov 5, Air France-KLM outlined plans to expand its budget Transavia business and push the core French carrier upmarket, while overhauling its fleet in pursuit of improved sales and profitability.
(Reuters, 11/5/19)
2019 Nov 7, The International Criminal Court at The Hague passed its highest ever sentence, sending Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda, known as "The Terminator," to prison for 30 years for crimes including murder, rape and sexual slavery.
(AP, 11/7/19)
2019 Nov 11, A Dutch court said the government must attempt to bring home children whose mothers traveled to Syria to join Islamic extremist groups. The case was filed by lawyers on behalf of 23 women and their 56 children who were being housed in camps in northern Syria.
(AP, 11/11/19)
2019 Nov 14, The International Criminal Court at The Hague said that it had approved a prosecution request to investigate crimes against humanity against Myanmar's Rohingya minority who were systematically driven across the border to Bangladesh.
(Reuters, 11/14/19)
2019 Nov 15, The Netherlands showed off the spoils of Brexit as it officially handed over the European Medicines Agency's new building in Amsterdam after the regulator was forced to move from London.
(AFP, 11/15/19)
2019 Nov 16, In the Netherlands anti-racism campaigners held protests in cities across the country as Dutch children hailed the annual arrival of St. Nicholas and a blackface character who traditionally accompanies him.
(Reuters, 11/16/19)
2019 Nov 22, A Dutch appeals court overturned a lower court’s order that the government must attempt to bring home children whose mothers traveled to Syria to join Islamic extremist groups.
(AP, 11/22/19)
2019 Nov 29, In the Netherlands three teens were stabbed on a street in The Hague that was crowded with Black Friday shoppers. Two girls (15) and a boy (13), were treated in a hospital and released.
(AP, 11/30/19)
2019 Nov 30, Dutch police arrested a 35-year-old homeless man on suspicion of stabbing three teens on a street in The Hague that was crowded with Black Friday shoppers.
(AP, 11/30/19)
2019 Dec 3, The Dutch parliament voted to require companies listed in the Netherlands to have at least 30% of supervisory board seats held by women. The motion also requires around 5,000 other large companies to draw up detailed plans to increase the number of women on their supervisory and executive boards.
(Reuters, 12/3/19)
2019 Dec 9, Canada and the Netherlands put out a joint statement in support of Gambia, the tiny, mainly Muslim West African country that filed the suit in which the Buddhist-majority Myanmar is accused of genocide against its Rohingya Muslim minority a day before genocide hearings begin at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
(Reuters, 12/9/19)
2019 Dec 11, At The Hague Nobel Peace Prize winner and former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi denied that Myanmar's armed forces committed genocide, telling the United Nation's top court that the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she leads was the unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.
(AP, 12/11/19)
2019 Dec 11, The International Criminal Court said it has confirmed the charges brought by prosecutors against two men suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Central African Republic. The court said Alfred Yekatom and alleged co-conspirator and Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona, who have said they are innocent, will face trial.
(Reuters, 12/11/19)
2019 Dec 12, At The Hague lawyers seeking to halt what they allege is ongoing genocide in Myanmar slammed leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s defense of her country’s armed forces, saying that the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former pro-democracy icon chose to ignore “unspeakable" crimes targeting Muslim civilians.
(AP, 12/12/19)
2019 Dec 19, In the Netherlands an appeals court overturned a local ordinance banning catcalls in the port city of Rotterdam. The court ruled that only Parliament has the power to criminalize such behavior because doing so amounts to a possible infringement of the freedom of expression.
(SFC, 12/20/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 20, At The Hague the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court took a major step toward opening an investigation into alleged war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories, asking judges exactly what territory a future investigation could cover.
(AP, 12/20/19)
2020 Jan 19, Dutch police detained four suspects following a suspected failed attempt to break one or more prisoners out of a prison.
(AP, 1/19/20)
2020 Jan 23, At The Hague the International Court of Justice ordered Myanmar take all measures in its power to prevent genocide against the Rohingya.
(AP, 1/23/20)
2020 Jan 26, Dutch PM Mark Rutte apologized for the failure of officials in the Nazi-occupied country during World War II to do more to prevent the deportation and murder of just over 100,000 Jews.
(AP, 1/26/20)
2020 Feb 5, In the Netherlands the University of Maastricht disclosed that it had paid hackers a ransom of 30 bitcoin -- at the time worth 200,000 euros ($220,000) -- to unblock its computer systems, including email and computers, after an attack that unfolded on Dec. 24.
(Reuters, 2/5/20)
2020 Feb 18, It was reported that thousands of people in the Netherlands have signed a petition objecting to the construction of an airport in Portugal that could threaten the black-tailed godwit, the Dutch national bird.
(Reuters, 2/18/20)
2020 Feb 18, A Dutch appeals court reinstated an international arbitration panel's order that Russia should pay $50 billion compensation to shareholders in former oil company Yukos. The Hague court of Appeals had ruled in 2016 that the decision was not correct. Russia said it would appeal the verdict.
(SFC, 2/19/20, p.A3)
2020 Feb 28, The list of countries hit by the COVID-19 illness edged toward 60 as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Nigeria reported their first cases.
(AP, 2/28/20)
2020 Mar 6, The Netherlands reported its first coronavirus death.
(AP, 3/6/20)
2020 Mar 8, In the Netherlands the families of people killed when a missile shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014 set out 298 white chairs outside the Russian Embassy in a silent protest against Moscow’s lack of cooperation in the investigation into the downing of the passenger jet.
(AP, 3/8/20)
2020 Mar 9, In the Netherlands the number of people infected with the new coronavirus increased to 321, up from 264 a day earlier.
(Reuters, 3/9/20)
2020 Mar 10, Dutch health authorities took action to contain an outbreak of the coronavirus in a southern province, where a large group of employees at hospitals tested positive for the illness. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases had risen by 61 to 382. One more person had died, taking the number of deaths so far to four.
(AP, 3/10/20)
2020 Mar 10, In Indonesia visiting Dutch King Willem-Alexander apologized for his country's agression during its colonial rule and formally recognized the country's independence date in his first formal visit to the former Dutch colony.
(SFC, 3/11/20, p.A4)
2020 Mar 12, The government of Netherlands announced a ban on gatherings of more than 100 people, told companies to encourage employees to work from home and said anyone with flu-like symptoms should stay home.
(AP, 3/13/20)
2020 Mar 13, In the Netherlands new coronavirus infections reached 804, with 10 deaths. Dutch shoppers stockpiled toilet paper, pasta and canned goods as worries about the coronavirus outbreak spread.
(Reuters, 3/13/20)
2020 Mar 14, Dutch health authorities said the number of confirmed coronavirus infections in the Netherlands has risen by 155 to 959. The number of deaths rose by 2 to a total of 12.
(Reuters, 3/14/20)
2020 Mar 15, In the Netherlands the number of deaths rose by eight to 20, while confirmed cases increased by 176 to 1,135.
(AP, 3/15/20)
2020 Mar 18, In the Netherlands organizers of the Eurovision song contest said it will not take place this year due to the global coronavirus outbreak. The Netherlands was to host the 2020 contest after Dutch singer-songwriter Duncan Laurence won in 2019 with a song called "Arcade".
(AP, 3/18/20)
2020 Mar 19, Dutch health authorities said the number of local confirmed cases of coronavirus has risen by 409 to a total of 2,460, with 18 new deaths raising the total death toll to 76.
(Reuters, 3/19/20)
2020 Mar 21, In the Netherlands, coronavirus fatalities increased by 30 to 136. The total number of cases is 3,631.
(Bloomberg, 3/21/20)
2020 Mar 22, The Netherlands reported 573 more coronavirus virus cases for a total of 4,203 with 179 deaths.
(AP, 3/22/20)
2020 Mar 23, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus infections increased by 13% from a day earlier and 34 more people died. There were 545 new infections, taking the total to 4,749 with 213 deaths.
(Reuters, 3/23/20)
2020 Mar 24, Netherlands saw the number of deaths rise by 63 to 276. The national tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases increased by 17% to 5,560.
(Good Morning America, 3/25/20)
2020 Mar 25, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 852 to 6,412. Deaths rose by 80 to 356.
(Reuters, 3/25/20)
2020 Mar 27, The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Netherlands rose by 1,172, or 16%, to 8,603, with 112 new deaths. The country's death total is now 546.
(Reuters, 3/27/20)
2020 Mar 28, The Netherlands reported 93 deaths from the new coronavirus to take its total to 639 while another 1,159 cases of the virus were confirmed, both smaller rises than a day earlier. The country has confirmed a total of 9,762 cases of the virus.
(Reuters, 3/28/20)
2020 Mar 29, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus cases passed 10,000. Confirmed cases rose by 1,104 to 10,866, an 11% increase. There were 132 new deaths, bringing the number of fatalities to 771.
(Reuters, 3/29/20)
2020 Mar 30, The Singer Laren museum in the Netherlands announced that the painting "Spring Garden" (1884) by Vincent Van Gogh vanished after thieves broke into the building early in the morning.
(The Week, 3/31/20)
2020 Mar, Dutch government officials earmarked $550 million to compensate more than 20,000 parents who had their child care benefit payments stopped or were ordered to repay money amid fraud investigations into fraudulent claims.
(SFC, 5/20/20, p.A2)
2020 Apr 3, Dutch brewer Heineken said that it will suspend production and distribution from its seven plants in Mexico, in response to the government's decision to halt non-essential economic activity to contain the new coronavirus.
(Reuters, 4/3/20)
2020 Apr 4, In the Netherlands the number of deaths rose by 164, or 11%, to 1,651. The tally of confirmed virus cases increased by 6% to 16,627, slightly below the growth rate seen in the beginning of the week. The amount of people hospitalized with the virus rose by 336 to 6,622.
(Bloomberg, 4/4/20)
2020 Apr 5, In the Netherlands the number of deaths caused by the new coronavirus increased by 115 to 1,766. Confirmed infections increased by 1,224 to 17,851.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 6, The Netherlands reported 101 new fatalities, the smallest increase since March 30. Total reported cases rose 5% to 18,803.
(Bloomberg, 4/6/20)
2020 Apr 8, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 969 to 20,549, with 147 new deaths. The country's total death toll from the disease is now 2,248.
(Reuters, 4/8/20)
2020 Apr 10, The Netherlands statistics office said there were around 2,000 more deaths in the Netherlands in the first week of April than would normally be expected, likely the result of the coronavirus outbreak.
(AP, 4/10/20)
2020 Apr 11, Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported several cellular broadcasting towers have been damaged by arson or sabotage in the past week by opponents of a rollout of a new 5G telecommunications network. Major telecommunications providers in the Netherlands are in a testing phase and have not yet begun any nationwide rollout of 5G pending a spectrum auction due to conclude in June.
(Reuters, 4/11/20)
2020 Apr 12, The Netherlands' National Institute for Health (RIVM) reported 1,188 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, taking the total to 25,587. The number of deaths rose by 94 to 2,737.
(Reuters, 4/12/20)
2020 Apr 14, In the Netherlands, confirmed cases rose 3% to 27,419, the slowest rate since the country reported its first case in late February. Deaths from the virus increased 4% to 2,945, but the figure may reflect an administrative processing backlog over the Easter weekend.
(Bloomberg, 4/14/20)
2020 Apr 15, New coronavirus cases in the Netherlands dropped for the fifth consecutive day. Cases rose by 734, or 3%, to 28,153. Fatalities climbed 6%, a steeper rate than the previous days because of a reporting backlog over the Easter weekend.
(Bloomberg, 4/15/20)
2020 Apr 16, A study of Dutch blood donors found that around 3% have developed antibodies against the coronavirus, an indication of what percentage of the population may have already had the disease.
(Reuters, 4/16/20)
2020 Apr 17, In the Netherlands confirmed coronavirus infections rose by 1,235 to 30,449. The death toll among people known to have been infected increased by 144 to 3,459.
(Reuters, 4/17/20)
2020 Apr 18, The Netherlands reported 129 new hospital admissions, up just 1%, marking a record low since the daily statistic has been reported since late March. Total confirmed cases grew 4% to 31,589, in line with recent trends. Fatalities rose to 3,601, also in line.
(Bloomberg, 4/18/20)
2020 Apr 19, The Netherlands reported 83 coronavirus deaths. 110 patients were admitted to hospitals, the smallest increase since the daily reporting of the statistic started at the end of last month. Overall confirmed cases grew by 3% to 32,655.
(Bloomberg, 4/19/20)
2020 Apr 21, The Netherlands's Supreme Court ruled that doctors can carry out ehthanasia in patients with advanced dementia if the patient had earlier made a written directive. The ruling solidified a law already in practice.
(SFC, 4/22/20, p.A2)
2020 Apr 22, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 708 to 34,842 with 138 new deaths. The country's death toll now stands at 4,054.
(Reuters, 4/22/20)
2020 Apr 26, The Netherlands' number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 655 to 37,845 with 66 new deaths. The country's death toll stands at 4,475.
(Reuters, 4/26/20)
2020 Apr 27, The Netherlands' number of confirmed coronavirus cases has risen by 400 to 38,245 with 43 new deaths. The country's death toll stands at 4,518.
(Reuters, 4/27/20)
2020 May 1, The Netherlands' number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 475 to 39,791, with 98 new deaths. The country's death toll stands at 4,893.
(Reuters, 5/1/20)
2020 May 2, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus infections increased by 445 to 40,236. 94 new deaths took the total COVID-19 fatalities to 4,987.
(Reuters, 5/2/20)
2020 May 3, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus infections increased by 335 to 40,471. The National Institute for Public Health reported 69 new deaths taking the total COVID-19 fatalities to 5,056.
(Reuters, 5/3/20)
2020 May 4, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 199 to 40,770, with 26 new deaths. Total deaths in the country rose to 5,082.
(Reuters, 5/4/20)
2020 May 11, In the Netherlands five experienced surfers drowned when they went out for a session in stormy weather off the coast of The Hague.
(AP, 5/12/20)
2020 May 25, A court in the Netherlands rejected a suit brought by a group seeking to halt the country's 5G telecommunications network rollout over possible health concerns.
(Reuters, 5/25/20)
2020 Jun 3, Dutch broadcaster RTL reported that the government intends to cull the mink at farms where animals have been infected with the coronavirus. Coronavirus has so far been detected on eight farms in the Netherlands. A law banning mink farming in the Netherlands was passed in 2013, and the remaining 120 farms are due to cease operations in 2023.
(Reuters, 6/3/20)
2020 Jun 16, Netherlands-based Signify, the world's largest lighting manufacturer, said researchers at Boston University had confirmed an ultraviolet light made by the company works to degrade most coronavirus in a laboratory setting in a matter of seconds.
(Reuters, 6/16/20)
2020 Jun 22, Dutch police arrested six men after discovering sea containers that had been converted into a makeshift prison and sound-proofed “torture chamber" complete with a dentist's chair, tools including pliers and scalpels and handcuffs. The arrests followed investigations code-named 26Lemont.
(AP, 7/7/20)
2020 Jun 24, A Hague-based tribunal said Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has been charged with 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the country's conflict in the 1990s. Prosecutors at the Kosovo Specialist Court (KSC) laid the charges on April 24, but decided to unveil them publicly two months later.
(AP, 6/24/20)
2020 Jun 25, Unilever, a British-Dutch consumer products giant, said it is aiming for a “more inclusive vision of beauty" in its skin care products and will remove words such as “fair," “whitening" and “lightening" from its products, a move that comes amid intense global debate about race sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement.
(AP, 6/25/20)
2020 Jun, Anglo-Dutch firm Eat Takeaway.com bought Grubhub, an American firm, for $7.3 billion.
(Econ., 7/4/20, p.56)
2020 Jul 6, Netherlands-based Mylan NV said it would launch a generic version of Gilead Sciences Inc's COVID-19 antiviral remdesivir in India at 4,800 rupees ($64.31), about 80% below the price tag on the drug for wealthy nations.
(Reuters, 7/6/20)
2020 Jul 16, The Rijksmuseum Boerhaave museum in the Dutch city of Leiden finally opened an exhibition on contagious diseases through the ages after a long delay caused by the disease currently sweeping the world — COVID-19.
(AP, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 19, A Dutch military helicopter crashed near the island of Aruba, killing two of the crew members.
(SFC, 7/21/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 20, Dutch electrical equipment maker Philips said a recent surge in orders for scanners and other medical equipment should enable group sales and margins to rebound over the next six months from a slump in the second quarter.
(Reuters, 7/20/20)
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Maastricht's name derives from Mosae Trajectum, which in Latin means the crossing on the Mosa (Meuse, Maas) River.
(SFEM, 10/12/97, p.40)
Holland’s official second language is Frisian. The country was once called Zeeland.
(WSJ, 5/13/98, p.A20)(SFEC, 3/28/99, Z1 p.8)
160BC–220CE The Weerdinge Couple, 2 men dating to this period, were found in a Holland bog in 1904.
(AM, 7/97, p.66)
53BC Caesar claimed to have wiped out the Celtic Eburones after they conspired with other groups in an attack that killed 6,000 Roman soldiers. The Eburones lived in an area that later came be known as part of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.
(AP, 11/14/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eburones)
50BCE Maastricht, Netherlands, began as a Roman settlement.
(SSFC, 2/20/05, p.F2)
1-100AD A Teutonic tribe known as the Frisians (or Friesians) settled in what is now the Netherlands in the first century A.D.
(HNQ, 3/5/00)
180CE A Roman military transport ship was built about this time, as Marcus Aurelius passed the throne to the emperor Commodus. It later sank in the Rhine. In 2003 archeologists in the Netherlands unveiled the preserved ship.
(AP, 5/15/03)
600-700 In the seventh century the Frisians clashed with the Franks and resisted Christianity, but succumbed to Frankish rule and accepted Christianity a century later. Citizens of the Netherlands’s province of Friesland are still called Frisians and the Frisian language is still spoken there.
(HNQ, 3/5/00)
727 May 30, Hubertus (72), bishop of Tongeren-Maastricht, saint, died.
(MC, 5/30/02)
739 Nov 7, Willibrord (81), [Clemens], 1st bishop of Utrecht (695-739) and saint , died.
(MC, 11/7/01)
830 The Utrecht Psalter was produced in the Netherlands. Its 166 ink drawings illustrated passages in the psalms. In the eleventh century an English copy was made that became known as the Harley Psalter.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utrecht_Psalter)
918 Mar 1, Balderik became bishop of Utrecht.
(SC, 3/1/02)
953 Apr 21, Otto I, the Great, granted Utrecht fishing rights.
(MC, 4/21/02)
988 May 6, Dirk II, West Frisian count of Holland, died.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1010 May 3, Ansfried (~69), 9th bishop of Utrecht (995-1010), saint, died.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1076 Feb 22, Godfried III, with the Hump, duke of Lower Lorraine, was murdered. [see Feb 26]
(MC, 2/22/02)
1076 Feb 26, Godfried III with the Hump, duke of Netherlands-Lutheran, was murdered. [see Feb 24]
(SC, 2/26/02)
1099 Apr 14, Conrad, bishop of Utrecht, was stabbed to death.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1100 Wittem Castle in Limburg dates to this time.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.T13)
1121 Mar 2, Dirk VI became count of Holland.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1122 Mar 2, Floris II, the fat one, count of Holland, died.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1190 Emo of Friesland entered Oxford and was later remembered as Oxford’s first recorded foreign student.
(Econ, 8/7/10, p.13)
1219 Jan 16, Floods followed a storm in Northern Netherlands and thousands were killed.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1235 Sep 5, Henry I, duke of Brabant, died. Brabant was a duchy later divided between Netherlands and Belgium.
(WUD, 1994 p.177)(MC, 9/5/01)
1258 Mar 26, Floris the Guardian, count-regent of Holland, died.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1280 Muiden Castle, 10 miles east of Amsterdam, dates to this time.
(SFEC, 1/31/99, p.T13)
1287 Dec 14, The Zuider Zee seawall collapsed with the loss of 50,000 lives.
(MC, 12/14/01)
1294 May 3, Jan I, duke of Brabant (Belgium-Netherlands), Limburg, poet, died.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1299 The Count of Holland gained control of the County of Zeeland, which had been under contention between Holland and Flanders.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland)
1300 The Oude Kerk church in Amsterdam dates to this time.
(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.T9)
1301 Jul 4, Battle at Breukelen: Holland vs. Lichtenberg.
(Maggio)
1345 The Frisian victory over the Dutch on the beach at Warns was their last before the Dutch took over.
(WSJ, 5/13/98, p.A20)
1366 Records indicate that cheese was weighed in Alkmaar at this time.
(SFEC, 6/7/98, p.T10)
1400 Roger Van Der Weyden (d.1464), Flemish painter, was born.
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1624)(Econ, 10/3/09, p.107)
1404 Netherlands experienced a severe flood.
1421 Nov 18-1421 Nov 19, In the St. Elizabeth flood the Southern sea flooded 72 villages killing some 10,000 in Netherlands.
(www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/SK-A-3147-B?lang=en)
1432 Zeeland became part of the Low Countries possession of Phillip the Good (1396-1467) of Burgundy.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland)
1433 Apr 14, Liduina van Schiedam (53), Dutch mystic (Christ's Bride), saint, died.
(MC, 4/14/02)
c1450-1516 Hieronymus Bosch, painter was born. Hieronymus van Aken was born in the small Dutch Brabant city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch in Flanders.
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.172)(WSJ, 8/25/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 10/11/01, p.A19)
1451 Sep 21, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa ordered the Jews of Holland to wear a badge.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1459 Mar 2, Adrian VI [Adriaan F Boeyens], Pope (1522-23), was born in the Netherlands.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1460 May 9, In the Netherlands the courtyard Episcopal palace at Atrecht had witch burnings.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1464 Jun 18, Roger Van Der Weyden (b.1400), Flemish painter, died. He had mastered the new technique of oil painting and served as the official painter to the city of Brussels.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogier_van_der_Weyden)(Econ, 10/3/09, p.107)
1466 Oct 26, Desiderius Erasmus (d.1536), scholar and author (In Praise of Folly), was born in Rotterdam. He was of illegitimate birth, but became a priest and a monk. He excelled in philology, the study of ancient languages, namely Latin and Greek and worked on a new translation of the New Testament. The more he studied it, the more he came to doubt the accuracy of the Vulgate, St. Jerome's translation into Latin, dating from around 400. "In Praise of Folly" is his most famous work... In it Erasmus had the freedom to discourse, in the ironic style of Lucian (the Greek author whose works he translated), concerning all the foolishness and misguided pompousness of the world.
(V.D.-H.K.p.159-160)(MC, 10/26/01)
1477 Future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, a member of the Habsburg family of Austria, married Mary of Burgundy, heiress of all the Netherlands. Maximilian had given Mary a diamond engagement ring, a practice that soon spread. In 1996 Andrew Wheatcroft wrote a history of the Habsburgs: "The Habsburgs."
(WSJ, 1/19/96, p.A-12)(SFEM, 6/28/98, p.6)(SFC, 5/28/08, p.G2)
1477 The Seventeen Provinces, a personal union of states in the Low Countries in the 16th century, became the property of the Habsburgs. They roughly covered the current Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, a good part of the North of France (Artois, Nord) and a small part of Germany.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland)
1483 Apr 6, Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, d.1520), Dutch painter (Sistine Madonna) , was born to an unremarkable painter in the Duchy of Urbino. He went on to paint famous works in the Vatican. After an apprenticeship in Perugia, he went to Florence, having heard of the work da Vinci and Michelangelo were doing. His last 12 years were spent on numerous commissions in Rome. He died on his 37th birthday, his funeral mass being celebrated in the Vatican. .
(HN, 4/6/98)(HNQ, 11/17/00)
1487 Hans Memling (c.1440-1494), Flemish painter, painted the diptych “Virgin and Child" and “Maarten van Nieuwenhove" (1463-1500), who was his patron.
(SFC, 10/18/05, p.D2)(SFC, 12/23/06, p.E12)
1489-1490 The plague ravaged the Netherlands.
(WSJ, 10/12/98, p.A17)
1492 May 15, Cheese and Bread rebellion: German mercenaries killed 232 Alkmaarse.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1496 Oct 20, Spain’s Juana of Castile (1479-1555) married Philip the Handsome, the Duke of Burgundy, in Lier (later a part of Belgium). Philip's parents were Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and his first wife, Duchess Mary of Burgundy. Juana had sailed from Spain with 15,000 men to the Habsburg Netherlands. Between 1498 and 1507, she gave birth to six children: two emperors and four queens.
(Econ, 4/13/13, p.55)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_of_Castile)
1500s Holland and Saxony began to protect the rights of inventors to their creations.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1507 Margaret of Austria was appointed Regent by the States-General (parliament) of the Netherlands until the Archduke Charles came of age.
(TL-MB, p.9)
1510 Jun 9, Nicolaas van Nieuwland, corrupt 1st bishop of Harlem, was born.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1511 Portuguese traders reached the Banda Islands, including Run, and broke the Venetian monopoly over nutmeg. Over the next century the Dutch muscled in an almost cornered the nutmeg market. The history of the nutmeg trade was documented in 1999 by Giles Milton in his: "Nathaniel's Nutmeg."
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W7)
1512 Nov 16, Jemme Herjuwsma, Fries rebel, was beheaded.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1512 Nov 17, Kempo Roeper, Frisian rebel, was quartered.
(MC, 11/17/01)
1517 Jul 1, The 1st burning of Protestants at stake in Netherlands.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1517 Archduke Charles left the Netherlands for Spain and entered Valladolid in triumph.
(TL-MB, p.11)
1519 Jul 6, Charles of Spain was elected Holy Roman emperor in Barcelona. The Catholic heir to the Hapsburg dynasty, Charles V, was elected Holy Roman Emperor, combining the crowns of Spain, Burgundy (with the Netherlands), Austria and Germany. He was the grandson of Ferdnand and Isabella of Spain.
(V.D.-H.K.p.162)(NH, 9/96, p.18)(HN, 7/6/98)
1520 Oct 7, The 1st public burning of books took place in Louvain, Netherlands.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1521 May 28, Willem van Croij (~62), duke of Soria, died.
(MC, 5/28/02)
1521 Oct 25, Emperor Charles V banned wooden buildings in Amsterdam.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1522 Apr 29, Emperor Charles V named Frans van Holly inquisitor-gen of Netherlands.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1523 Nov 30, Amsterdam banned the assembly of heretics.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1523 Hans Holbein completed the first of several portraits of Erasmus. He also began the design of 51 plates on the "Dance of Death," which reflected ideas of the Reformation.
(TL-MB, p.12)
1524 Apr 19, Pope Clemens VII fired the Netherlands inquisitor-general French Van de Holly.
(MC, 4/19/02)
1524 Dec 11, Henry Van Zutphen, Dutch Protestant martyr, was burned at stake.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1525 May 10, Church reformer John Pistorius was caught in the Hague.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1525 Sep 15, Jan de Bakker (26), Roman Catholic priest also known under the name Pistorius, was burned during the Reformation in the Netherlands.
(http://www.bautz.de/bbkl/p/pistorius_joh.shtml)
1527 Nov 20, Wendelmoet "Weyntjen" Claesdochter, became the 1st Dutch woman to be burned as heretic.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1528 Nov 30, Great Wierd, Dutch Gelderland army commander, was beheaded.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1530 In Antwerp William Tyndale published his translation into English of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, and shipped copies to England.
(WSJ, 12/22/94, A-20)(ON, 11/04, p.2)
1530 Erasmus (1469-1536), Dutch Renaissance humanist, authored “On Good Manners for Boys" (De civilitate morum puerorum).
(Econ, 10/8/11, p.102)
1531 May 31, "Women's Revolt" in Amsterdam: wool house in churchyard.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1531 Dec 6, John Volkertsz Trimaker, Dutch Anabaptist leader, was beheaded.
(MC, 12/6/01)
1534 Feb 26, Pope Paul III was affirmed George van Egmond as bishop of Utrecht.
(PTA, 1980, p.440)(SC, 2/26/02)
1534 Mar 26, Lübeck, Hanseatic League port in the Baltic, accepted free Dutch ships into East Sea.
(SS, 3/26/02)(WUD, 1994 p.851)
1535 Feb 10, 12 nude Anabaptists ran through the streets of Amsterdam. [see 1534]
(MC, 2/10/02)
1535 May 21, Imperial authorities in Antwerp captured and imprisoned William Tyndale for heresy over his translation of the Bible into English.
(WSJ, 12/22/94, A-20)(www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b2tyndalew.htm)
1535 Jun 24, Francis of Waldeck overcame the Anabaptists of Munster. Fanatic leader John of Leyden and others were tortured and executed in Jan 1536.
(MC, 6/24/02)(PC, 1992, p.179)
1535 Jul 10, Jacob Van Campen, Anabaptist bishop of Amsterdam, was beheaded.
(MC, 7/10/02)
1536 Jul 12, Desiderius Erasmus (b.1469 in Rotterdam) died, humanist, priest (Novum instrumentum omne), died. His most famous works included "In Praise of Folly" and a Greek text of the New Testament. In 1999 Prof. Charles Trinkaus published "Collected Works of Erasmus: Controversies," an examination of the religious conflict between humanism and the Reformation.
(V.D.-H.K.p.159-160)(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A26)(WSJ, 1/31/03, p.W13)(MC, 7/12/02)
1540 Feb 14, Emperor Charles V entered Ghent without resistance and executed the rebels. He brutally beat down an uprising against taxes for an expansionist war. Nine leaders were beheaded and another hanged. City burgers were forced to walk the streets barefoot with rope hanging round their necks. The "Gentse Feesten" annual festival re-enacts this event every mid-July.
(SFEC, 11/21/99, p.T10)(MC, 2/14/02)
1550 Apr 28, Powers of Dutch inquisition were extended.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1550 Apr 29, Emperor Charles V gave inquisitors additional authority.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1555 Oct 25, Emperor Charles V put his son Philip II in charge of Netherlands, Naples, and Milan.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1556-1620 Adriaen de Vries, sculptor. He was born in The Hague and worked in Florence under the sculptor Giovanni Bologna. His work included "Juggling Man" (c1610-1615), a bust of Emp. Rudolf II (1603), and the Neptune Fountain (1615-1618).
(WSJ, 1/6/98, p.A20)(WSJ, 12/7/99, p.A24)
1557 Pieter Breughel the Elder created his painting "The Drunkard Pushed Into the Pigsty." [see Flanders]
(WSJ, 9/6/02, p.W14)
1558 Hendrick Goltzius (d.1617), Dutch Master painter, was born.
(WSJ, 8/14/03, p.D8)
1564 Dec 31, Willem of Orange demanded freedom of conscience and religion.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1564-1651 Abraham Bloemaert, artist and teacher of Hendrick ter Brugghen.
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.13)
1566 Aug 25, Iconoclastic fury began in the Dutch province of Utrecht. Fanatical Calvinists instigated religious riots in the Netherlands.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)(TL-MB, 1988, p.21)
1566-1638 Joachim Wytawael (Wtewael), Dutch mannerist painter.
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.13)(SFEM, 9/17/00, p.96)
1566-1640 Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom, Dutch painter.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)
1567 Apr 11, Dutch Prince William of Orange fled from Antwerp to Breda.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1567 May 1, Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt, Dutch royal painter, was born.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1567 Oct 6, The Duke of Alba became guardian of the Netherlands. Spain’s Duke of Alba arrived in Brussels at the head of a 10,000 troops to quell the iconoclastic riots.
(MC, 10/6/01)(WSJ, 7/1/04, p.D8)
1568 Jan 24, In Netherlands Duke of Alba declared (future King) William of Orange an outlaw.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1568 Feb 16, A sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named, were acquitted.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War)
1568 Oct 5, Willem of Orange's army occupied Brabant.
(MC, 10/5/01)
1568-1648 The Eighty Years' War, or Dutch Revolt was the secession war in which the proto-Netherlands first became an independent country and in which the region now known as Belgium became established. It was carried on by the Calvinist and predominantly mercantile Dutch provinces.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.21)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War)
1569 Sep 5, Pieter Breughel, South Netherlands (Flemish) painter, died at about 44.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1570 Mar 4, Spain’s King Philip II banned foreign Dutch students.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1570 Nov 2, A tidal wave in the North Sea destroyed the sea walls from Holland to Jutland. Over a thousand people are killed.
(HN, 11/2/98)(www.metoffice.com/education/secondary/students/flood.html)
1572 Apr 1, The Sea Beggars under Guillaume de la Marck landed in Holland and captured the small town of Briel.
(HN, 4/1/99)
1572 Jun 9, Willem van Orange's army occupied Gelderland.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1572 Jun 24, Adrianus van Gouda, lay brother, was hanged along with Cornelis van Diedt, Daniell van Arendonck (clergyman), Joannes van Naarden (priest) and Ludovicus Voets (priest).
(MC, 6/24/02)
1572 Jul 9, In Gorinchem, Netherlands, 19 Catholics were executed during the Dutch war for independence. They became known as “The Martyrs of Gorkum."
(SFC, 3/5/11, p.E2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrs_of_Gorkum)
1572 Jul 18, William of Orange was recognized as viceroy of Holland, Friesland and Utrecht.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1572 Dec, The Dutch town of Naarden surrendered to Imperial Spanish troops under the Duke of Alba (1507-1582). The town was then burned and the entire population massacred. Alba’s attempt to impose a 10% sales tax on commodities stirred resistance that led to the Dutch independence. In 2004 Henry Kamen authored "The Duke of Alba."
(WSJ, 7/1/04, p.D8)
1572 Dutch warships, Beggars of the Sea, effectively harried Spanish shipping in the English Channel and fueled the Dutch War of Independence.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1572 The Dutch used carrier pigeons during the Spanish siege of Haarlem.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1573 Jul 20, Lancelot of Brederode (Netherlands), water beggar, was beheaded.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1574 Oct 1-2 A storm broke a Leiden dike and 20,000 Spanish soldiers drowned. Spanish forces in the Netherlands besieged Leyden, but William the Silent (Willem of Orange) breached the dykes to flood the land. This allowed his ships to sail up to the walls and lift the siege.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(PCh, 1992, p.198)(MC, 10/1/01)
1575 The Bols family arrived in Amsterdam to open ‘het Lootsje’ where they would distill liqueurs. This was the starting point of what would become the world’s oldest distillery. Bols began producing Genever, a Dutch style of gin, in 1664. In 2007 it opened a House of Bols museum in the museum quarter in the Dutch capital. It was dedicated to the history of Jenever (also known as genever or jeniever), the juniper-flavored alcoholic liquor from which gin evolved. The museum is housed on two floors of the Bols headquarters at 14 Paulus Potterstraat. Originally sold as a remedy for lumbago muscular pain, the traditional Dutch and Flemish drink was allegedly invented at the end of the 16th century by Sylvius de Bouve, a chemist, alchemist, renowned scholar and professor at the university of Leyden.
(http://amsterdam.wantedineurope.com/news/news.php?id_n=2999)(www.lucasbols.com/index.asp)(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.A12)
1576 Nov 8, All 17 provinces of the Netherlands united in the Pacification of Ghent in the face of Spanish occupation. The 17 provinces of the Netherlands formed a federation to maintain peace.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(HN, 11/6/98)
1576 Mutinous Spanish forces sacked Antwerp in "the Spanish Fury."
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1577 Feb 12, The Eternal Edict was concluded by Don Juan of Austria, the new Spanish governor of the Netherlands, and the States General in Marche-en-Famenne
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_1577)
1577 Jun 28, Pietro Paul Rubens (d.1640), Flemish painter, was born in Germany, the child of protestants exiled from Antwerp. His work included "Helene Fourment" and "The Abduction of the Daughters of Leucippus."
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1250)(HN, 6/28/01) (Econ, 5/15/04, p.81)
1577 Sep 23, William of Orange made his triumphant entry into Brussels, Belgium.
(HN, 9/23/98)
1578 Jan 28, Cornelis Haga, Dutch lawyer, ambassador to Constantinople (1611-39), was born.
(MC, 1/28/02)
1578 Don John of Austria died of fever. He was succeeded as Governor of the Netherlands by Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1579 Jan 6, The Union of Atrecht (French: Arras) was an accord signed in Atrecht (Arras), under which the southern states of the Spanish Netherlands, today in Wallonia and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais (and Picardy) regions in France, expressed their loyalty to the Spanish king Philip II and recognized the landlord, Don Juan de Austria. It is to be distinguished from the Union of Utrecht, signed later in the same month. The Peace of Arras ensured that the southern provinces of The Netherlands were reconciled to Philip II. It joined the Low Country Walloons (Catholics) with those of Hainaut and Artois.
(http://en.allexperts.com/e/u/un/union_of_atrecht.htm)(PCh, 1992, p.200)
1579 Jan 25, The Union of Utrecht brought together seven northern, Protestant provinces of the Netherlands against the Catholics. Known as the United Provinces, they become the foundation of the Dutch Republic. The Treaty of Utrecht was signed, marking the beginning of the Dutch Republic.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.22)(AP, 1/25/98)
1579 Mar 23, Friesland joined the Union of Utrecht.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1580 Jun 18, States of Utrecht outlawed Catholic worship.
(MC, 6/18/02)
c1581 Franz Hals (d.1666), painter, was born.
(WUD, 1994 p.640)(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.T7)
1581 The seven northern provinces of the Netherlands renounced their allegiance to Philip II of Spain.
(TL-MB, p.23)
1582 Nov 1, Maurice of Nassau, the son of William of Orange, became the governor of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht.
(HN, 11/1/98)
1583 Apr 10, Hugo Grotius (d.1645) of Holland, father of international law, was born. Huig de Groot (Latinized as Hugo Grotius), Dutch jurist and statesman, is generally regarded as the founder of international law because of his influential work "On the Law of War and Peace" published in 1625. He became a member of a diplomatic mission to France at age 15 and began practicing law at 16. A liberal Protestant, de Groot became involved in religious disputes in the Netherlands and was arrested in 1618 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He escaped in 1621 and fled to Paris. He served the Swedish government as ambassador to France from 1634-1644.
(HN, 4/10/98)(HNQ, 3/15/00)
1584 Jan 7, This was the last day of the Julian calendar in Bohemia & Holy Roman empire. The 1582 Gregorian (or New World) calendar was adopted by this time in Belgium, most of the German Roman Catholic states and the Netherlands.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, Par p.27)(MC, 1/7/02)
1584 Jul 10, William of Orange (1533-1584), Prince of Orange (1544-1584), Count of Nassau (1559-1584), and first stadholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, was assassinated by Burgundian Balthasar Gerard (25) with a handgun. Philip II of Spain had called for a volunteer assassin due to William’s reluctance take a public stand on religious issues. William was succeeded by his 17-year-old son, Maurice of Nassau. In 2006 Lisa Jardine authored “The Awful End of Prince William the Silent."
(TL-MB, 1988, p.23)(WSJ, 4/5/06, p.D8)
1584 A Dutch trading post was established at the Russian port of Archangel.
(TL-MB, p.23)
1585 Apr 5, Clemens Crabbeels became bishop of Hertogenbosch.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1585 Antwerp was sacked by the Duke of Parma, resulting in long-lasting loss of trade for that port.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1585 Simon Stevin, Dutch mathematician and military and civil engineer, introduces decimals into the mathematical calculations of his physics in Die Thiende.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1585 The Dutch used the first time-bombs in floating mines actuated by clockwork at the siege of Antwerp.
(TL-MB, p.24)
1587 Giles Everard, a Dutch doctor, authored “Panacea," extolling the virtues of tobacco. The Latin version was made available in English in 1659.
(WSJ, 11/22/08, p.W11)
1588-1629 Hendrick ter Brugghen was an artist of the Utrecht School. His paintings included: "St. Sebastian Tended by Irene." He traveled to Rome and was influenced by the work of Caravaggio.
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.8)
1590 Mar 4, Mauritius of Nassau's ship reached Breda, Netherlands.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1592-1656 Gerard van Honthorst was an artist of the Utrecht School. His paintings included "The Denial of St. Peter" (1620-1626), and "Saint Sebastian" from (c1620/1623). He traveled to Rome and was influenced by the work of Caravaggio.
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.8,12)
1595 Apr 2, Cornelis de Houtman's ships departed to Asia around Cape of Good Hope.
(MC, 4/2/02)
c1595-1624 Dirck van Baburen was an artist of the Utrecht School. He traveled to Rome and was influenced by the work of Caravaggio.
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.8)
1596 May 18, Willem Barents left Amsterdam for Novaya Zemlya.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1597 Jun 20, Willem Barents, Dutch explorer who discovered Spitsbergen & Bereneil, died. In 1995 Rayner Unwin authored "A Winter Away from Home," an account of Barents’ Arctic voyages.
(WUD, 1994 p.120)(SSFC, 12/10/00, p.C17)(MC, 6/20/02)
1597 In Amsterdam the Spinhuis (spinning house) was opened as a workhouse for fallen women.
(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.T9)
1597-1665 Pieter Saenredam, Haarlem painter of architectural motifs.
(WSJ, 7/2/02, p.D7)
1597/8-1671 Jan van Bijlert, painter. He traveled to Rome and was influenced by the work of Caravaggio.
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.13)
1598 Jun, A 5-ship Dutch expedition to Japan departed Rotterdam with Will Adams, English ship pilot, as chief navigator.
(ON, 11/02, p.8)
1599 The Dutch East India Company dates to this time. [see 1602]
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1600 Apr 19, The Dutch ship Liefde, piloted by Will Adams, reached Japan with a crew of 24 men. 6 of the crew soon died. 4 other ships in the expedition were lost.
(ON, 11/02, p.8)
1600 Dec 31, The British East India Company (d.1874) was chartered by Queen Elizabeth I in London to carry on trade in the East Indies in competition with the Dutch, who controlled nutmeg from the Banda Islands.
(WUD, 1994, p.449)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)(www.theeastindiacompany.com/history.html)
1600-1700 Britain waged wars against the Dutch. The English fleet sailed in three segments, the 3rd of which was commanded by a Rear Admiral. [see 1780-1783]
(SFEC, 8/3/97, Z1 p.2)
1600-1700 Cognac 1st appeared when Dutch sea merchants found that they could better preserve white wine shipped from France to northern Europe by distilling it. They then learned the wine got better as it aged in wooden barrels.
(WSJ, 7/14/03, p.A1)
1600-1700 West Timor was seized by the Netherlands.
(SFC, 3/3/98, p.A6)
1600-1800 A mass migration of nearly 1 million people in the 17th and 18th century led to the decline of this small nation.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.F4)
1601 Joachim Wtewael painted "Mars and Venus Discovered by Vulcan."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.8)
1602 Mar 20, The Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) was chartered to carry on trade in the East Indies. The VOC traded to 1798 whereupon its possessions were dissolved into the Dutch empire. In 2010 a student found a share in the company issued to an official named Pieter Harmenz dating to Sep 9, 1606. As a result, continuous trade in company stock emerged on the Amsterdam Exchange.
(SFC, 9/10/10, p.A2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market)(Econ, 2/25/12, SRp.4)
1602 Japan’s Shogun Ieyasu seized the Dutch ship Liefde and granted its crew allowances to live in Japan.
(ON, 11/02, p.9)
1603 The Dutch East India Company seized a Portuguese ship laden with raw silk and gold near the straight of Malacca and hired Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) to defend its action. In 1625 Grotius authored “Mare Liberum" (The Free Sea) arguing that the seas were international territory and should be open to all.
(Econ, 11/15/14, SR p.11)
1604 Sep 20, After a two-year siege, the Spanish retook Ostend [NW Belgium], the Netherlands, from the Dutch.
(WUD, 1994, p.1019)(HN, 9/20/98)
1604-1667 Christiaen van Couwenbergh, Dutch painter.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)
1605 Japan’s Shogun Ieyasu allowed some of the Dutch crew of the ship Liefde to return home, but kept Will Adams in Japan. Adams soon married Magoma Oyuki, a young noblewoman.
(ON, 11/02, p.10)
1606 Jul 15, The painter Rembrandt (d.1669) Harmenszoom van Rizn (Rijn), was born in Leiden, Netherlands. His paintings included "Old Woman Cutting Her Nails," "Night Watch," "Self Portrait Leaning Forward" (1628), "Two Studies of Saskia Asleep" (1635-1637), "Jupiter and Antiope" (1659) and "Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer." He started making etchings in the 1620s when the medium was barely a 100 years old.
(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)(SFC, 10/12/96, p.E3)(SFC, 5/17/97, p.E1)(AP, 7/15/97)
1608 Oct 2, Jan Lippershey, spectacle maker, formally offered to the Estates of Holland his new spyglass for warfare. He was the 1st to file a patent claim for a spyglass.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9048449)(CW, Spring ‘99, p.33)
1608 The Oudemannenhuis almshouse was built in Haarlem.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.T7)
1609 Mar 25, Henry Hudson embarked on an exploration for Dutch East India Co.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1609 Sep 12, English explorer Henry Hudson sailed into the river that now bears his name. Hudson sailed for the Dutch East India Company in search of the Northwest Passage, a water route linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, when he sailed up the present-day Hudson River.
(AP, 9/12/97)(HNQ, 7/23/00)
1609 Dutchman Huig de Groot authored a treatise titled “Mare Liberum" (The Open Sea) in which he argued that seas were open to anyone.
(Econ, 1/18/14, p.80)
1610 The Dutch ousted the Portuguese from Indonesia by this time, but the Portuguese retained the eastern half of Timor.
(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)
1610 The first cargo of Asian tea arrived in Amsterdam
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1610-1650 Painters from Utrecht worked in the style of Caravaggio.
(WSJ, 10/20/97, p.A19)
1611 Joachim Wtewael painted "Andromeda." He and Bloemaert helped transmit the Italian mannerist influence and a preference for figure painting over landscape
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C8)
1613 Apr 7, Gerard Dou, Dutch painter (Night School), was born.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1613-1675 Gerrit Dou, Dutch artist. He was a student of Rembrandt.
(SFC, 5/25/00, p.A24)
1614 Crispijn de Passe the Younger published "Hortus Floridus" in Holland.
(WSJ, 7/7/98, p.A14)
1615 Joachim Wtewael painted the "Judgement of Paris."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C8)
1616 Dec 25, Nathaniel Courthope, a British merchant-adventurer under direct orders from James I, landed his ship Swan at the Banda Island of Run. He persuaded the islanders to enter an alliance with the British for nutmeg. He fortified the 1 by 2 mile island and with 30 men proceeded to hold off a Dutch siege for 1,540 days.
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W7)
1616 The Dutch became the first to establish colonies in Guyana with Essequibo. Berbice followed in 1627, and then Demerara in 1752.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyana)
1616-1691/92 Emanuel de Witte, Dutch painter.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)
1617 Feb 4, Louis Elsevier (~76), Dutch publisher, died.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1617 The Pilgrims decided to leave the Netherlands. They formed a partnership in a joint-stock company with a group of London merchants in a company called John Pierce & Assoc. They received a grant for a plantation in the Virginia colony but ended up landing in Massachusetts. Each adult was to receive a share in the company but earnings would not be divided for 7 years.
(WSJ, 11/26/97, p.A14)
1618 Aug, Hugo Grotius, attorney general of Holland, was arrested on the orders of Prince Maurice of Nassau, ruler of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, for conspiring to undermine the authority of the government.
(ON, 10/04, p.1)
1618 Hendrick Goltzius (b.1558), Dutch Master painter, died. His work included "Danaë."
(WSJ, 8/14/03, p.D8)
1619 May 13, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (b.1547), Dutch lands advocate, was beheaded.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1619 May 18, Hugo the Great (1582-1645), Hugo de Groot or Grotius, Dutch scholar, the "Father of Int’l. Law" and author of the 1st treatise on the law of the sea, Mare liberum," was sentenced to life in prison.
(SC, 5/18/02)(Internet)
1619 Jun 5, Hugo Grotius was taken to Loevestein Castle to begin his life sentence. His wife and 5 children were allowed to stay with him.
(ON, 10/04, p.1)
1619 Jul 2, Jan Pieterszoon Coen, a top officer of the Dutch East India Company, decided to expand a Dutch fort into a larger fortress. On Oct 7 he sent plans for Batavia Castle to the Netherlands. The region which became Batavia was built on the ruins of the former Jayakarta.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Pieterszoon_Coen)
1619 Amsterdam opened a stock exchange.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1620 Jul 22, The Pilgrims set out from Holland destined for the New World. The Speedwell sailed to England from the Netherlands with members of the English Separatist congregation that had been living in Leiden, Holland. Joining the larger Mayflower at Southampton, the two ships set sail together in August, but the Speedwell soon proved unseaworthy and was abandoned at Plymouth, England. The entire company then crowded aboard the Mayflower, setting sail for North America on September 16, 1620.
(HNQ, 3/4/00)(MC, 7/22/02)
1621 Jan 21, In Indonesia a new city built on the site of a Dutch fort was officially named as Batavia. Jan Pieterszoon Coen, recognized as the founder of Batavia (now Jakarta).
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Jakarta)
1621 Jun 3, The Dutch West India Company received a charter for New Netherlands, now known as New York. The Dutch West India Co. was formed to trade with America and West Africa.
(AP, 6/3/97)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1621 Jan Pieterszoon Coen, a top officer of the Dutch East India Company, led a bloody assault on a group of islands in order to secure a monopoly on spices grown there. He was later reviled as the “butcher of Banda." In 2020 protests called for the removal of his statue in Hoorn.
(AP, 6/19/20)
1621-1622 Dutch artist Dirck van Baburen painted "The Mocking of Christ."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C8)
1622 Feb 27, Rembrandt Carel Fabritius (d.1654), Dutch painter, was born.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)(MC, 2/27/02)
1622 Mar 22, Hugo Grotius escaped from Loevestein Castle.
(ON, 10/04, p.2)
1622 Dirck van Baburen painted: "The Procuress."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.8)
1622 In Aklmaar the cheese market officially opened. [see 1366]
(SFEC, 6/7/98, p.T10)
1623 Apr 29, 11 Dutch ships departed for the conquest of Peru.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1623 Dirck van Baburen painted "Prometheus Chained."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C1)
1624 Cafe Chris opened in Amsterdam and served the construction workers of the nearby Westerkerk.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, p.T5)
1624 The Dutch conquered Salvador, Brazil.
(SFEC, 8/8/99, p.T8)
1624 Dutchman Cornelius Drebbel encased a wooden frame in a greased leather sheath and pushed it underwater to create what’s claimed to be the world’s 1st submarine.
(SFC, 7/15/00, p.B3)
1625 Sep 24, Dutch Gen’l. Bowdoin Hendrik and his fleet of 17 ships sailed into San Juan, Puerto Rico, and attacked El Morro. He held the garrison under siege for 3 weeks and then set the town to flames. This infuriated the Spanish who attacked and sent the Dutch fleeing.
(HT, 4/97, p.31-33)(MC, 9/24/01)
1625 Hendrick ter Brugghen painted "Saint Sebastian Attended by Saint Irene."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C8)
1625 Rembrandt depicted himself as a bit player in his painting "The Stoning of St. Stephen."
(WSJ, 8/11/99, p.A16)
1625 Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) of Holland published his influential work "On the Law of War and Peace." Huig de Groot (Latinized as Hugo Grotius), Dutch jurist and statesman, is generally regarded as the founder of international law. "It is lawful to kill who is preparing to kill."
(HN, 4/10/98)(HNQ, 3/15/00)(Econ, 11/22/03, p.25)
1626 May 4, Dutch explorer Peter Minuit (~1594-1638), director-general of New Netherlands, bought Manhattan Island for 60 guilders (about $24 in 1839 dollars) worth of cloth and buttons. Minuit conducted the transaction with Seyseys, chief of the Canarsees, who were only too happy to accept valuable merchandise in exchange for an island that was actually mostly controlled by the Weckquaesgeeks. The Sixty guilders were valued at approximately $1,060 in 2013. The site of the deal was later marked by Peter Minuit Plaza at South Street and Whitehall Street.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Minuit)(AP, 5/4/97)(HN, 5/4/98)(WSJ, 11/19/99, p.W10)
1626 Nov 7, Peter Schager of Amsterdam informed the States General that the ship "The Arms of Amsterdam" had arrived with a cargo of furs and timber from New Netherlands and that the settlers there had bought the Island of Manhattan for 60 guilders.
(WSJ, 11/19/99, p.W10)
1626 Rembrandt depicted part of himself in his painting "History Piece."
(WSJ, 8/11/99, p.A16)
c1626-1627 Hendrick ter Brugghen painted "The Concert."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.12)
1626-1679 Jan Steen, Dutch painter.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)
1627 Mar 3, Piet Heyn conquered 22 ships in Bay of Salvador, Brazil.
(SC, 3/3/02)
c1627-1628 Hendrick ter Brugghen painted "Melancholia."
(SFC, 9/12/97, p.C1)
1628 Mar 10, Constantine Huygens Jr., Dutch poet, painter, cartoonist, was born.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1628 Abraham Bloemaert painted his "Virgin and Child."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.13)
1628 Rembrandt Harmenszoom van Rizn (Rijn) (1606-1669), Dutch painter, painted "Self Portrait Leaning Forward."
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1213)(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)
1628 Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish painter, was called upon to broker a peace between Catholic Spain and Protestant England.
(Econ, 5/15/04, p.81)
1629 Apr 14, Christian Huygens (d.1695), Dutch astronomer, discoverer of Saturn's rings, was born. He invented the pendulum and along with Newton showed that any body revolving around a center is actually accelerating constantly toward that center, even though the rate of rotation remains constant.
(TNG, Klein, p.30)(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_huygens.htm)
1629 Jun 18, Piet Heyn (51), lt.-admiral (Spanish silver fleet), died in battle.
(MC, 6/18/02)
1629 Oct 13, Dutch West Indies Co. granted religious freedom in West Indies.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1629 The Batavia, a Dutch East India ship, struck a reef off the western coast of Australia. Some 300 survivors made it to a tiny island in the Houtman Abrolhos archipelago, where Jeronimus Cornelisz, a junior officer, took power after a vicous struggle. He ran a regime of murder, rape and torture for 3 months when helped arrived from the Dutch colony on Java. 70 of the 300 initial survivors were still alive. Cornelisz was quickly tried and executed. In 2005 Simon Leys authored “The Wreck of the Batavia."
(WSJ, 1/10/06, p.D8)
1629-1684 Pieter de Hooch, Dutch painter of contemplative scenes of everyday life.
(WSJ, 2/2/99, p.A20)
1632 Oct 24, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, Dutch naturalist, was born.
(HN, 10/24/00)
1632 Oct 31, [Johannes] Jan Vermeer (d.1675), tavern keeper and Dutch painter (Procuress, Astronomer), was born in Delft. Only 35 of his pictures are known to survive. These include: "Girl With a Pearl Earring" (1665-1666), "The Little Street" (1657), "Saint Praxedis" (1655), "Allegory of Faith" (1671) and "The Artist in His Studio." His wife was Catharina Bolnes.
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1587)(MC, 10/31/01)
1632 Nov 24, Baruch (Benedict) de Spinoza (d.1677), Dutch rationalist philosopher, was born in Amsterdam. "Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear."
(AP, 9/24/99)(MC, 11/24/01)
1632 Rembrandt painted his work "Europa" and "Portrait of a Lady Aged 62." The portrait sold for $28.7 million in 2000.
(WSJ, 3/9/98, p.A16)(SFC, 12/15/00, p.C15)
1632 The "Portrait of a Young Woman" was created in the studio of Remrandt. In 1961 the portrait was bequethed to Pennsylvania's Allentown Art Museum. In 2020 art experts declared it to be an authentic Rembrandt.
(SFC, 2/18/20, p.A6)
1633 Dec 18, Willem van de Velde the Younger, Dutch marine painter, was baptized.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_van_de_Velde_the_Younger)
1633 Rembrandt van Rijn painted the "Portrait of a Bearded Man in a Red Coat." It sold for $9.1 million in 1998.
(SFC, 2/3/98, p.E3)
1634 Rembrandt van Rijn painted "Portrait of a Woman." It hangs in the Speed Museum of Louisville, Ky.
(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A20)
1634-1637 The Dutch tulip craze was known as the "tulipomania." A futures market was created for tulip bulbs in Dutch taverns and prices crashed 95% in the end. In 2000 Peter M. Garber authored "Famous First Bubbles," and restored a sense of proportion to the inflated notions of the mania.
(WSJ, 7/7/98, p.A14)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(WSJ, 1/18/00, p.C14)(WSJ, 8/2/00, p.A20)
1635 Apr 16, Frans van Mieris, the Elder, Dutch painter, was born.
(MC, 4/16/02)
1635-1637 Rembrandt Harmenszoom van Rizn (Rijn) (1606-1669), Dutch painter, painted "Two Studies of Saskia Asleep."
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1213)(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)
1636 Mar 26, University of Utrecht held its opening ceremony.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1636 Nov 17, Henrique Dias, Brazilian general, won a decisive battle against the Dutch in Brazil.
(HN, 11/17/98)
1636 Rembrandt made his etching "Self-portrait with Saskia."
(HT, 5/97, p.60)
1636 Pieter Saenredam, Haarlem painter of architectural motifs, spent 3 months in Utrecht where he drew the interiors of the gothic churches.
(WSJ, 7/2/02, p.D7)
1637 Mar 5, John van der Heyden, Dutch painter, inventor (fire extinguisher), was born.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1637 Nov 20, Peter Minuit & 1st Dutch and Swedish immigrants to Delaware sailed from Sweden. Peter later purchased Manhattan Island for 60 guilders.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1637 The Dutch tulip bulb craze crashed as futures prices became too high for speculators to pay off and take delivery.
(WSJ, 7/7/98, p.A14)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(WSJ, 1/18/00, p.C14)
1637 The Dutch attacked and captured Elmina (Ghana), which up to that point was the centre of Portuguese activity in West Africa.
(www.moxon.net/ghana/cape_coast.html)
1638 Mar 23, Frederik Ruysch, Dutch anatomist, was born.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1638 Aug 9, Jonas Bronck of Holland became the 1st European settler in the Bronx.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1638 Rembrandt painted the "Portrait of Willem Bartolsz Ruyter," a Dutch actor.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.E3)
1638 Joachim Wytawael (Wtewael, b.1566) , Dutch mannerist painter, died. His work included "The Adoration of the Shepherds."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.13)(SFEM, 9/17/00, p.96)
1640 Rembrandt painted his "Portrait of a Man Seated in an Armchair" about this time.
(WSJ, 11/3/95, p.A-12)
1641 Sep 23, Adrian "Aart" van Wijck, theologian, was born. He fought Jansenism.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1641 The Dutch pushed the Portuguese out of Malacca and renamed Our Lady of the Hill church to St. Paul’s.
(Econ, 11/15/14, SR p.5)
1642 Aug 13, Christian Huygens discovered the Martian south polar cap.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1642 Dec 13, Dutch navigator and explorer Abel Janszoon sighted present-day New Zealand. He fled after Maori cannibals feasted on the “friendship party" he sent ashore.
(NG, Aug., 1974, p.196)(SFEC, 10/4/98, p.T4)(AP, 12/13/07)
1642 Rembrandt van Rijn painted "Night Watch."
(WSJ, 3/904, p.D8)
1642 Curacao became a colony of the Netherlands.
(Econ, 6/19/04, p.72)
1645 Aug 28, Hugo Grotius, Dutch jurist and politician, died. In 1917 Hamilton Vreeland authored “Hugo Grotius: The Father of Modern Science and International Law."
(RTH, 8/28/99)(ON, 10/04, p.4)
1646 Akzo Nobel, a Dutch multinational firm, traced its origins to a foundry established this year in the Swedish countryside by Paul Hossman. Milestone mergers and divestments led to the formation of AKZO in 1969 and the merger with Nobel Industries in 1994 to form Akzo Nobel.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AkzoNobel) (Econ, 4/22/17, p.58)
1647 May 11, Peter Stuyvesant (37) arrived in New Amsterdam to become governor of New Netherland. The one-legged professional soldier was sent from the Netherlands to head the Dutch trading colony at the southern end of Manhattan Island. Stuyvesant lost a leg in a minor skirmish in the Caribbean in 1644.
(ON, 4/00, p.1)(AH, 10/04, p.74)(AP, 5/11/08)
1647 Nov 8, Pierre Bayle (d.1706), French-Dutch theologian, philosopher, and writer, was born. He authored the "Historical and Critical Dictionary." "If an historian were to relate truthfully all the crimes, weaknesses and disorders of mankind, his readers would take his work for satire rather than for history."
(WUD, 1994, p.128)(AP, 11/19/97)(WSJ, 12/2/97, p.A20)(MC, 11/8/01)
1647 Nov 10, The all Dutch-held area of New York was returned to English control by the treaty of Westminster.
(HN, 11/10/98)
1648 May 15, The independence of the Netherlands was finally recognized with the Dutch and Spanish ratification of the Treaty of Munster, initially signed on January 30.
(www.oldandsold.com/articles36/netherlands-18.shtml)
1648 Van Ruisdael painted "Dunes at Haarlem." His work this year also included his print "Christ Preaching (The Hundred Guilder Print).
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.T7)(WSJ, 3/904, p.D8)
1649 Salomon van Ruysdael (1602-1670), Dutch landscape artist, created his painting “Ferry on a River."
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.D7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruisdael)
1649 The Prins Willem was built in Middelburg, Netherlands, as the flagship of the Dutch East India Company. The 3-masted ship, launched on Jan 1, 1650, sank in 1662 off Madagascar.
(AP, 7/30/09)(http://tinyurl.com/mteqbf)
1650 Nov 4, William III, Prince of Orange and King of England, was born. [see Nov 14]
(HN, 11/4/98)
1650 Nov 14, William III, King of England (1689-1702), was born. [see Nov 4]
(HN, 11/14/98)
c1650 Jan Baptist Weenix painted "Mother and Child in an Italian Landscape."
(SFEM, 8/31/97, p.12)
1652 Apr 7, The Dutch established settlement at Cape Town, South Africa.
(HN, 4/7/97)
1652 May 29, English Admiral Robert Blake drove out the Dutch fleet under Lieutenant-Admiral Tromp.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1652 Michael Sweerts, Flemish artist, painted "Plague in an Ancient City" in Rome. In 1998 it held by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
(SFEC, 1/11/98, p.D7)
1652 War broke out between the Netherlands and England.
(ON, 4/00, p.2)
1653 May 18, Carel Reyniersz (48), Governor-General of Netherlands and East Indies, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1653 Rembrandt painted his "Aristotle With a Bust of Homer."
(WSJ, 11/3/95, p.A-12)
1654 Oct 12, Carel Fabritius (b.1622), Dutch painter, died in a gunpowder explosion in Delft. He was one of Rembrandt’s most gifted pupils.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carel_Fabritius)(WSJ, 7/20/01, p.W11)(Econ, 10/26/13, p.93)
1654 Rembrandt van Rijn painted a portrait of poet-businessman Jan Six, one of the richest Amsterdammers of his time. His work this year also included "A Woman Bathing in a Stream" and "Flora." His work this year also included the etching and drypoint “The Descent From the Cross by Torchlight."
(WSJ, 6/19/00, p.A42)(WSJ, 3/904, p.D8)(SFC, 1/28/06, p.E4)(Econ, 6/23/07, p.96)
1654-1656 Rembrandt van Rijn painted a medallion portrait of Muhammed Adil Shah of Bijapur.
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.16)(SFC, 2/7/98, p.E8)
1655 Apr 26, Dutch West Indies Co. denied Peter Stuyvesant's desire to exclude Jews from New Amsterdam.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1655 Sep 26, Peter Stuyvesant recaptured Dutch Ft. Casimir from Swedish in Delaware.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1655 Rembrandt painted "Polish Rider."
(WSJ, 12/5/96, p.A16)
1655 Jan Steen painted "A Burgher of Delft and His Daughter." In 2004 it sold for $14.6 million to the Dutch National Museum.
(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)(SFC, 8/21/04, p.E12)
1655 Vermeer painted his Saint Praxedis. [see Vermeer, 1632-1675]
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)
1655 Pieter de Hooch moved to Delft and painted there for 5 years.
(WSJ, 7/20/01, p.W11)
1655 Mar 25, Christiaan Huygens, Dutch inventor and astronomer, discovered Titan, Saturn's largest satellite.
(www.xs4all.nl/~carlkop/huyglens.html)
1655-1660 Rembrandt painted his picture called "The Auctioneer."
(WSJ, 11/3/95, p.A-12)
1656 Jan 8, Oldest surviving commercial newspaper began in Haarlem, Netherlands.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1656 Jul 26, Rembrandt declared he is insolvent.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1656 Christian Huygens invented the first pendulum clock, as described in his 1658 article "Horologium". It was built by Solomon Coster and was later put on exhibit at the Time Museum in Rockford, Ill. The time-pieces previously in use had been balance-clocks, Chris Huygens' pendulum clock was regulated by a mechanism with a "natural" period of oscillation and had an error of less than 1 minute a day.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_huygens.htm)(SF E&C, 1/15/1995, T-10)
1657 Vermeer painted his "The Little Street" about this time (1658-1660).
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)(SFC, 4/4/01, p.C1)
1658 Vermeer (1632-1675), Dutch artist, completed his painting “The Milkmaid" about this time.
(Econ, 9/19/09, p.98)
1659 Rembrandt Harmenszoom van Rizn (Rijn) (1606-1669), Dutch painter, made "Jupiter and Antiope" (1659).
(AAP, 1964)(WUD, 1994, p.1213)(WSJ, 10/1/96, p.A20)
1659 Christian Huygens of Holland used a 2-inch telescope lens and discovered that the Martian day is nearly the same as an Earth day.
(SFC, 11/29/96, p.A16)
1660 May 7, Isaack B. Fubine of Savoy, in The Hague, patented macaroni.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1660 Rembrandt painted "The Old Woman Cutting Her Nails" about this time.
(WSJ, 11/3/95, p.A-12)
c1660 The Dutch crafted an early version of a boat they called a "yacht."
(SFC, 7/18/98, p.E3)
1660 Pieter Claesz (b.ca.1597), Dutch still-life painter, died.
(WSJ, 11/22/05, p.D8)
1661 Aug 6, Holland sold Brazil to Portugal for 8 million guilders.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1661 Rembrandt depicted himself in the painting "Self-Portrait as St. Paul." His work this year also included "James the Apostle."
(WSJ, 8/11/99, p.A16)(SFEC, 1/16/00, BR p.5)(WSJ, 3/904, p.D8)
1662 Feb 11, The Prins Willem, built in 1643 as flagship of the Dutch East India Company, sank off Madagascar. A replica, built in the 1980s, burned down at Den Helder in 2009.
(AP, 7/30/09)(http://tinyurl.com/mteqbf)
1662 Apr 27, Netherlands and France signed a treaty of alliance in Paris.
(http://nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn1767012)
1662 Rembrandt depicted himself in a painting as the fifth-century Greek painter Zeuxis. His work this year also included “The Syndics of the Clothmakers' Guild."
(WSJ, 8/11/99, p.A16)(Econ, 6/23/07, p.96)
1662 Dutch fortune seekers killed over 400 members of the Nayar warrior caste in Kerala, India.
(SFEM, 7/18/99, p.12)
1663 Rembrandt depicted himself as a bit player in his painting "The Raising of the Cross."
(WSJ, 8/11/99, p.A16)
1663 The Amsterdam attic church, later known as the Museum Amstelkring, was built after the monarchy banned the public practice of Catholicism.
(SFEC, 6/18/00, p.T11)
1663 Abraham Blauvelt, Dutch pirate, died about this time. In the early 1630's He explored the coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua. Afterwards, he went to England and with a proposal for a settlement at site in Nicaragua, which is near the town and river of Bluefields, Nicaragua.
(www.thepirateking.com/bios/blauvelt_abraham.htm)
1664 Apr 4, Adam Willaerts, Dutch seascape painter, died.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1664 Aug 29, Adriaen Pieck/Gerrit de Ferry patented a wooden fire spout in Amsterdam.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1664 Sep 5, After days of negotiation, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam surrendered to the British, who would rename it New York. The citizens of New Amsterdam petitioned Peter Stuyvesant to surrender to the English. The "Articles of Capitulation" guaranteed free trade, religious liberty and a form of local representation. In 2004 Russell Shorto authored "The Island At the Center of the World," a history of New York's Dutch period.
(HN, 9/5/98)(ON, 4/00, p.3)(WSJ, 3/16/04, p.D6)
1664 Sep 8, The Dutch formally surrendered New Amsterdam to 300 English soldiers. The British soon renamed it New York.
(AP, 9/8/97)(ON, 4/00, p.3)
1664-1667 The Second Anglo-Dutch War.
(HN, 6/21/98)
1665 Mar 4, English King Charles II declared war on Netherlands.
(SC, 3/4/02)
c1665 Gerrit Dou painted "Woman at the Clavichord" and a "Self-Portrait" in which he resembled Rembrandt.
(WSJ, 5/24/00, p.A24)
1665 Jacob van Ochtervelt (1634-1682), Dutch artist, painted his “Street Musicians in the Doorway of a House."
(WSJ, 1/30/09, p.W2)(http://wwar.com/masters/o/ochtervelt-jacob.html)
1665 The British briefly recaptured the Banda Island of Run from the Dutch.
(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W7)
1665 Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer painted his "Girl With a Pearl Earring" about this time. [see Vermeer, 1632-1675] In 1999 Tracy Chevalier authored the novel "Girl With a Pearl Earring," a fictionalization based on one of Vermeer's models.
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)(SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.3)(SFC, 1/24/13, p.E1)
1666 Franz Hals (b.1581?), painter, died in the Oudemannenhuis almshouse in Haarlem. The almshouse later became the Frans Hals Museum.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.T7)
1667 Jun 18, The Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames and threatened London. They burned 3 ships and captured the English flagship in what came to be called the Glorious Revolution, in which William of Orange replaced James Stuart.
(HN, 6/18/98)(WSJ, 3/14/00, p.A28)
1667 Jul 21, The Peace of Breda ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War and ceded Dutch New Amsterdam to the English. The South American country of Surinam, formerly Dutch Guiana, including the nutmeg island of Run was ceded by England to the Dutch in exchange for New York in 1667 after the second Anglo-Dutch War.
(WUD, 1994, p.961)(HN, 7/21/98)(HNQ, 8/21/98)(WSJ, 5/21/99, p.W7)
1668 Feb 7, The Netherlands, England and Sweden concluded an alliance directed against Louis XIV of France.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1669 Oct 4, Rembrandt H. van Rijn (b.1606), painter and etcher (Steel Masters, Night Watch), died. In 1999 Simon Schama published the biography "Rembrandt's Eyes."
(WSJ, 11/24/99, p.A16)(MC, 10/4/01)
1669 Vermeer painted "The Art of Painting." The 3' by 4' work was larger than most of his paintings.
(SFC, 11/24/99, p.E8)
1670 Vermeer painted his "A Young Woman Standing at a Virginal" and "A Young Woman Seated at a Virginal." Estimates for auction in 2004 for the seated one reached $5.4 million.
(WSJ, 6/19/00, p.a42)(SFC, 4/1/04, p.E7)
1670 Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch philosopher, authored "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus" an enlightened assessment of the Old Testament and a plea for religious toleration.
(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.D8)
1671 Vermeer painted his "Allegory of Faith." [see Vermeer, 1632-1675]
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)
1672 Apr 29, King Louis XIV of France invaded the Netherlands. A French army of 100,000 crossed the Rhine and invaded the Dutch Republic. The Dutch Golden Age fell apart when England, France and a pair of German principalities teamed up to attack the Netherlands and seize its colonies.
(HN, 4/29/99)(PC, 1992ed., p.255)(Econ, 4/18/20, p.38)
1672 Jun 15, The Sluices were opened in Holland to save Amsterdam from the French.
(HT, 6/15/00)
1672 Jul 4, States of Holland declared "Eternal Edict" void.
(Maggio)
1672 Aug 20, Jan de Witt, Dutch politician and mathematician, was assassinated by a carefully organized lynch "mob" after visiting his brother Cornelis de Witt in prison. He was killed by a shot in the neck; his naked body was hanged and mutilated and the heart was carved out to be exhibited.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Witt)
1672 Christian Huygens of Holland discovered the southern polar caps on Mars.
(http://chapters.marssociety.org/toronto/Education/TL1500.shtml)
1673 Mar 28, Adam Pijnacker (51), Dutch landscape painter, etcher, was buried.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1673 May 29, Cornelis van Bijnkershoek, lawyer, president of High Council, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1673 Jun 25, French commander Charles de Batz (b.1611), known as D’Artagnan, was slain in the service of Louis XIV. He died at the Siege of Maastricht in the Franco-Dutch War and was one of the musketeers who inspired Dumas’ fiction.
(SSFC, 4/13/08, p.E4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D'Artagnan)
1673 Aug 9, Dutch recapture NY from English. It was regained by English in 1674.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1673 Dec 28, Joan Blaeu (77), Dutch cartographer, publisher (Atlas Major), died.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1673 The most important of Christian Huygens' written works, the "Horologium Oscillatorium," was published in Paris. It discussed the mathematics surrounding pendulum motion and the law of centrifugal force for uniform circular motion.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_huygens.htm)
1674 Feb 9, English reconquered NY from Netherlands.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1674 Feb 19, Netherlands and England signed the Peace of Westminster. NYC became English.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1674 Nov 10, Dutch formally ceded New Netherlands (NY) to English. [see 1664]
(MC, 11/10/01)
1675 Jan 20, Christian Huygens, Dutch scientist, transformed a theoretical insight on springs into a practical mechanism with the 1st sketch of a watch balance regulated by a coiled spring.
(www.princeton.edu/~mike/articles/huygens/timelong/timelong.html)(Econ, 2/4/06, p.73)
1675 Mar 2, Prince William III was installed as Governor of Overijssel.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1675 Johannes Vermeer (b.1632), Dutch painter, died in poverty. In 2001 Anthony Bailey authored "Vermeer: A View of Delft."
(WSJ, 11/15/95, p.A-20)(SSFC, 3/25/01, BR p.5)
1676 Apr 29, Michiel A. de Ruyter (69), Dutch rear-admiral, (Newport), was killed.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1676 Jun 1, The Swedish ship Svardet, armed with 86 bronze canons and under command of Claes Uggla, went under when Sweden was defeated by a Danish-Dutch fleet in the Battle of Öland. In 2011 Deep Sea Productions said it believed it had found the ship off the island of Oland.
(AP, 11/16/11)(www.ocean-discovery.org/thesword.htm)
1677 Feb 15, King Charles II reported an anti-French covenant with Netherlands.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1677 Feb 21, [Benedictus] Baruch Spinoza (b.1632), Dutch philosopher, died. In 2003 Antonio Damasio authored "Looking for Spinoza," a look at contemporary neurological research in contrast with the opposing philosophical views of Spinoza and Descartes. In 2005 Matthew Stewart authored “The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World.
(WUD, 1994 p.1371)(SSFC, 2/2/03, p.M4)(WSJ, 12/15/05, p.D8)
1677 Nov 4, William and Mary were married in England. William of Orange married his cousin Mary (daughter to James, Duke of York and the same James II who fled in 1688).
(HN, 11/4/98)(HNQ, 12/28/00)
1683 Sep 17, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek reported the existence of bacteria.
(MC, 9/17/01)
1683-1707 Adriaen Coorte (b.1665), a Dutch Golden Age painter of still lifes, signed his work during this period. His work included “Still Life With Sea Shells" (1698).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriaen_Coorte)
1688 Nov 1, William of Orange set sail for England at the head of a fleet of 500 ships and 30,000 men. He intended too oust his father-in-law King James II. The Dutch parliament, the States General, funded William with 4 million guilders. Amsterdam financiers provided another 2 million. Some of this was used to print 60,000 copies of his “Declaration" (of the reasons inducing him to appear in arms in the Kingdom of England), which were distributed in England. In 2008 Lisa Jardine authored “Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland’s Glory."
(WSJ, 8/28/08, p.A13)
1688 Nov 5, William of Orange landed in southern England and marched with his army nearly unopposed to London.
(WSJ, 8/28/08, p.A13)
1688 Nov 26, Louis XIV declared war on the Netherlands.
(HN, 11/26/98)
1688 Dec 10, King James II fled London as "Glorious Revolution" replaced him with King William (of Orange) and Queen Mary. [see Dec 11]
(MC, 12/10/01)
1688 Dec 11, James II abdicated the throne because of William of Orange landing in England.
(HN, 12/11/98)
1688 Dec 28, William of Orange made a triumphant march into London as James II fled in the "Glorious Revolution." William of Orange—son of William II, Prince of Orange and Mary, daughter of Charles I of England—was fourth in line to the English throne.
(HN, 12/28/98)(HNQ, 12/28/00)(WSJ, 2/6/02, p.A16)
1689 May 12, England’s King William III joined the League of Augsburg and the Netherlands. The "Grand Alliance" was formed to counter the war of aggression launched by Louis XIV against the Palatinate states in Germany. This is known as The War of the League of Augsburg (1689-97) also The Nine Years' War, and the War of the Grand Alliance.
(www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/king_william.htm)
1690 Jul 1, Led by Marshall Luxembourg, the French defeated the forces of the Grand Alliance at Fleurus in the Netherlands.
(HN, 7/1/98)
1690 Oct 23, There was a revolt in Haarlem, Holland, after a public ban on smoking.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1691 Aug 20, The 1st African slaves arrived to North America on a Dutch ship. It docked in Jamestown, Virginia, with twenty human captives among its cargo.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1691 Oct 3, English and Dutch armies occupied Limerick, Ireland.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1692 Mar 14, Peter Musschenbroek, Dutch physician, physicist (Leyden jar), was born.
(MC, 3/14/02)
1692 Mar 26, King Maximilian was installed as land guardian of South Netherlands.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1692 May 29, Battle at La Hogue: An English & Dutch fleet beat France.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1692 Aug 3, French forces under Marshal Luxembourg defeated the English at the Battle of Steenkerke in the Netherlands.
(HN, 8/3/98)
1693 Jul 4, Battle at Boussu-lez-Walcourt: French-English vs. Dutch army.
(Maggio)
1693 Jul 29, The Army of the Grand Alliance was destroyed by the French at the Battle of Neerwinden in the Netherlands.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1694 Jul 27, The Bank of England received a royal charter as a commercial institution. It had been set up by William III, the ruler of Britain and the Netherlands, in the midst of a war against France. The mission of the bank was to provide war finance. Financiers agreed to lend the crown £1.2 million in return for a partial monopoly on the issue of currency.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C2)(AP, 7/27/97)(Econ, 1/10/09, p.49)(Econ, 11/5/11, p.92)(Econ, 4/29/17, p.56)
1695 Jul 8, Christian Huygens (66), Dutch inventor, astronomer, died. He generally wrote his name as Christiaan Hugens, and it is also sometimes written as Huyghens. In his book “Cosmotheros," published in 1698, he speculated on life on other planets.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_huygens.htm)
1695 Portugal established colonial rule in the eastern half of Timor Island. The western side was incorporated into the Dutch East Indies.
(SFC, 5/18/02, p.A15)
1696 Jan 31, An uprising of undertakers took place after funeral reforms in Amsterdam.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1696 Mar 7, English King William III departed Netherlands.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1697 Sep 20, The Treaty of Ryswick was signed in Holland. It ended the War of the Grand Alliance (aka War of the League of Augsburg,1688-1697) between France and the Grand Alliance. Under the Treaty France’s King Louis XIV (1638-1715) recognized William III (1650-1702) as King of England. The Dutch received trade concessions, and France and the Grand Alliance members (Holland and the Austrian Hapsburgs) gave up most of the land they had conquered since 1679. The signees included France, England, Spain and Holland. By the Treaty of Ryswick, a portion of Hispaniola was formally ceded to France and became known as Saint-Domingue. The remaining Spanish section was called Santo Domingo.
(www.caribbeanguides.net/hispaniola.htm)(www.jacobite.ca/documents/1697ryswick.htm)
1700 May 7, Gerard van Swieten, Dutch botanist, was born.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1701 Sep 7, England, Austria, and the Netherlands formed an Alliance against France.
(HN, 9/7/98)
1702 Mar 8, William III of Orange (51), Dutch King of England (1689-1702), died after falling from his horse and catching a chill. Anne Stuart (37), his sister-in-law, succeeded to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland and reigned until 1714.
(PCh, 1992, p.272)(MC, 3/8/02)(AP, 3/8/98)
1703 May 18, Dutch and English troops occupied Cologne.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1704 Aug 4, In the War of Spanish Succession, an Anglo-Dutch fleet captured Gibraltar.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Gibraltar)(AP, 9/19/06)
1707 Apr 6, Willem Van de Velde (b.1633) the Younger, Dutch marine painter, died. His work included “fishing Boats by the Shore in a Calm" (1660-1605).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_van_de_Velde_the_Younger)(SFC, 7/9/11, p.E1)
1708 Jul 11, The French were defeated at Oudenarde, Malplaquet, in the Netherlands by the Duke of Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy.
(HN, 7/11/98)
1709 Oct 20, Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy took Mons in the Netherlands.
(HN, 10/20/98)
1712 Oct 4, Utrecht banished poor Jews.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1714 Mar 6, the Treaty of Rastatt ended the war between Austria and Spain. It complemented the Treaty of Utrecht, which had, the previous year, ended hostilities with Britain and the Dutch Republic. The Spanish Netherlands became the Austrian Netherlands, and Spain gave up her possession in Italy, Luxembourg and Flanders. A third treaty, the Treaty of Baden (Sep 7, 1714), was required to end the hostilities between France and the Holy Roman Empire.
(PCh, ed. 1992, p.279)(http://tinyurl.com/b8uxbje)
1714 Bernard de Mandeville, Dutch philosopher, achieved widespread fame with his lengthy poem "The Fable of the Bees: Private Vice, Publick Benefits."
(NH, 7/02, p.74)
1718 Dutch planters introduced coffee to their Suriname colony.
(ON, 10/2010, p.12)
1722 Apr 5, On Easter Sunday Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovered a Polynesian Island 1400 miles from the coast of South America and named it Easter Island. He noted that the island was treeless and wondered how its massive statues were erected. Much of the population was later wiped out and the island became a possession of Chile. An indigenous script called rongorongo survived but by 2002 was still not deciphered. In 2005 Steven Roger Fischer authored “Island at the End of the World: The Turbulent History of Easter Island."
(WSJ, 1/7/05, p.W1)(http://islandheritage.org/eihistory.html)(Econ, 7/23/05, p.77)
1723 Aug 26, Anton van Leeuwenhoek (b.1632), Dutch biologist, inventor (microscope), died in Delft, Netherlands. [some sources say Aug 30]
(http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/Catalog/Files/leewnhok.html)
1724 May 18, Johann K. Amman (54), Swiss-Dutch doctor for deaf-mutes, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1726 Feb 26, Maximilian II, M. Emanuel, elector of Bavaria, governor of Netherlands, died.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1729 May 25, Jean de Neufville, Dutch-US merchant (started 4th English war), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1730 Jul 21, States of Holland put a death penalty on "sodomy."
(MC, 7/21/02)
1731 Luis Berrueco, Mexican painter, painted “The Martyrs of Gorkum," a detailed work depicting the 1572 martyrdom of 19 Catholics in Gorinchem, Netherlands, during the Dutch war for independence.
(SFC, 3/5/11, p.E2)(http://tinyurl.com/5s8wnz2)
1732 Jun 3, Pieter Vuyst, Dutch gov-gen. of Ceylon, was executed.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1736 Mar 23, Iman Willem Falck, Dutch Governor of Ceylon (1765-83), was born.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1736 Sep 16, Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit (b.1686), Gdansk-born German physicist, died in the Netherlands. He discovered that water boils at 212F and freezes at 32F.
(www.britannica.com)
1741 Apr 13, Dutch people protested the bad quality of bread.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1744-1828 Eisa Eisinga, knitting-wool processor. He devoted his spare time to astronomy and mathematics and built a small planetarium in Franeker (1781).
(NH, 6/00, p.10)
1745 Jan 8, England, Austria, Saxony and the Netherlands formed an alliance against Russia.
(HN, 1/8/99)
1745 May 11, French forces defeated an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army at Fontenoy.
(HN, 5/11/98)
1745 Oct 11, The Leyden jar, capable of storing static electricity, was invented by German cleric Ewald Georg von Kleist. Also about this time Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek of Leiden (Leyden) independently came up with the same idea.
(ON, 2/12, p.11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leyden_jar)
1747 Jul 2, Marshall Saxe led the French forces to victory over an Anglo-Dutch force under the Duke of Cumberland at the Battle of Lauffeld.
(HN, 7/2/98)
1747 Sep 16, The French captured Bergen-op-Zoom, consolidating their occupation of Austrian Flanders in the Netherlands.
(HN, 9/16/98)
1747 Dec 9, England and Netherlands signed a military treaty.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1748 Jun 28, A riot followed a public execution in Amsterdam and over 200 were killed.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1749 Feb 8, Jan van Huysum (66), Dutch still life painter, died.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1751 Sep 12, Amsterdam refused to establish a Jewish ghetto.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1751 Sep 13, Henry Kobell, Dutch painter and cartoonist, was born.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1756 Nov 4, Anthony van Hoboken, Rotterdam merchant-ship owner, was born.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1757 Feb 13, John C. Hespe, Dutch journalist, politician, was born.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1761 Mar 23, John W. de Winter, Dutch Vice-Admiral (Battle at Kamperduin), was born.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1761 May 13, Adrian Loosjes Pzn (1818, Dutch publisher, writer (Mauritius Lijnslager), was born.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1765 Mar 18, David H. Chass, Dutch baron, general (fought Napoleon at Waterloo), was born.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1772 May 11, Joseph Kerckhoff, Limburg surgeon, robber captain, was hanged.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1774 A Dutch merchant cobbled together the earliest mutual-style fund, Eendragt Maakt Magt (Unity creates Strength). The first modern mutual fund was launched in Boston in 1924.
(Econ, 4/21/07, p.83)
1776 Apr 26, Joan M. Kemper, Dutch lawyer (designed civil code law book), was born.
(MC, 4/26/02)
1776 The Dutch built a slave house on Goree Island off the coast of Senegal.
(SFC, 7/9/03, p.A10)
1779 May 25, Henry M. Baron de Kock, Dutch officer, politician, was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1780-1783 A 4-year war with England was fought.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.F4)
1781 Eisa Eisinga (1744-1828), knitting-wool processor, built a small planetarium in Franeker.
(NH, 6/00, p.10)
1782 Apr 19, Netherlands recognized the United States.
(HN, 4/19/97)
1783 Apr 10, Hortense E. de Beauharnais, French queen of Netherlands (1806-10), was born.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1784 May 20, Peace of Versailles ended the war between France, England, and Holland.
(HN, 5/20/98)
1784 Jun 16, Holland forbade orange clothes.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1784 The Teyler Museum opened as the country’s first public collection.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.T7)
1786 Capt. Francis Light landed in Penang (Malaysia) and built Fort Cornwallis. Light, acting on behalf of the East India Company, swindled the island from the ruling sultan with a promise of protection. The British usurped the land to break the Dutch monopoly on the spice trade.
(SFEC, 8/3/97, p.T8)(SFEM, 12/19/99, p.8)(SFC, 12/8/05, p.E7)
1788 Sep 15, An alliance between Britain, Prussia and the Netherlands was ratified at the Hague.
(HN, 9/15/99)
1791 Mar 23, Etta Palm, a Dutch champion of woman's rights, set up a group of women's clubs called the Confederation of the Friends of Truth.
(HN, 3/23/99)
1793 Feb 1, France declared war on Britain and the Netherlands.
(HN, 2/1/99)
1793 Mar 4, French troops conquered Geertruidenberg, Netherlands.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1795 Sep 16, The Capitulation of Rustenburg: A Dutch garrison at the Cape of Good Hope surrendered to a British fleet under Adm. George Elphinstone.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)
1796 Mar 1, The 1st National Meeting was held in the Hague.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1799 The Dutch East India Company liquidated and the Dutch government took control over the islands of Indonesia.
(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)
1801 Oct 6, Napoleon Bonaparte imposed a new constitution on Holland.
(HN, 10/6/98)
1803 Feb 21, The British return the Cape of Good Hope to the Dutch (Batavian Republic) under the Treaty of Amiens.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)
1803 Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, artist, came from a renowned family of artists. He considered the painting of nature the only true calling of an artist.
(WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W16)
1806 Jan 10, The Capitulation of Papendorp: The Dutch in Cape Town surrendered to a British fleet.
(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)
1814 May 30, The First Treaty of Paris was declared, after Napoleon's first abdication. It returned France to its 1792 borders and secured for the British definite possession of the Cape of Good Hope. [see Aug 13]
(HN, 5/30/98)(HN, 5/30/99)(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)
1814 Aug 13, Treaty of London-Netherland was signed to stop the transport of slaves. By agreement Britain paid the Dutch £6 million in compensation for the Cape of Good Hope. [see May 30]
(EWH, 4th ed, p.884)(MC, 8/13/02)
1815 Mar 1, Sunday observance in Netherlands was regulated by law.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1815 Mar 16, William I (1772-1843), prince of Orange-Nassau, proclaimed the Netherlands a kingdom at the urging of the powers gathered at the Congress of Vienna. In 1813 he had proclaimed himself 'Sovereign Prince' of the "United Netherlands."
(Econ, 4/13/13, p.55)
1815 Apr, British General Arthur Wellesley, duke of Wellington, began assembling troops at Brussels, Belgium. 73,000 British troops were joined by 33,000 German, Dutch and Belgian troops preparing to face Napoleon. Prussian Gen. Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher gathered an army of 120,000 southeast of Brussels.
{Belgium, Britain, France, Prussia, Netherlands}
(ON, 4/06, p.1)
1815 May 29, Cornelis de Gijselaar (64), politician, patriot, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1815 Jun 16, A French attack at the crossroads called Quatre Bras badly mauled Anglo-Dutch army under Wellington, but failed to rout it or to take the crossroads. Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte had marched into Belgium to find himself confronted by two allied armies, which he tried to split apart. Although similarly battered at Ligny that day, the Prussian army also retired intact. Both armies would face Napoleon again two days later at Waterloo.
(HNPD, 6/16/99)(Econ, 5/23/15, p.71)
1817 Feb 19, William III, King of the Netherlands, was born.
(HN, 2/19/98)
1817 The Dutch and French agreed on a final pact to divide the control of St. Martin Island. The southern Dutch half comprises the Eilandgebied Sint Maarten (Island Territory of St. Maarten) and is part of the Netherlands Antilles. The northern French half comprises the Collectivité de Saint-Martin (Collectivity of St. Martin) and is an overseas collectivity of France.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Martin)
1819 Oct 6, Willem A. Scholten, Dutch potato flour manufacturer, was born.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1819 The British claimed Malacca from the Dutch. They used St. Paul’s church as an ammunition dump and put a lighthouse in front.
(Econ, 11/15/14, SR p.5)
1820 Mar 5, Dutch city of Leeuwarden forbade Jews to go to synagogues on Sundays.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1824 Mar 29, ABN AMRO incorporated in the Hague. Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (Netherlands Trading Society, NTS) was established by Royal Decree of King Willem I. With effect from 3 October 1964 after the merger with Twentsche Bank, NTS changed her name to Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN Bank). After the merger with Amro Bank in 1991, ABN changed its name to ABN AMRO.
(www.abnamro.com/about/history/historyfaq.cfm)
1825 A disastrous breach of Dutch coastal defenses occurred.
(www.metoffice.com/education/secondary/students/flood.html)
1828 Apr 4, Casparus van Wooden patented chocolate milk powder (Amsterdam).
(MC, 4/4/02)
1830 Aug 25, Belgium rebelled against Netherlands. Among the reasons for rebelling were heavy taxes on beer.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)(Econ, 12/17/11, p.125)
1831 Jan 20, Protocols were signed in London that recognized Belgium as an independent nation. Belgium became a nation and combined French and Flemish-speaking lands. The Rothschild banking empire financed the founding of Belgium.
(SFC, 7/12/96, p.A11)(SSFC, 2/24/02, p.C5)(http://tinyurl.com/3335jt)
1831 Aug 2, The Dutch army, headed by the Dutch princes, invaded Belgium, in the so-called "Ten Days Campaign", and defeated Belgian forces near Hasselt and Leuven. Only the appearance of a French army under Marchal Gerard caused the Dutch to stop their advance.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution)
1836 A Dutch regiment entered the kingdom of the Ashanti tribe (later Ghana). Holland had taken this land as a colony to mine gold and sell slaves. Slavery was outlawed but African men were enlisted as troops in a form of indentured servitude. The Ashanti king sent his son and nephew, Kwasi and Kwame Boachi, to Holland for a European education in exchange for providing troops. In 2001 Arthur Japin authored the novel "The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi."
(SSFC, 1/21/01, BR p.5)
1837 May 29, Alexander F. de Savornin Lohmann, Dutch minister, party leader (CHU), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1838 In Ghana Asante King Nana Badu Bonsu II had his head cut off by Maj. Gen. Jan Verveer in retaliation for Bonsu's killing of two Dutch emissaries, whose heads were then displayed as trophies. In 2008 Dutch author Arthur Japin discovered Bonsu’s head in a jar of formaldehyde at Leiden Univ. Medical Center. In 2009 the Dutch government returned the head of Bonsu’s descendants.
(SFC, 3/21/09, p.A2)(SFC, 7/24/09, p.A2)
1839 In the Netherlands the locomotive named "De Arend" was the first and pulled a train from Amsterdam to Haarlem with a top speed of 23 mph.
(SFC, 6/18/99, p.D4)
1840 Oct 8, King William I of Holland abdicated.
(HN, 10/8/98)
1840 Niels Gade, Dutch composer, wrote the overture "Echoes of Ossian."
(SFC, 3/24/00, p.B1)
1841 Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, Dutch artist, authored "Thoughts and Recollections of a Landscape Artist."
(WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W16)
1841 The brothers Clemens and August Brenninkmeyer founded the Dutch textile shop C&A, which sold, unusually for that time, ready-made clothes. The two brothers, peddlers originally from the small village Mettingen in Westphalia traveled each year to Friesland to sell their textiles to the farmers.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenninkmeijer_family)
1844 Jul 25, Louis Napoleon (b.1779), French king of the Netherlands (1806-10), died.
(www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Louis-Napoleon-Bonaparte)
1846 Barend Cornelis Koekkoek painted his "Portrait of a Young Lady."
(WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W16)
1849 May 25, Andreas Michiels (52), Dutch Military Governor of West Sumatra, died in battle.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1850 In the Netherlands Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), a Dutch version of St. Nicholas, made his debut as an African servant in a book. By 2012 he was being described as a racist caricature of a black person. In 2013 Amsterdam officials were asked to revoke a permit for a children’s festival that featured the caricature.
(AP, 12/4/12)(SFC, 10/18/12, p.A2)
1851 May 18, The Amsterdam-Nieuwediep telegraph connection linked.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1853 Mar 4, Pope Pius IX recovered Catholic hierarchy in Netherlands.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1853 Mar 30, Vincent Van Gogh (d.1890), Dutch artist, was born in Zundert, Neth. His work included "The Drawbridge and Sunflowers in a Vase," and "Harvest in Prevance," which was done both in oil and as a watercolor. The watercolor sold in 1997 for $14.7 mil. He produced an estimated 900 paintings and 1200 drawings but sold virtually none of them. In 1997 it was reported that more than 100 of his paintings and drawings might be fakes. 300 of his canvasses were painted in the last 15 months of his life.
(AAP,1964)(WUD,1994, p.606)(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A21)(SFC, 7/5/97, p.A8)(SFEC, 1/4/98, Z1p.8)(HN, 3/30/98)
1853-1890 Theo Van Gogh, the younger brother of Vincent Van Gogh. Theo's widow Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger inherited the paintings of Vincent that had been in Theo's hands.
(SFC, 1/18/99, p.B2)
1857 May 10, Hendrik Zwaardemaker, Dutch physiologist (olefactometer), was born.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1858 Oct 9, Gerard L.F. Philips, Dutch engineer and manufacturer, was born.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1863 Jul 1, The Dutch abolished slavery in Suriname. The Dutch were among the last Europeans to abolish slavery.
(AP, 7/2/03)
1864 May 18, Jan P. Veth Bayern, Dutch painter, etcher, lithographer, art historian, was born.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1860 May 21, Willem Einthoven, Dutch physiologist, inventor of the electro-cardiogram, was born.
(HN, 5/21/01)(MC, 5/21/02)
1864 May 18, Jan P. Veth Bayern, Dutch painter, etcher, lithographer, art historian, was born.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1864 May 29, A.H. Borgesius, Dutch amateur astronomer, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1864 Sep 5, British, French & Dutch fleets attacked Japan in Shimonoseki Straits.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1864 Gerard Adriaan Heineken founded a beer brewery. In 2002 it was the world’s 3rd largest brewery.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A22)
1865 May 25, Pieter Zeeman, Dutch physicist (Zeeman effect, Nobel 1902), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1870 Jul 11(Jun 11), 1st-stone Amstel Brewery opened in Amsterdam.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1871 Mar 28, Willem Mengelberg, conductor (NY Philharmonic 1922-30), was born in Utrecht, Neth.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1872 Mar 7, Piet Mondrian (d.1944), Dutch abstract painter, was born. He was born in Amersfoort, near Amsterdam. His two principal styles date from before and after 1907. His Red Tree in 1908 reflects the stance of a Van Gogh. In 1911 he went to Paris and quickly changed his style in response to Cubism. He emigrated to New York in 1940. His Broadway Boogie Woogie was done in 1942-1943. He was labeled as a degenerate by the Nazis and was sent to New York to continue working. He went through a number of styles i.e. fauvist, neoimpressionist Dutch landscapes, to total abstractions in a manner of his own that he called neoplasticism. He was a pioneer of abstract painting.
(WSJ, 6/6/95, p.A-14)(WSJ, 10/3/95, p.A-18)(SFC, 10/4/97, p.E1)(HN, 3/7/98)
1873 From the Netherlands the Holland America cruise line began operations.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.T5)
1873 The Dutch began colonization efforts in Aceh province (Indonesia), which led to a decades-long war.
(SFEC, 11/7/99, p.A30)(SFCM, 11/2/03, p.8)
1876 Aug 7, Margaretha Zelle (aka Mata Hari) was born in the Netherlands. Mata Hari, otherwise known as Margaretha G. Macleod, passed secrets to the Germans in World War I.
(WSJ, 1/16/97, p.A16)(HN, 8/7/98)
1877 Feb 26, Carel S. Adama van Scheltema, Dutch poet, writer (socialism), was born.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1877 May 29, John Lothrop Motley (63), (History of United Netherlands), died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1880 Vincent Van Gogh ended his career as a theology student and began painting.
(WSJ, 3/14/00, p.A28)
1880-1962 Queen Wilhelmina Of Netherlands (b.Aug 31, d.Nov 28 at 82), reigned 1890-1947.
(DT internet 11/28/97)
1881 Apr 1, Kingdom post office in Netherlands opened.
(OTD)
1882 Vincent Van Gogh painted "The Wounded Veteran.'
(WSJ, 3/14/00, p.A28)
1883 May 29, WFLC Marianne princess of Orange-Nassau, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1885 Vincent Van Gogh painted "The Potato Eaters" and "A Pair of Shoes."
(SFC, 1/14/98, p.D3)(WSJ, 8/14/01, p.A12)
1885 The façade of the Rijksmuseum was completed.
(WSJ, 1/8/99, p.C13)
1886-1888 Vincent Van Gogh made his Paris sojourn.
(WSJ, 3/14/00, p.A28)
1887 Van Gogh painted "The Courtesan." It was inspired by an 1820 work by the Japanese artist Keisai Eisen who pictured an intricately coifed woman that later appeared on the cover of a French magazine
(SFC, 11/16/98, p.E3)(WSJ, 12/1/98, p.A20)
1887-1888 Van Gogh painted "Self-Portrait with Felt Hat" and "Self-Portrait as an Artist."
(WSJ, 10/30/98, p.W11)(SFC, 1/18/99, p.B2)
1888 Vincent van Gogh painted the "Portrait of a Young Man in a Cap." The painting is up for auction and may fetch as much as $8 mil. In 1990 Robert Altman directed a film titled "Vincent and Theo" about Van Gogh and his brother. Van Gogh also painted his "Boats at Saintes-Maries," "The Bedroom" and "Self Portrait as an Artist" in this year. He cut his ear in this year with a razor during a quarrel with painter Paul Gauguin.
(WSJ, 4/27/95, p.C-18)(WSJ, 11/10/95, p. A-10)(SFC, 4/13/96, p.E3)(SFC, 1/14/98, p.D3)(SFEC, 10/25/98, Z1 p.12)
1889 Van Gogh painted "The Gardener," while a patient in St. Remy. He also did "Wheatfield with a Reaper" and "Crab on Its Back" in this year.
(SFC, 5/21/98, p.A14)(SFC, 1/18/99, p.B1)(WSJ, 8/14/01, p.A12)
1890 Apr 6, Anthony Herman Gerard Fokker (d.1939), aircraft pioneer, was born in Java.
(www.britannica.com)
1890 Jul 29, Artist Vincent van Gogh died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Auvers, France, while painting "Wheatfield with Crows." Earlier in the year he painted his "Garden at Auvers" and "Portrait of Dr. Gachet," which sold to a Japanese tycoon in 1990 for $82.5 mil. In 1939 Irving Stone wrote a novel about Van Gogh titled "Lust for Life," which spawned a 1956 movie.
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-12)(SFC, 5/26/96, Zone 1 p.2)(AP, 7/29/97)(SFEC, 6/14/98, BR p.9)
1890 Nov 23, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg separated from the Netherlands.
(AP, 11/23/02)
1890 The Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. was founded.
(WSJ, 11/2/04, p.A14)
1891 May 15, Gerard and Anton Philips began their Philips & Co. operations in Eindhoven, Holland, with the production of light bulbs.
(www.vedpuriswar.org/book/PHILIPS.htm)(WSJ, 1/7/04, p.A1)
1891 May 25, Robert W.P. Peereboom, Dutch editor in chief (Haarlem Newspaper), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1894 Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), Swiss painter, created a painting 10 meters high for the Exposition in Antwerp. It depicted the story of the 1865 descent of Edward Whymper (1840-1911) after he became the first man to climb the Matterhorn. Four of his party died. Hodler allowed the painting to be cut up and it’s now in a museum in Berne.
(Econ, 2/18/12, ILp.26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Whymper)
1894 A disastrous breach of Dutch coastal defenses occurred.
(www.metoffice.com/education/secondary/students/flood.html)
1896 Numico was founded by Martinus van der Hagen, a Dutch inventor, after he won the exclusive right to make infant formula out of cow’s milk.
(Econ, 9/2/06, p.59)
1897 Wolves disappeared from the Netherlands. In 2011 a wolf was again spotted in the country.
(Econ, 12/22/12, p.125)
1898 Jun 17, Maurits C. Escher, Dutch graphic artist, was born.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1898 A painting titled "Golden Carriage," by Nicolaas van der Waay, was given to Queen Wilhelmina from the people of Amsterdam as a gift. The painting was intended to recreate the style of the country's 17th-century "Golden Age," in which Amsterdam became wealthy as the hub of a naval empire. The work depicts half-naked, brown-skinned women and men in servile poses bearing gifts to an enthroned white woman.
(AP, 9/16/11)
1899 May 18, The First Hague Peace Conference opened in the Netherlands as 26 nations met on World Goodwill Day. The destruction or seizure of enemy property with no military value was banned at the convention. The czar of Russia had called for a disarmament conference that, for reasons of diplomatic niceties and international rivalries, ended up in The Hague.
(AP, 5/18/99)(SFC, 8/11/00, p.A15)(AP, 4/17/06)
1899 Western powers set up the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. It was established by the first Hague Peace Conference under Articles 20 to 29 of the 1899 Hague Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes. It was later designated by the UN as as an arbiter of disputes under its Law of the Sea Convention.
(http://tinyurl.com/jx4jukn)(Econ, 8/6/16, p.67)
1902 Mar 3, Isaac D. France van de Putte (79), Dutch premier (1866), died.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1902 May 29, Dutch State Mine law formed.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1902 Jul 18, Charles W.J. Mengelberg, Dutch composer, conductor, was born.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1903 Jan 21, Harry Houdini escaped from police station Halvemaansteeg in Amsterdam.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1903 Mar 26, American Hotel opened in Amsterdam.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1904 Apr 24, Willem de Kooning (d.1997), abstract impressionist artist, was born in Rotterdam.
(SFC, 3/20/97, p.A1,6,E1)(HN, 4/24/01)
1904 Aug 10, Dutch newspaper Volk fired gay journalist Jacob de Cock.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1904 The Weerdinge Couple, 2 men, were found in a Holland bog and dated from 160BC - 220AD.
(AM, 7/97, p.66)
1905 May 29, Jan [Johannes] Teulings, Dutch actor, director (That Joyous Eve), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1905 Dec 7, Gerard Kuiper, Dutch-US astronomer (moons of Uranus, Neptune), was born.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1906 Apr 28, Bartholomeus J "Bart" Bok, Dutch-US astronomer (Milky Way), was born.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1907 The Hague Convention of this year prohibited the taking of war booty and instituted what some considered the first wartime environmental protections.
(WSJ, 5/29/96, p.A6)(SFC, 8/11/00, p.A15)
1907 Royal Dutch combines its oil operations with Shell Transport & Trading Co.
(WSJ, 11/2/04, p.A14)
1908 Dec 13, The Dutch took two Venezuelan Coast Guard ships.
(HN, 12/13/98)
1908 The first bus line to link the Jordaan section with the rest of Amsterdam opened.
(SFEC, 3/2/97, p.T5)
1908 Heike Kamerlingh-Onnes, Dutch physicist, was the first to liquefy helium. He cooled helium gas to below its boiling point of -269°C, just 4 degrees above absolute zero. Three years later he observed the resistance of mercury vanished when it was cooled by liquid helium, thus discovering superconductivity.
(SFC, 10/10/96, p.A15)(Econ, 12/3/11, TQ p.20)
1909 Apr 30, Juliana, queen of the Netherlands, was born. She fled during the Nazi occupation and abdicated in favor of her daughter Beatrix.
(HN, 4/30/99)
1909 The Elfstedentocht, a 125-mile ice skating race, officially began.
(SFEC, 1/5/97, p.A1,11)
1911 Jun 10, Queen Wilhelmina opened the Rembrandt house in Amsterdam.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1912 May 18, Maurits Binger established 2 Dutch movie companies.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1912 May 29, John Hanlo, Dutch poet (Go to the Mosque), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1912 Aug 13, Jan Peeters, Dutch water colors painter, monumental artist, was born.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1912 Nov 25, Johannes D. De Jong, Frisian poet and photographer (Kar £t twa), was born.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1912 A ban on brothels was enacted. It was overturned in 1999.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1913 May 14, Franz Hals museum opened in Haarlem, Netherlands.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1913 The Peace Palace was built at the Hague, Netherlands, by the Carnegie Foundation. It is often called the seat of international law because it houses the International Court of Justice (which is the principal judicial body of the United Nations), the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Hague Academy of International Law, and the extensive Peace Palace Library.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Palace)
1913 Kamerlingh Onnes of Holland won the Nobel Prize for liquefying helium. His major discovery was superconductivity, the elimination of electrical resistance at very cold temperatures. In 1999 Tom Shachtman described the event in his book "Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold."
(WSJ, 12/10/99, p.W12)
1914 Mar 1, H. Colijn, Dutch Minister of war, was named director of British Petroleum.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1914 Aug 24, German Zeppelins bombed Antwerp.
(AH, 1/97)
1914 Sep 2, German Zeppelins again bombed Antwerp.
(AH, 1/97)
1915 Mar 4, Petrus de Jong, Dutch premier (KVP, 1967-71), was born.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1915 Aug 26, Gre [Gerarda D] Brouwenstijn, Dutch opera soprano, was born.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1916 A disastrous breach of Dutch coastal defenses occurred.
(www.metoffice.com/education/secondary/students/flood.html)
1917 Jan 6, Hendrik P.G. Quack (82), lawyer and economist (Bank of Netherlands), died.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1917 Feb 26, Utrecht Harbor, Netherlands, held its 1st Annual fair.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1917 Mar 8, Ferdinand von Zeppelin (78), Dutch count, air pioneer, died.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1917 Oct 15, Mata Hari, a Dutch dancer who had spied for the Germans, was executed by a firing squad outside Paris.
(WSJ, 1/16/97, p.A16)(AP, 10/15/97)
1917 Piet Mondrian and three other painters founded the movement known as De Stijl, which became synonymous with Mondrian.
(HNQ, 7/16/01)
1918 May 18, The Netherlands Indian Volksraad was installed in Batavia (later Djakarta).
(SC, 5/18/02)
1918 Nov 10, Retired German Kaiser Wilhelm II fled to the Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor)
1919 Jul 21, Anthony Fokker established an airplane factory at Hamburg and Amsterdam.
(MC, 7/21/02)
1919 Sep 6, Pier Pander (b.1864), Dutch sculptor, died.
(http://home.wxs.nl/~bekke412/pier.html)
1919 Oct 11, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines made its debut and served a pre-packaged dinner, believed to be the 1st in-flight meal, on a flight between London and Paris.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.A12)
1920 Jan 23, The Dutch government refused demands from the victorious Allies to hand over Kaiser Wilhelm II, the dethroned German monarch who had fled to the Netherlands.
(AP, 1/23/00)
1920 Dec 13, League of nations established the Int’l. Court of Justice in The Hague.
(MC, 12/13/01)
1920 The plane maker NV Fokker firm was founded. By 1996 it was in trouble and seeking protection from its creditors.
(WSJ, 1/24/96, p.A-12)
1921 Apr 5, Alphons Diepenbrock (b.1862), Dutch composer, died in Amsterdam. His work included “Wandering Through the Woods" (1910).
(SFC, 9/1/04, p.B7)
1922 May 18, Dutch 2nd Chamber agreed to a 48 hour work week over the previous 45 hours.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1923 Mar 3, US Senate rejected membership in International Court of Justice, The Hague.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1923 Dutch physicist Dirk Coster (1889-1950) and Hungarian chemist George Charles de Hevesy (1889-1966) found element 72, Hafnium. It was identified in zircon (a zirconium ore) from Norway, by means of X-ray spectroscopic analysis. It was named in honor of the city in which the discovery was made, from the Latin name "Hafnia" meaning "Copenhagen."
(www.chemistryexplained.com/elements/C-K/Hafnium.html)(http://tinyurl.com/kj24t)
1924 Apr 20, Nina Foch (d.2008), film, theater and TV actress, was born in Leyden, Netherlands. Her films later included “An American in Paris" (1951).
(SFC, 12/13/08, p.A5)
1924 H. Pander & Son, a Netherlands’ furniture company, bought an aircraft manufacturing firm and started making small airplanes. They continued to make furniture through the mid 1930s.
(SFC, 11/7/07, p.G6)
1925 Mar 2, SDAP-Second-Faction (Dutch Socialists) of parliament demanded drastic disarmament.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1926 Mar 4, De Geer government in Netherlands took office.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1926 Mar 26, ACD de Graeff was appointed Governor-General of Dutch East-Indies.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1927 Apr 30, Princess Juliana got a seat in Dutch Council of State.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1927 May 29, Dick Hillenius, Dutch biologist, writer, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1928 Jul 28, The Olympics opened at Amsterdam. Track and field events opened for women for the 1st time despite objections from Pope Pius IX. Germany was allowed to participate for the 1st time since WWI.
(SC, 7/28/02)(NG, 8/04, Geographica)(WSJ, 4/12/08, p.R2)
1928 Aug 3, Ray Barbuti saved the US team from defeat in Amsterdam Olympics track events by winning 400 m (47.8 sec).
(SC, 8/3/02)
1928 Aug 10, The Univ. of California crew won the rowing championship at the Olympics in Holland.
(SFC, 8/8/03, p.E6)
1928 Aug 12, The 9th Olympic Games closed in Amsterdam. During the games several women collapsed at the end of the 800-meter run. This led to a 32-year ban on women running in Olympic races over 200 meters.
(SC, 8/12/02)(SSFC, 4/13/03, p.F1)
1929 Jun 12, Anne Frank, German-Jewish diarist and Holocaust victim, was born in Holland. She with her family hid from the Nazis in Holland during World War II. Her diary is world famous
(HN, 6/12/98)(MC, 6/12/02)
1930 Jan 3, The second conference on war reparations began in the Hague.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1930 British detergent maker Lever Bros. merged with Margarine Unie of the Netherlands to form Unilever. William Hulme Lever (1888-1949), 2nd Viscount Leverhulme, co-founded Unilever. Lever brothers had operated from the Belgian Congo from 1911.
(www.ubffoodsolutions.com/company/history)(Econ, 6/3012, p.20)
1932 Apr 5, A Dutch textile strike was broken by trade unions.
(MC, 4/5/02)
1932 May 10, Government of Netherland declared "Wilhelmus" the national anthem.
(MC, 5/10/02)
1932 Netherlands passed a blasphemy law that mandated a maximum sentence of three months in prison for a convicted "scornful blasphemer."
(AP, 5/24/11)
1932 Han van Meegeren sold his Vermeer forgery “Lady and Gentleman at the Spinnet" for 40 thousand guilders. In 2007 this would represent about $225,000.
(ON, 12/07, p.10)
1932 The Afsluitdijk dam was completed. It sealed the Zuider Zee from the ocean and formed the freshwater Lake IJssel.
(SSFC, 3/25/01, p.C1)
1933 Feb 8, Elly Ameling, soprano (Ilya-Idomeneo), was born in Rotterdam, Holland.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1933 Apr 22, Dutch government forbade a left-wing radio address.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1933 Dec 3, Paul Crutzen, Dutch chemist, was born.
(HN, 12/3/00)
1934 Jan 10, Marinus van der Lubbe (24), Dutch communist, was guillotined in Berlin.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1934 Jul 4, Jordanians revolted in Amsterdam after reduction in employment.
(Maggio, 98)
1934 Aug 12, Hendrik Petrus Berlage (b.1856), the father of modern Dutch architecture, died at The Hague.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Petrus_Berlage)(Econ, 9/27/14, IL p.11)
1935 Mar 3, Dutch Revolutionary Socialist Worker's party (RSAP) was formed.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1935 In the Netherlands the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, the Art Deco final masterwork of H.P. Berlage (1856-1934), was completed.
(Econ, 9/27/14, IL p.11)
1935 May 29, Hague local museum opened.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1936 Oct, Dutch-born Peter Debye (1884-1966), won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies on the structure of molecules. In 1938, as Chairman of the German Physical Society, he had a letter sent out under his name requesting that the domestic Jewish members voluntarily resign. In 1940 he moved to the US. In 2006 he emerged in a book, "Albert Einstein in the Netherlands." which contained evidence of pro-Nazi actions. In 2008 the Terlouw Committee, appointed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, reviewed the allegations and issued its report clearly stating that Debye was neither a Nazi collaborator nor a Nazi sympathizer.
(AP, 3/3/06)(http://piurl.com/5F)
1936 The Dutch film "The Trouble With Money" was directed by Max Ophuls.
(SFEC, 9/5/99, DB p.50)
1938 Jan 10, Eduard van Beinum became the 1st conductor of Amsterdam Concert orchestra.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1938 May 12, In Holland, the 4-day convention at Utrecht ended. A Provisional Constitution for the World Council of Churches was adopted.
(SC, internet, 5/12/97)
1938 May 6, Dutch writer Maurits Dekker was sentenced to 50 days for "offending a friendly head of state" (Hitler).
(MC, 5/6/02)
1938 Alfred Flatow (1869-1942), Jewish gymnast and three-time, first-place medalist in the 1896 Olympics, fled to the Netherlands. He was later arrested by the Nazis for possession of guns following their occupation of the Netherlands. Flatow was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942 where he was starved to death.
(SFC, 7/17/14, p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Flatow)
1939 Mar 28, Dutch hunter shot English bombers down.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1939 Nov 18, The Netherland KNSM passenger ship Simon Bolivar hit a German mine and 86 died.
(MC, 11/18/01)
1939 Dec 23, Anthony H.G. Fokker (49), Dutch airplane builder (Spider), died in America.
(www.obituariestoday.com)
1940 May 8, German commandos in Dutch uniforms crossed the Dutch border to hold bridges for the advancing German army.
(HN, 5/8/99)
1940 May 10, German forces began a blitzkrieg of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, skirting France's "impenetrable" Maginot Line. Belgium was invaded by Germany and maintained resistance for 18 days.
(WSJ, 8/1/95, p.A-8)(WSJ, 4/29/96, p.C-1)(HN, 5/10/02)
1940 May 13, British bombed a factory at Breda, Netherlands.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1940 May 13, Dutch Queen Wilhelmina fled to England.
(MC, 5/13/02)
1940 May 14, The Netherlands (Holland) surrendered to Nazi Germany after the bombing of Rotterdam that left 600-900 dead.
(HN, 5/14/98)(MC, 5/14/02)
1940 May 15, German troops occupied Amsterdam. Gen Winkelman surrendered.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1940 May 16, Jacques Goudstikker, Dutch art dealer, fell on a staircase of the SS Bodegraven as the ship was refused entry at Dover. He died from a broken neck. His inventory in Amsterdam totaled some 1,400 works, which Reichsmarschall Herman Goring, Hitler’s 2nd in command, soon snapped up.
(WSJ, 7/2/08, p.D7)
1940 May 18, German forces under Field Marshal Georg von Kuchler (1881-1968) occupied Antwerp, Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_von_K%C3%BCchler)
1940 May 19, Amsterdam time became MET (Middle European Time).
(DTnet, 5/19/97)
1940 May 29, Arthur Seyss-Inquart was installed as Reich Commissioner of Hague, Netherlands.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1940 Jun 11, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands arrived in Canada as an exile.
(AP, 6/11/03)
1940 Jun 21, German occupiers disbanded the Dutch States-General, Council of State.
(MC, 6/21/02)
1940 Jul, Jan Zwartendijk, a Dutch diplomat, and Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat, worked together to save some 2,000 thousand Polish Jews, who had fled to Lithuania by issuing them visas for Japan, China and the Dutch colonies in South America. Zwartendijk wrote out the so called Curacao visas, while Sugihara issued the transit visas weeks after the Red Army entered the Baltic state. The Sugihara family was later captured by the Russians and placed in a concentration camp for 1½ years. None of the refugees actually arrived in Curacao, but many of them reached free countries or ended up in Shanghai where they survived the war.
(www.remember.org/witness/righteous.html)(SFC, 9/7/96, p.A13)(SFC, 9/9/96, p.A16)(AFP, 6/15/18)
1941 Feb 9, Nazi collaborators destroyed the pro-Jewish cafe Alcazar Amsterdam. Alcazar had refused to hang "No Entry for Jews" signs in front.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1941 Feb 19, Nazi police were attacked and driven away from Koco, Amsterdam by young Jews. Nazis raided Amsterdam and rounded up 429 young Jews for deportation.
(MC, 2/19/02)
1941 Feb 26, Utrecht and Zaandam struck against raid on Jews.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1941 Mar 3, Netherlands NSB-leader Mussert visited Göring in Berlin.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1941 Mar 4, 18 Geuzen resistance fighters were sentenced to death in The Hague.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1941 Mar 8, Martial law was proclaimed in Holland in order to extinguish any anti-Nazi protests.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1941 Mar 20, D.A. van den Bosch, anti-Nazi clergyman (Amersfoort Camp), died.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1941 Apr 24, Dutch Prince Bernhard became an RAF pilot.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1941 May 15, Nazi occupiers in Netherlands forbade Jewish music.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1941 May 19, German occupiers in Holland forbade bicycle taxis.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1941 Jun 4, Wilhelm II von Hohenzollern (b.1859), the last German emperor (1888-1918), died in the Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor)
1941 Jul 11(Jun 11), The 2nd great roundup of Jews of Amsterdam took place.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1941 Aug 18, The concentration camp at Amersfoort, Netherlands, opened.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1941 Nov 25, German Jews in Netherlands were declared stateless.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1942 Jan 11, Japan declared war against the Netherlands, the same day that Japanese forces invaded the Dutch East Indies (later Indonesia).
(AP, 1/11/98)(HN, 1/11/99)
1942 Feb 16, German submarines attacked an Aruba oil refinery and sank the tanker Pedernales.
(MC, 2/16/02)(SSFC, 11/10/02, p.C11)
1942 Mar 1, The 3 day Battle of Java Sea ended as US suffered a major naval defeat. Japanese troops occupy Kalidjati airport in Java. More than 900 Dutch and 250 Indo-Dutch sailors died during the battle in which the Allied navies suffered a disastrous defeat by the Imperial Japanese Navy.
(HN, 3/1/98)(SC, 3/1/02)(AFP, 11/17/16)
1942 May 3, Nazis executed 72 in reprisal in Sachsenhausen, Netherlands. Johan H. Westerveld, lt.-Col, leader Order Service, was among the executed.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1942 May 17, Dutch SS vowed loyalty to Hitler.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1942 Jun 9, German-Neth press reported that 3 million Dutch were sent to East-Europe.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1942 Jun 12, Anne Frank received her diary as a birthday present in Amsterdam.
(MC, 6/12/02)
1942 Jun 14, Anne Frank began her diary.
(MC, 6/14/02)
1942 Jun 20, Adolf Eichmann proclaimed the deportation of Dutch Jews.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1942 Jul 6, Anne Frank's family went into hiding in After House, Amsterdam.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1942 Jul 9, Anne Frank (13), her family and 4 other Jews went into hiding in the attic above her father's office in an Amsterdam warehouse.
(HN, 7/9/01)(MC, 7/9/02)
1942 Jul 16, Jews were transported from Holland to an extermination camp.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1942 Jul 26, Roman Catholic churches protested the Dutch bishops’ stand against the spread of Judaism.
(MC, 7/26/02)
1942 Aug 25, German SS began transporting Jews of Maastricht, Neth.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1942 Oct 15, Dirk Bannink, nurse and local councilor Deventer, Netherlands, was executed.
(MC, 10/15/01)
1942 The Catholic hierarchy of Amsterdam spoke against the Nazi treatment of Jews. This led to a redoubling of roundups and deportations.
(WSJ, 4/25/97, p.A18)
1943 Feb 17, Dutch churches protested to Artur Seyss-Inquart against persecution of Jews.
(MC, 2/17/02)
1943 Mar 1, In Amsterdam a Jewish old age home for disabled was raided.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1943 Mar 2, 1st transport of Jews from Westerbork, Netherlands, to Sobibor concentration camp.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1943 Mar 18, The ships James Oglethorpe (US) and Terkolei (Neth.), were torpedoed and sank.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1943 Mar 31, US Army Air Force bombers attacked harbor facilities in the west of Rotterdam. A combination of strong wind and overcast conditions also caused great damage to the nearby residential areas, especially in the Bospolder-Tussendijken District. The death toll rose to 401 casualties and around 16,500 people lost their homes.
(http://tinyurl.com/6rmgrp6)
1944 Feb 1, Piet Mondrian (b.1872), Dutch artist, died in NYC of pneumonia. To create an art of harmony and order he used straight lines exclusively. "His trademark paintings of black lines forming a grid and primary colors are a calculated, mathematical blueprint for an organized life." A leading abstract artist in the early half of the 20th century, Dutch painter Piet Mondrian was also a leading proponent of De Stijl ("The Style"). Born to an educator and amateur artist in 1872, Mondrian pursued a career as a painter from an early age. He was influenced by the Post-Impressionists, but gravitated towards Cubism after seeing an exhibition of works by Picasso and others.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Mondrian)(Hem, Dec. 94, p.131)(WSJ, 5/25/01, p.W10)
1944 Apr 30, The 8th and 9th US Army Air Forces and Royal Air Force Bomber Command began to fly sorties into France and the Low Countries in preparation for the Allied Expeditionary Force landing on Jun 6.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.B9)
1943 Apr 30, Dutch struck against forced labor in Nazi Germany's war industry.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1943 Apr 30, Etty Hillesum, Dutch diarist, died in Auschwitz.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1944 May 19, 240 gypsies were transported to Auschwitz from Westerbork Neth.
(MC, 5/19/02)
1943 May 26, Jews rioted against Germans in Amsterdam.
(MC, 5/26/02)
1943 Jun 25, Arthur Seyss-Inquart ordered a mass arrest of Dutch physicians.
(MC, 6/25/02)
1943 Oct 20, A US B-17 bomber crashed in the Netherlands near the small town of de Bilt. Of the 10 men on board 5 died and 5 were captured. Robert Surdez, co-pilot, died in 2004.
(SFC, 3/30/04, p.B1)(SFC, 8/11/04, p.B7)
1943 Willem Kolff invented the 1st dialysis machine in Holland.
(WSJ, 10/2/03, p.A2)
1944 Jun 6, Gerrit John van de Peat (41), artist, resistance fighter, was executed.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1944 Jun 6, Nazi troops executed 96 prisoners by firing squad.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1944 Jun 9, 99 inhabitants of Tulle were hanged by the SS.
(MC, 6/9/02)
1944 Jul 14, SS men Heinrich Boere and Jacobus Petrus Besteman shot and killed Dutch pharmacist Fritz Hubert Ernst Bicknese at his home in Breda for suspected activity in Nazi resistance. Boere was sentenced to death in absentia by a Dutch court in 1949. This was later commuted to life imprisonment. In 2009 Boere (88) was slated to stand trial for murder in Germany for the execution-style killings of three Dutch civilians during World War II. In 2010 a German court convicted Boere (88) of murdering the three Dutch civilians. He was given the maximum sentence of life in prison for the killings.
(www.wsws.org/articles/2009/nov2009/germ-n02.shtml)(AP, 7/7/09)(AP, 3/23/10)
1944 Jul 15, Anne Frank (1929-1945) entered this in her diary: "In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart." In 1998 5 additional pages to her diary were reported. She died of typhoid in the spring of 1945 at the Bergen-Belson concentration camp.
(AP, 8/4/98)(SFC, 8/19/98, p.A16)
1944 Jul 19, Carl Bock, Danish Gestapo agent, was liquidated.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1944 Aug 1, Anne Frank's last diary entry; 3 days later she was arrested.
(MC, 8/1/02)
1944 Aug 4, Nazi police raided the secret annex of a building in Amsterdam and arrested eight people, including 15-year-old Anne Frank, whose diary became a famous account of the Holocaust. She died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the spring of 1945, just weeks before the camp was liberated. Miep Gies (1909-2010), secretary to Anne’s father Otto, collected the scattered pages of Anne’s diary and returned them to Otto Frank after the war.
(AP, 8/4/02)(Econ, 1/30/10, p.95)
1944 Sep 3, The 68th & last transport of Dutch Jews, which included Anne Frank, left for Auschwitz.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1944 Sep 5, "Mad Tuesday" 65,000 Dutch Nazi collaborators fled to Germany.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1944 Sep 8, Germany's V-2 offensive against England began. The 1st V-2 rockets landed in London & Antwerp.
(HN, 9/8/98)(MC, 9/8/01)
1944 Sep 17, Operation Market Garden, one of the largest allied operations of WW II, was launched. It failed to liberate the north of the Netherlands from Nazi Germany. American infantry glider troops of the 82nd Airborne Division parachuted into Holland to capture the Arnhem bridge as part of Operation Market Garden. The plan called for the airborne troops to be relieved by British troops, but they were left stranded and eventually surrendered to the Germans. Around 15,000 allied soldiers and thousands of German soldiers lost their lives in the operation. The 1974 book by Cornelius Ryan, "A Bridge Too Far," was based on this operation and was made into the 1977 film "A Bridge Too Far," starring Sean Connery.
(MT, Fall ‘96, p.8)(HN, 9/17/98)(HC, 12/12/01)(AP, 9/17/06)(Reuters, 9/21/19)
1944 Sep 21, The last British paratroopers at bridge of Arnhem surrendered.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1944 Sep 22, Aldert Klaas Dijkema, a Dutch resistance fighter, was executed by the Nazi Waffen SS shortly after he was captured. In 2012 Dutch-born Siert Bruins (91) was charged with Dijkema’s murder. In 2014 a German court dropped the case against Bruins ruling that there are too many gaps in the evidence to deliver a verdict.
(www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4312068,00.html)(SFC, 11/27/12, p.A2)(SFC, 9/3/13, p.A2)(AP, 1/8/14)
1944 Sep 27, Thousands of British troops were killed as German forces rebuffed their massive effort to capture the Arnhem Bridge across the Rhine River in Holland.
(HN, 9/27/98)
1944 Sep 28, At the Battle of Arnhem the Germans defeated the British airborne in Netherlands.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1944 Sep, SS men Heinrich Boere and an accomplice named Hendrik Kromhout shot Dutch bicycle-shop owner Teun de Groot when he answered the doorbell at his home in the town of Voorschoten. They then continued to the apartment of F.W. Kusters, and forced him into their car. They drove him to another town, stopped on the pretense of having a flat tire and shot him.
(AP, 3/7/08)
1944 Oct 1, In the Netherlands 600 men in Putten were sent to German work camps for the killing of German oficer by the resistance. Only 48 returned at the end of the war.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putten_raid)(Econ., 2/29/20, p.12)
1944 Nov 28, The first Allied supplies reached Antwerp by convoy.
(HN, 11/28/98)
1944 In the Netherlands Marion Phillipina van Binsbergen (b.1920), later Marion Pritchard, shot and killed a Nazi collaborator in Huizen as he returned to a house where Jewish children were being hidden. In 2009 Pritchard received the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Medal of Valor for her efforts in saving children in Amsterdam during WWII.
(SSFC, 12/25/16, p.C12)
1944 Piet Mondrian (b.1872), Dutch artist, died of pneumonia. To create an art of harmony and order he used straight lines exclusively. "His trademark paintings of black lines forming a grid and primary colors are a calculated, mathematical blueprint for an organized life." A leading abstract artist in the early half of the 20th century, Dutch painter Piet Mondrian was also a leading proponent of De Stijl ("The Style"). Born to an educator and amateur artist in 1872, Mondrian pursued a career as a painter from an early age. He was influenced by the Post-Impressionists, but gravitated towards Cubism after seeing an exhibition of works by Picasso and others.
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.131)(WSJ, 5/25/01, p.W10)(HNQ, 7/16/01)
1944-1945 Some 16,000 people starved to death in the Dutch “hunger winter."
(Econ, 6/18/16, p.46)
1945 Mar 3, Roermond-Venlo, Netherlands, was freed.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1945 Mar 3, RAF bombing error hit The Hague and killed 511.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1945 Mar 5, Allies bombed The Hague, Netherlands.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1945 Mar 6, In Holland SS General Hans Albin Rauter, was ambushed, and his driver and orderly were killed. Rauter was seriously wounded. SS Brigadefuhrer Dr. Eberhardt Schongarth immediately ordered reprisals and a total of 263 people were shot. A Special Court of Justice in the Hague sentenced Rauter to death and he was executed March 25, 1949. Schongarth was tried by a British Military Court, found guilty on another war crime charge, sentenced to death and was hanged in 1946.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres.html
(WW2D, p.610)
1945 Mar 8, 53 Amsterdammers were executed by Nazi occupiers.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1945 Mar 11, Flemish Nazi collaborator Maria Huygens was sentenced to death.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1945 Mar 12, In Amsterdam 30 people were executed by Nazi occupiers.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1945 Mar 13, Queen Wilhelmina returned to Netherlands.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1945 Apr 8, Nazi occupiers were executed. Nazi general Christiansen fled the Netherlands.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1945 Apr 12, Canadian troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp at Westerbork, Neth.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1945 Apr 14, Arnhem and Zwolle were freed from Nazis.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1945 Apr 17, Canadian lead tanks roll into Apeldoorn, Netherlands, loudly cheered by relieved residents.
(www.bouwman.com/netherlands/Liberation.html)
1945 Apr 17, Hannie Schaft (24), Dutch resistance fighter who lived in Haarlem, known as the "Girl with red hair," was executed by the Germans just one month before the war ended. She was a student who joined the resistance early in the war. On her bicycle she delivered ration coupons, newspapers, secret information and weapons. She was shot and buried in a shallow grave in the Dunes around Bloemendaal.
(MC, 4/17/02)(Internet)
1945 May 1, Arthur Seys-Inquart, Nazi overlord of Netherlands, fled to Flensburg.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1945 May 4, German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany agreed to surrender.
(AP, 5/4/00)
1945 May 5, Netherlands and Denmark were liberated from Nazi control. The Liberation of the Netherlands was completed by the First Canadian Army.
(HN, 5/5/98)(www.bouwman.com/netherlands/Liberation.html)
1945 May 7, SS opened fire on a crowd in Amsterdam and killed 22.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1945 May 29, Dutch police arrested and imprisoned Hans van Meegeren (1889-1947) for collaborating with the enemy. His name had been traced to a sale made during the second world war of what was then believed to be an authentic Vermeer to Nazi Field-Marshal Hermann Goering. On July 12, in order to prove his innocence, Meegeren revealed that he had forged the painting.
(WSJ, 10/14/06, p.P10)(ON, 12/07, p.12)
1945 Jun 6, Meinoud M. Rost van Tonningen, anti Semite, NSB (1937-41), committed suicide.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1945 Aug 17, Indonesian nationalists declared independence from the Netherlands.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A13)(AP, 8/17/99)
1945 Oct 6, Gen Eisenhower was welcomed in Hague on Hitler's train.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1945 Dec 27, The Dutch formally relinquished sovereignty to Indonesia.
(WSJ, 7/24/01, p.B4)
1946 Mar 2, Dutch troops landed on East Bali.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1946 May 29, KVP won the Provincial National elections in Netherlands.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1946 Mar 1, In the Netherlands Felix Gulje, head of a construction company, was murdered at his door front. Rumors had circled that Gulje worked with occupation authorities during the war. After his death it emerged that Gulje had sheltered Jews and given money to hide others. In 2011 Atie Ridder-Visser (96), former resistance member, confessed to the killing.
(SFC, 6/9/11, p.A3)
1947 Nov 12, Hans van Meegeren (1889-12947), Dutch painter and forger, was tried for forgery and convicted of “obtaining money by deception" and “appending false names and signatures with the intent to deceive." He was given the minimum sentence of one year and then the court petitioned Queen Wilhelmina that he be pardoned, but he died 6 weeks later.
(ON, 12/07, p.12)
1947 Dec 9, In western Java up to 430 men were rounded up and shot by Dutch troops in the village of Rawagedeh. The Dutch called the incident a "police action" to quell an uprising. The Dutch government conceded in 1995 that summary executions had taken place in Rawagedeh, now known as Balongsari, but said prosecutions were no longer possible. In September, 2011, a Dutch court ordered the government to compensate the widows of Indonesian villagers, to apologize for the killings and to give each of the 10 plaintiffs $27,000. Old friends and neighbors cajoled, bullied and intimidated the plaintiffs and their families until local officials jumped in, forcing them to part with half their cash.
(AP, 9/14/11)(http://tinyurl.com/5sp5psn)(AP, 11/23/11)(AP, 1/16/12)
1947 Dec 29, Hans van Meegeren (b.1889), Dutch painter and forger, died. In 2006 Frank Wynne authored “I Was Vermeer."
(WSJ, 10/14/06, p.P10)(http://denisdutton.com/van_meegeren.htm)
1947 “The Diary of Anne Frank" was first published. In her diary Anne Frank (1929-1945) chronicled the details of her teenage life hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam from 1942 to 1944, when the Nazi secret police discovered her and her family's hiding place. Miep Gies (1909-2010), had guarded Anne's memoirs and presented it to the girl's father, Otto, when he returned from the Auschwitz concentration camp at the end of World War II, the only one of his family to survive.
(AFP, 1/12/10)
1947 Dutch writer Gerard Reve (1923-2006) authored his debut novel “De Avonden" (The Evenings) under the pseudonym Simon van het Reve. In 2016 it was translated to English.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Avonden)(Econ, 3/11/17, p.79)
1947 Klaas Carel Faber (1922-2012) was convicted of murder and aiding the enemy in time of war for helping the Netherlands' Nazi occupiers during World War II. He had worked for the death squad code named "Silbertanne," or "Silver Fir," which carried out killings of resistance members, Nazi opponents, and people who hid Jews. He was given a death sentence that was later commuted to life in prison, but he escaped and fled to Germany in 1952, where he was granted citizenship. In 2010 the Dutch government issued a European arrest warrant for Faber (88). In 2011 a German court ruled that the Dutch request cannot be granted as Faber’s consent was mandatory due to his German citizenship. Klaas Faber died in Germany in 2012.
(AP, 11/25/10)(AP, 5/11/11)(AP, 5/26/12)
1947 Gerard Kuiper of Holland and Texas discovered carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mars.
(SFC, 11/29/96, p.A17)
1948 Mar 18, France, Great Britain and Benelux signed the Treaty of Brussels.
(MC, 3/18/02)
1948 Apr 18, International Court of Justice opened at Hague, Netherlands.
(MC, 4/18/02)
1948 May 4, The Hague Court of Justice convicted Hans Rauter (SS) of war crimes.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1948 May 12, Queen Wilhelmina resigned. [see Sep 4]
(MC, 5/12/02)
1948 Aug 23, The World Council of Churches (WCC) was formed in Amsterdam to help reconcile differences among Christians. Delegates of 147 churches assembled to merge the Faith and Order Movement and Life and Work Movement. Church leaders had agreed in 1937 to establish a World Council of Churches, based on a merger of the Faith and Order Movement and Life and Work Movement organizations. Headquarters were later established in Geneva.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Council_of_Churches)(Econ, 2/23/08, p.79)
1948 Sep 4, Queen Wilhelmina abdicated the Dutch throne for health reasons.
(AP, 9/4/97)
1948 Sep 6, Queen Juliana (1909-2004) of the Netherlands was crowned, two days after the abdication of her mother, Queen Wilhelmina. Juliana abdicated in 1980.
(AP, 9/6/98)(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.B7)
1948 Auke Bert Pattist, a Nazi collaborator, was convicted for helping Nazis and persecuting Jews. He escaped from prison and later settled in France and Spain where he died in 2001 at age 80.
(SFC, 3/27/01, p.A18)
1948 Dutch economist Petrus Johannes Verdoorn (1911-1982), developed what came to known as Verdoorn's law. It relates to the long-term dynamic relationship between the rate of growth in output and the growth of productivity due to increasing returns.
(www.economyprofessor.com/economictheories/verdoorns-law.php)
1948 H.B.G. Casimir, Dutch physicist, deduced the necessity of a quantum-mechanical effect arising from the zero-point energy of the harmonic oscillators that are the normal modes of the electromagnetic field. The Casimir force was first measured in 1997 and can be seen in a gecko's ability to stick to a surface with just one toe.
(AFP, 8/6/07)(www.du.edu/~jcalvert/phys/casimir.htm)
1949 Apr 4, The (NATO) North Atlantic Treaty Organization pact was signed by the US, Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Canada. It provided for mutual defense against aggression and for close military cooperation.
(www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm)(TOH, 1982, p.1949)
1949 Dec 27, Queen Juliana of the Netherlands granted sovereignty to the United States Indonesia after more than 300 years of Dutch rule. The Netherlands retained control of Irian Jaya, inhabited by Melanesians, until 1963.
(EWH, 1968, p.1168)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)(AP, 12/27/99)
1949 Heinrich Boere (b.1922), part of a Waffen SS death squad of mostly Dutch volunteers, was sentenced to death in the Netherlands. The squad had been tasked with killing fellow countrymen in reprisal for attacks by the anti-Nazi resistance. His sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment and Boere managed to escape to Germany. A German court has refused to extradite him because he might have German nationality as well as Dutch. In 2008 Dortmund prosecutor Ulrich Maass charged Heinrich Boere (86) with the 1944 murders of three men as a member of the Waffen SS death squad code-named Silbertanne, or Silver Pine.
(AP, 3/8/08)(AP, 4/16/08)
1950 West Timor (Dutch Timor), part of the former Dutch East Indies, became Indonesian territory when Holland transferred sovereignty.
(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A13)(TOH, 1982, p.1949)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)
1951 Apr 18, Jean Monnet, French civil servant, and Robert Schuman, French foreign minister, helped found the European Union with agreements between 6 countries on the pooling of coal and steel resources. Ministers from Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, West Germany, Italy and France put their names on the Treaty of Paris, the founding document of what in four decades would become the European Union.
(Econ, 9/25/04, Survey p.3)(Econ, 6/18/16, p.45)
1952 Feb 26, A Netherlands-Indonesian Unity conference took place.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1952 Apr 3, Dutch Queen Juliana spoke to the US Congress.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1952 May 6, Maria Montessori (b.1870), Italian physician, educationist, died In Holland. She opened her 1st school in San Lorenzo, Italy, in 1907.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori)(SFC, 1/6/07, p.B1)
1952 May 29, A 2nd Round Conference between Dutch Antilles and Suriname ended.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1952 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines began offering first class passengers ceramic houses filled with liquor. Industry rules capped handouts at 75 cents, but there was no limit on booze. In 2008 the 89th house in the series made it debut on Oct 7, the airline’s 89th birthday.
(WSJ, 5/31/08, p.A1)
1952-1954 In the Netherlands 34 boys under 18 during this period died in a Catholic institute for the mentally disabled in the Roermond Diocese. A Dutch Catholic institute for disabled girls in the same town of Heel experienced 40 deaths during the same period. In 2011 prosecutors opened an investigation on the unusually high death rate. In 2012 Dutch prosecutors said Brother Andreas, now dead, may have been involved in the suspicious deaths of 37 patients. The deaths sharply declined after he was transferred to another institution.
(AP, 8/16/11)(AP, 8/18/11)(AP, 6/28/12)
1953 Jan 31-1953 Feb 1, A powerful storm breached sea dikes in the south of the Netherlands, killing more than 1,800 people and cementing a deep resolve among the Dutch that their ancient enemy, water, would never kill again. 307 people died in eastern England.
(SSFC, 3/25/01, p.C3)(www.metoffice.com/education/secondary/students/flood.html)
1954 Dec 15, With the proclamation of the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles attained equal status with the Netherlands proper and Suriname in the overarching Kingdom of the Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cura%C3%A7ao_and_Dependencies)(SSFC, 10/9/11, p.C3)
1954 The Bilderberg Group was set up in to support military and economic co-operation between Europe and North America during the Cold War. Its first meeting was at the Bilderberg Hotel in Oosterbeek, Holland.
(AP, 6/7/13)
1954 The Hague Convention of this year forbade the taking of war booty. The Hague cultural Property Convention recognized the protection of cultural, religious and historical monuments including national parks.
(WSJ, 5/29/96, p.A6)(SFC, 8/11/00, p.A15)
1954 The 5 islands of the Netherlands Antilles were federated. These included Bonaire, Curacao, St. Maarten, Saba and St. Eustatius.
(Econ, 5/26/07, p.38)
1955 May 18, Queen Juliana opened the E55 fair in Amsterdam.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1956 Apr 10, Philips broadcasted the 1st Dutch color TV programs.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1956 May 18, Queen Juliana opened the Rembrandt fairs in Amsterdam.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1956 Nov 6, Holland and Spain withdrew from Olympics, to protest Soviets in Hungary.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1957 May 4, The Anne Frank Foundation formed in Amsterdam.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1957 May 9, Heinrich Campendonk (b.1889), German-born Dutch artist and a member of the Der Blaue Reiter group (1911-1912), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Campendonk)
1957 Jul 4, Dutch 2nd Chamber accepted temporary tax increase.
(Maggio)
1958 Jun 23, In the Netherlands the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation was founded by Prince Bernhard. It awarded the annual Erasmus Prize to individuals or institutions that have made notable contributions to European culture, society, or social science.
(www.123exp-culture.com/t/03604490053/)
1958 Aug 14, KLM Flight 607-E, a Lockheed Super Constellation, crashed west of Ireland, killing 99.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KLM_Flight_607-E)
1959 Apr 13, Eduard A van Beinum (57), Dutch musician, conductor, died.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1959 Oct 13, K. Rudolf Mengelberg, Dutch composer (Amsterdam Concertgebouw), died at 67.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1959 Aldo van Eyck (d.1999 at 80) designed the State Orphanage in Amsterdam.
(SFC, 1/16/99, p.A18)
1959 In the Netherlands a massive gas field was discovered under the city of Groningen. In the 1970s higher gas export prices raised the value of the guilder by a sixth , hitting the competitiveness of Dutch manufaturing and services. In 1977 The Economist dubbed this economic curse “Dutch disease".
(WSJ, 6/26/08, p.B1)(Econ, 8/12/17, p.58)
1961 Dec 1, The Territory of New Guinea declared independence from the Netherlands.
(WUD, 1994, p.962)(SFC, 6/5/00, p.A8)
1962 Mar 21, Dutch RC Bishop Willem Bekkers declared himself in favor of birth control. The church in the Netherlands tried to promote a more liberal view of birth control. But their view did not prevail.
(http://tinyurl.com/lpxof8)
1962 Jun 3, Lee Harvey Oswald arrived by train in Oldenzaal, Netherlands.
(MC, 6/3/02)
1962 Jun 4, Lee Harvey Oswald departed Rotterdam on SS Maasdam to US.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1962 Jun 28, Thalidomide was banned in Netherlands.
(MC, 6/28/02)
1963 The western part of the island of New Guinea, Irian Jaya, became a province of Indonesia. It was formerly a Dutch territory called West New Guinea, Dutch New Guinea or Netherlands New Guinea. A West Papua pro-independence movement began and by 2004 an estimated 100,000 civilians had died in the struggle.
(WUD, 1994, p.1623)(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A17)
1964 Aug 25, Singapore limited imports from Netherlands due to Indonesian aggression.
(chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1965 May 25, Remco Prins, Dutch rock guitarist/vocalist (Burma Shave-Stash), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1965 May 25, Roef-Ragas, Dutch actor (Missing Link, Red Rain, Juju, Mykosch), was born.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1966 Dutch courts prosecuted a blasphemy case putting a novelist on trial for a story about wanting to have sex with God, who had taken the form of a donkey. Gerard Reve was acquitted. The 1932 blasphemy law barred scorn against any religion.
(AP, 5/24/11)
1968 Mar 3, Greece, Portugal and Spain's embassies were bombed in the Hague.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1968 Apr 27, In the Netherlands part of a group of Catholic radicals left their own party and formed the Political Party of Radicals (PPR). The party dissolved in 1991.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Party_Radicals)
1968 Sep 1, Pirate Radio Marina in the Netherlands began transmitting.
(www.historyorb.com/entertainment/radio/pirate-radio)
1968 The Rembrandt Research Project was formed and funded by the government to act as the gatekeepers of Rembrandt’s work.
(WSJ, 8/7/98, p.W12)
1968 In the Netherlands the 56 square km of Oostvaardersplassen was reclaimed from the sea and was intended for industrial use. It lay vacant and became a nature reserve.
(Econ, 9/14/13, SR p.8)
1969 Mar 25, John and Yoko Ono staged a bed-in for peace in Amsterdam.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1969 Mar 26, The Nuclear reactor in Dodewaard, Netherlands, went into use.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodewaard_nuclear_power_plant)
1969 May 30, Refinery workers on Curacao set fires in Willemstad. Marines from the Netherlands restored order.
(Econ, 5/26/07, p.38)
1969 Oct, Economists Jan Timbergen (1903-1994) of the Netherlands and Ragnar Frisch of Norway were awarded the first Nobel Prize in Economics for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes. Tinbergen was a founding trustee of Economists for Peace and Security.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Tinbergen)
1970 Jul 15, Frederik Lugt (b.1884), Dutch founder of the Fondation Custodia (1947), died in Paris. The foundation, which he founded with his wife, kept intact his collection of Old Master drawings at the Institut Neederlandais, the Dutch cultural center in Paris.
(Econ, 2/13/10, p.86)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frits_Lugt)
1971 Oct 1, As of this day divorce in the Netherlands could only be granted on the ground of the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage (Article 1:151 of the Dutch Civil Code).
(http://www2.law.uu.nl/priv/cefl/Reports/pdf/Netherlands02.pdf)
1971 Cornelis van Houten (1920-2002), Dutch astronomer, discovered an asteroid and named it Asteroid 1877 Marsden after British astronomer Brian Marsden.
(Econ, 12/4/10, p.111)
1973 Jul 20, The Japanese Red Army and Lebanese guerrillas hijacked a Japan Airlines plane over the Netherlands. The passengers and crew were released in Libya where the hijackers blew up the plane.
(SFC, 11/9/00, p.C2)(www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=1771)
1973 The Dutch government built the Van Gogh Museum.
(Econ, 1/21/06, p.81)
1974 Apr 6, Willem Dudok (b.1884), Dutch architect (Hilversum Town Hall), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Marinus_Dudok)
1974 Sep 1, In the Netherlands laws prohibiting pirate radio came into effect.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Caroline)
1974 Sep 13, In the Netherlands the French embassy at the Hague was taken over by Haruo Wako and 2 other Japanese Red Army militants. A 4-day standoff ended with the release of comrade Yutaka Suyaka from a French jail. The attack was linked to Carlos the Jackal, aka Ilich Ramirez Sanchez. In 2005 a Tokyo District Court sentenced Wako to life imprisonment.
(http://my-my-miyuki.blogspot.com/)(SFC,12/11/97, p.C2)(SFC, 11/9/00, p.C2)
1975 Sep 14, Rembrandt's "Nightwatch" was slashed and damaged in Amsterdam.
(http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_n7_v86/ai_21113228)
1975 Dec 14, Six South Moluccan extremists surrendered after holding 23 hostages for 12 days on a train near the Dutch town of Beilen.
(AP, 12/14/00)
1975 The Dutch film "Keetje Tippel" (Cathy Tippel or Katie's Passion, or Hot Sweat) starred Jan De Bont and was directed by Paul Verhoeven.
(WSJ, 7/23/99, p.W4)
1975 Suriname gained Independence from the Netherlands.
(SFC, 9/6/96, p.A14)
1976 Aug 26, Prince Bernhard, husband of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, agreed to resign his positions with the Dutch armed forces and industry following severe criticism of his behavior by a commission of enquiry into a Lockheed bribery scandal. Bernhard had allegedly received $1.1 million as a gift from Lockheed.
(RTH, 8/26/99)(SFC, 12/24/08, p.B7)
1976 Dec 6, Dutch War criminal Pieter Menten (1899-1987) was arrested in Switzerland after fleeing there in November.
(http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Menten)
1976 Claes Oldenburg (b.1929), Swedish-born American artist, constructed a 41-foot "Trowel I" for the Kroller-Muller Museum in the Netherlands by. He also made "Typewriter Eraser."
(Smith., Aug. 1995, p.82)(SFC, 10/26/96, p.B1)
1976 Amnesty International received Netherlands’ Erasmus-prize.
(www.nndb.com/honors/622/000165127/)
1977 May 8, The trial of Pieter Menten (b.1899), a former Dutch SS officer and art collector, began in Amsterdam. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years, but the sentence was reduced to 10 years in 1980.
(www.cnn.com/almanac/9805/08/)(http://tinyurl.com/2n79xl)
1977 May 23, Moluccan extremists held 105 schoolchildren and 50 others hostage on a hijacked train in Netherlands. The children were released May 27. The siege ended June 11.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1977 May 25, Dutch social democratic party won parliamentary election.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1977 Jun 11, A 20-day hostage drama in the Netherlands ended as Dutch marines stormed a train and a school held by South Moluccan extremists. Six gunmen and two hostages on the train were killed.
(AP, 6/11/97)
1977 The Economist coined the term “Dutch disease" to describe how the exploitation of natural resources can cause a decline in other forms of economic activity, particularly manufacturing. This briefly happened in the Netherlands when natural gas was discovered (1959).
(Econ, 10/11/08, p.36)
1978 Jun 25, Argentina, host to the World Cup, beat Netherlands in the soccer World Cup championship in Buenos Aires. It was later alleged that the ruling military junta bribed an opposing team to ensure Argentina’s progress and eventual victory.
(SFC, 2/4/97, p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_FIFA_World_Cup)(Econ, 8/15/09, p.32)
1980 Apr 30, Juliana Z(1909-2004), Queen of the Netherlands, abdicated. Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, was crowned queen of Netherlands.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliana_of_the_Netherlands)
1980 Jul 9, Pieter Menten (81), Dutch war criminal and art collector, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
(http://tinyurl.com/369gbh)(http://tinyurl.com/3xjlqp)
1980 Sep 5, The opera “Satyagraha" by Philip Glass, commissioned by the city of Rotterdam, was first performed by the Netherlands Opera.
(WSJ, 4/19/08, p.W14)(www.philipglass.com/html/recordings/satyagraha.html)
1980 Oct 4, Some 520 people were forced to abandon the cruise ship “Prisendam" in the Gulf of Alaska after the Dutch luxury liner caught fire—no deaths or serious injury resulted. The ship capsized and sank a week later.
(AP, 10/4/08)
1980 Oct 25, The Hague Convention was concluded. It is a multilateral treaty developed by the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) that provides an expeditious method to return a child internationally abducted by a parent from one member country to another. It entered into force between the signatories on 1 December 1983. As of May 2017, 97 states are party to the convention.
(http://tinyurl.com/ydd2k726)(Econ, 2/7/09, p.22)
1981 Apr 12, Hendrik F. Andriessen (b.1892), Dutch organist, composer (Te Deum), died.
(http://www2.rnw.nl/mu/en/behind/biographies/hendrikandriessen)
1981 Antoine W. van Agtmael of the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank coined the term “emerging market." He coined the term to attract investors in a “Third World Equity Fund." The emerging, or developing, market economy (EME) is defined as an economy with low-to-middle per capita income. Emerging markets constitute approximately 80% of the global population, representing about 20% of the world's economies.
(www.investopedia.com/articles/03/073003.asp)(Econ, 9/20/08, SR p.10)
1982 Nov 4, In the Netherlands Ruud Lubbers (1939-2018) began serving a prime minister and continued to 1994.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruud_Lubbers)(SSFC, 2/18/18, p.C12)
1983 Jan 25, The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) space probe, sponsored by the United Kingdom, the US, and the Netherlands, was launched. It studied infrared radiation from across the cosmos and exposed stars as they were born from clouds of gas and dust.
(SFEC, 9/28/97, p.A14)
1983 Mar, Compact Disc recordings, introduced by Phillips and Sony in Europe in 1982, were introduced to the US.
(www.iconnect.net/home/bsnpubs/cdhist.html)
1983 Nov 1, Anthony van Hoboken (b.1887), Dutch musicologist, died in Zurich. He is best known for his Haydn Catalog (1957).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_van_Hoboken)
1983 Nov 9, Alfred Heineken, beer brewer from Amsterdam, was kidnapped and held for a ransom of more than $10 million. Heineken was freed Nov 30. Cor van Houton, the kidnapper, was shot to death in 2003.
(HN, 11/9/98)(AP, 1/24/03)
1983 Nov 30, Police freed kidnapped beer magnate Alfred Heineken in Amsterdam.
(www.cedmagic.com/museum/press/ced-timeline-1983.html#11-1983)
1983 The Dapper Foundation of Amsterdam was founded with a private gift donation of African art. It was brought to Paris in 1986 and housed in an elegant private museum at 50 Avenue Victor Hugo.
(SFEC, 1/4/98, p.T7)
1984 May 25, Piet Ketting (b.1904), Dutch pianist, conductor, composer, died.
(http://tinyurl.com/2tpeyt)
1984 Philips, a Dutch electronics giant, and ASM Int'l, a maker of semiconductor equipment, began their ASML joint venture. The company grew to become the world's most advanced maker of equipment critical to modern chipmaking.
(Econ., 2/29/20, p.49)
1985 Jul 10, French security forces sank the Rainbow Warrior, a ship operated by Greenpeace near NZ. Fernando Pereira, a Dutch photographer, was killed in the sinking. In 2015 a retired French secret service agent apologized for planting the bombs. Jean-Luc Kister said that he and his colleagues never meant to kill anybody.
(SFC, 5/7/99, p.A14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Warrior)(AP, 9/7/15)
1986 Oct 4, In the Netherlands Queen Beatrix officially opened the Oosterscheldekering for use by saying the well-known words: De stormvloedkering is gesloten. De Deltawerken zijn voltooid. Zeeland is veilig. (The flood barrier is closed. The Delta Works are completed. Zealand is safe.) It was the world's largest movable flood barrier.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterscheldekering)
1987 Nov 14, Pieter Menten (b.1899), Dutch war criminal, died at an old people's home in Loosbroek, southern Netherlands.
(www.jbwan.com/roblog/archives/000615.html)
1987 In the Netherlands the first campaign to alter social norms of condom use focused on a number of Dutch celebrities who use condoms themselves.
(http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/IES/netherlands.html)
1987 In the Netherlands art works by David Teniers, Willem van de Velde, Jan Brueghel the Younger, Eva Gonzales, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Paul Desire Trouillebert were stolen from the Noortman gallery in Maastricht. In 2009 police recovered eight of the paintings and arrested 3 suspects.
(AP, 3/8/09)
1987 Heavy floods inundated the town of Valkenburg as the Geul River overflowed.
(SFC, 9/19/98, p.A5)
1988 Mar 2, Dutch Liberal Party merged with SDP.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1988 Apr 11, In Amsterdam the Royal Concert building (Concertgebouw) reopened.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Concertgebouw_Orchestra)
1988 Dec, Thieves stole three paintings by van Gogh, with an estimated value of $72 million to $90 million, from the Kroeller-Mueller Museum in a remote section of the Netherlands. Police later recover all three paintings.
(AP, 2/11/08)
1988 The Dutch film "The Vanishing" was directed by George Sluizer. An American remake was also directed by Sluizer.
(SFEC, 8/1/99, DB p.48)
1989 Ter Beek (d.2008 at 64) became defense minister in a centrist coalition led by PM Ruud Lubbers and served until 1994. He worked to streamline the Dutch military in the aftermath of the Cold War, including scrapping the draft.
(AP, 9/30/08)
1990 Toy company FAO Schwartz sold out to Dutch Company Koninklijke Bijenkorf Beheer.
(WSJ, 11/21/03, p.B1)
1991 Apr, Two masked armed men stole 20 paintings, worth at least $10 million each at the time, from Amsterdam's van Gogh Museum. The paintings are found in the getaway car less than an hour later.
(AP, 2/11/08)
1991 Dec 9, European Community leaders meeting in the Dutch city of Maastricht tentatively agreed to begin using a single currency by 1999.
(AP, 12/9/01)
1991 Dec 11, European Community leaders meeting in the Dutch city of Maastricht hammered out a compromise for a loose federation of their countries. The Maastricht treaty was signed on February 7, 1992, and entered into force on November 1, 1993. It set entry terms for joining a European monetary union.
(WSJ, 11/18/96, p.A10)(WSJ, 3/3/97, p.A1)(AP, 12/11/01)
1991 Klaas Bruinsma, gangster and drug baron, was gunned down near an Amsterdam hotel.
(SSFC, 10/11/03, p.A2)
1992 Feb 7, The Treaty on the European Union was signed in Maastricht by the Foreign and Finance Ministers of the Member States.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1992/index_en.htm)
1992 Feb 7, The Maastricht Treaty to integrate Europe was signed in Maastricht by the Foreign and Finance Ministers of the Member States. Upon its entry into force on 1 November 1993 during the Delors Commission, it created the three pillars structure of the European Union and led to the creation of the single European currency, the euro.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty)
1992 Apr 13, The opera "Life With an Idiot" by Alfred Schnittke had its world premier at the Netherlands Music Theater in Amsterdam.
(SFC, 8/5/98, p.A17)
1992 Apr 13, An earthquake rocked Germany and the Netherlands.
(http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/sig_1992.html)
1992 Jul 11, In Bosnia it was later alleged on Dutch TV that Dutch troops deliberately drove an armored vehicle into a Muslim blockade on this day and killed as many as 30 people.
(SFC, 8/21/98, p.A14)
1992 Oct 4, In the Netherlands an Israeli El Al Jumbo Jet transport, enroute from New York to Tel Aviv, crashed into an Amsterdam apartment complex and killed 43 people. Since then scores of people complained of unidentified health problems. In 1998 it was revealed that the jet carried 50 gallons of dimethyl methylphosphonate, a non-poisonous ingredient of sarin nerve gas, destined for Israel. A report on the crash was released in 1999 and said that the plane's ballast included carcinogenic depleted uranium.
{Netherlands, Air Crash, Israel, Medical}
(AP, 10/4/97)(WSJ, 4/22/99, A1)(www.pacificnews.org/jinn/stories/5.03/990211-cargo.html)
1992 Dec 15, The Netherlands ratifies the Treaty on the European Union.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1992/index_en.htm)
1992 Dec 21, A Dutch DC-10 burst into fire at landing on Faro, Portugal, and 56 died.
(http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19921221-0)
1993 Dutch novelist Cees Nooteboom won the European Literary Prize for best novel for his work: "The Following Story."
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A3)
1993 In the Netherlands prosecution stopped against physicians giving lethal drugs to patients to help them commit suicide. In 2000 euthanasia was legalized.
(SFC, 11/29/00, p.A17)
1993 A family in the Netherlands was found to have an abnormally high number of violent criminals. The criminal members were found to have a faulty gene that caused the absence of the enzyme monoamine oxidase A, an enzyme that regulates a group of neurotransmitters including serotonin and dopamine. Both of these were important for emotional responses.
(Econ, 12/23/06, Survey p.6)
1994 May 21, John Henry Weidner (81), Dutch-US resistance fighter, died.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1995 Apr 27, Willem Frederik Hermans (b.1921), Dutch author, died. His 1966 novel “Beyond Sleep" was considered to be one of the founding works of modern Dutch literature. In 2007 an English translation became available.
(WSJ, 1/7/07, p.P8)(http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willem_Frederik_Hermans)
1995 Jun 3, In Bosnia Mladic forces seized a Dutch observation post.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A12)
1995 Jul 6, 3:15AM The UN safe area at Srebrenica came under attack by Bosnian Serbs, and thousands of male residents were killed. The acquisition and delivery of arms was organized by Yugoslav army officer Mirko Krajisnik, brother to Momcilo Krajisnik, president of the Bosnian Serb assembly. In 1998 Chuck Sudetic published "Blood and Vengeance: One Family’s Story of the War in Bosnia." The book focused on the Srebrenica killings. 300 Dutch troops were later accused of not preventing the Serbs from overrunning the town.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A8)(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A12)(SFC, 8/12/98, p.A14)
1995 Jul 8, Shelling resumed and the Dutch abandoned 3 posts under direct fire. 30 Dutch troops were taken by the Serbs to Bratunac.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A12)
1995 Jul 9, The Dutch again asked for air support but it was refused.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.A12)
1995 Jul 16, Early reports of massacres in Bosnia emerged as the first survivors of the long march from Srebrenica began to arrive in Muslim-held territory. Following negotiations between the UN and the Bosnian Serbs, the Dutch were at last permitted to leave Srebrenica, leaving behind weapons, food and medical supplies.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/675945.stm)
1995 A river flood forced the evacuation of 200,000 people and millions of animals.
(SSFC, 3/25/01, p.C3)
1996 Jan 26, The Dutch government provided 365 mil in short-term funds to keep Fokker going for a few weeks to allow the search for a foreign partner.
(WSJ, 1/30/96, p.A-11)
1996 Feb, The last Dutch draft notices were sent out.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A15)
1996 May 7, The first international war crimes proceeding since Nuremberg opened at The Hague in the Netherlands, with a Serbian police officer, Dusan Tadic, facing trial on murder-torture charges. Tadic was convicted of crimes against humanity but acquitted of murder on May 7, 1997. In Jul, 1997 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
(AP, 5/7/97)(SFC, 5/8/97, p.C2)(SFC, 7/15/97, p.A12)
1996 May 18, A 40 year agreement was signed between Royal Dutch/Shell and Perupetro, Peru’s state oil company. Royal Dutch will spend $2.7 bil to develop a natural gas field.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.D-6)
1996 Jun 9, The latest unemployment rate was 7%.
(SFC, 6/9/96, Parade, p.9)
1996 Jul 7, The average cost of a Big Mac in the Netherlands was $3.21.
(SFC, 7/7/96, Parade, p.17)
1996 Sep 25, A DC-3 aircraft went into the North Sea near Den Helder and killed all 32 people on board.
(SFC, 9/26/96, p.A11)
1996 Dec 2, It was reported that a Dutch rubber company had produced and shipped to England a 100 water-filled rubber mats (water beds) for cows. The product seemed to enhance milk production.
(SFC, 12/3/96, p.A12)
1996 Dec, Wim Duisenberg of the Netherlands was approved to run the European Monetary Institute in Frankfurt, Germany.
(SFC, 5/1/98, p.D6)
1996 Wijnand van der Sanden, curator of the Drents Museum in Holland, authored "Through Nature to Eternity: The Bog Bodies of Northwest Europe."
(AM, 7/97, p.62)
1996 Fokker went bankrupt, and the last new Fokker-50 was delivered to Ethiopian Airlines in May, 1997. Stork, another Dutch company, bought a large part of Fokker's assets, and continued to be a main provider of parts and service for Fokker planes.
(AP, 2/10/04)
1997 Mar 19, Willem de Kooning (92), Dutch-born abstract painter, considered to be one of the 20th century's greatest painters, died in East Hampton, N.Y.
(SFC, 3/20/97, p.A1,6,E1)(AP, 3/19/98)
1997 Mar 25, An arson attack left a Turkish woman and 5 children dead in the Hague.
(SFC, 3/29/97, p.A9)
1997 Oct 2, The EU formally set up a common foreign and security policy in the Amsterdam Treaty. It set to adopt key asylum and immigration measures within five years of the treaty's entry into force, expected in 1999. A protocol to the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam reclassified animals as sentient beings.
(Econ, 8/26/06, p.42)(http://hrw.org/worldreport/Helsinki-28.htm)(Econ, 12/2/06, p.88)
1997 Oct 22, A 64-year-old woman, dubbed the "furniture terrorist," received an 8-month sentence for causing an estimated $500,000 damage to furniture over a six-year period. She wandered through showrooms and slashed sofas with a razor often in a Zorro-like "Z" style.
(SFC,10/23/97, p.A17)
1997 The Dutch film "Character" was set in Rotterdam in the 1920s. It won an Oscar for best foreign film.
(SFC, 3/24/98, p.A6)
1997 In the Netherlands the Maeslant barrier, a sea defense structure was inaugurated.
(Econ, 8/27/19, p.15)
1997 ING Direct, an online banking service under Dutch parent ING Groep NV, was launched in Canada. In 2000 it began operations in the US from Wilmington, Del. By the end of 2007 it had over 7 million customers and $62 billion in deposits. In 2008 Arkadi Kuhlman, ING’s US chief, and Bruce Philp, chairman of ING Direct’s marketing partner, authored “The Orange Code: How ING direct Succeeded by Being a Rebel with a Cause."
(WSJ, 12/10/08, p.A17)
1997-2001 In the Netherlands Lucia de Berk murdered 7 people in her care by giving them lethal doses of drugs. In 2004 a court sentenced her to life in jail and compulsory psychiatric treatment for killing. A high court ordered a review, ruling that the woman could not be sentenced to both life in jail and psychiatric care. In 2006 de Berk was sentenced to life in prison.
(Reuters, 7/13/06)
1998 May 3, European leaders meeting in Brussels, Belgium, agreed on Wim Duisenberg of the Netherlands as the chief of the new European Central Bank (ECB), but with the proviso that he step down in 2002 to make way for Frenchman Jean-Claude Trichet.
(BS, 5/3/98, p.21A)(AP, 5/3/99)
1998 Aug 1, The 5th quadrennial Gay Games began in Amsterdam with some 15,000 competitors. The games closed Aug 8.
(SFEC, 8/2/98, p.A2)
1998 Aug 11, In the Netherlands the body of Nicky Verstappen (11) was found, a day after he disappeared from a youth camp in southern Limburg province. He had been sexually abused before he was killed. In 2018 Dutch detectives said they have matched DNA traces and identified Jos Brech (55) as a suspect in the brutal murder. A European-wide warrant for Brech's arrest was issued on June 12, 2018.
(AFP, 8/22/18)
1998 Aug 24, The United States and Britain agreed to allow two Libyan suspects in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 to be tried by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. A former Libyan intelligence agent was later convicted of murder; the other suspect was acquitted.
(AP, 8/24/08)
1998 Sep 10, The Rotterdam Convention was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rotterdam. It is a multilateral agreement to promote shared responsibilities in relation to importation of hazardous chemicals, became legally binding to its parties. It officially entered into force on Feb 24, 2004. As of 2008, 73 countries were signatories and 126 were parties.
(www.ec.gc.ca/international/multilat/rotterdam_e.htm)
1998 Sep 19, The worst storm in a century hit the Netherlands and Belgium over the past week.
(SFC, 9/19/98, p.A5)
1998 Oct 13, It was reported that Dutch auditors chastised the prime minister and other officials for spending $40 million to acquire the Piet Mondrian painting: "Victory Boogie Woogie."
(WSJ, 10/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov 13, The cabinet approved a plan to let homosexuals adopt Dutch children by Jan 1, 2000.
(SFEC, 11/15/98, p.A20)
1998 Dec 1, Dutch and Flemish lexicographers unveiled a 40-tome dictionary with 45,000 pages that documented words back to 1500. It took 147 years to complete and compilers stopped at 1976.
(SFC, 12/2/98, p.C2)
1998 The 245 minute film "Amsterdam Global Village" was directed by Johan van der Keuken and showed at the SF Film Fest.
(SFEC, 4/12/98, DB p.55)
1998 The Dutch film "The Dress" starred Hanri Garcin and Ariane Schluter. It was written and directed by Alex van Warmerdam.
(SFC, 11/27/98, p.C8)
1998 The documentary film "Sex, Drugs and Democracy" was produced.
(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.T9)
1998 Ernst Langhout, a singer-songwriter, increased his sales when he began singing in his native Frisian language.
(WSJ, 5/13/98, p.A20)
1999 Jan 1, The Maastricht Treaty specified that a monetary union will be established by this date, and laid down several criteria that EU nations must fulfill in order to join. Some of the criteria included: maximum budget deficits of 3% of GDP, a cap on government debt of 60% of GDP. The European economic and monetary union (EMU) was scheduled to start with a new "Euro" currency. Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain made the transition. Public use was set for Jan 1, 2002.
(WSJ, 9/25/95, p.A-12)(WSJ, 12/5/95, p.A-14)(SFC, 11/16/96, p.A1)(SFC, 1/1/99, p.A8)
1999 Feb 18, Transamerica was bought by Aegon NV of the Netherlands in a deal valued at $9.7 billion. The assessed value of the Transamerica Pyramid in SF was set at $190 million.
(SFC, 2/19/99, p.A1)(SFC, 5/29/04, p.C2)
1999 May 1, The Treaty of Amsterdam Treaty, signed on October 2, 1997, entered into force. Its full official title was: the Treaty of Amsterdam amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and certain related acts. In Article 7 it said governments that violate the union’s fundamental values would be threatened with sanctions.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Amsterdam)(Econ 7/29/17, p.42)
1999 Apr 5, Libya handed over to UN officials 2 men accused in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. They were then flown to the Hague to be tried under Scottish law. UN Sec. Gen'l. Kofi Annan immediately suspended economic sanctions on Libya.
(SFC, 3/20/99, p.A8)(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A1)
1999 May 16, The 1956 Picasso painting, "Woman Nude Before Garden," was slashed by a mental patient in Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum.
(WSJ, 2/16/99, p.A20)
1999 May 19, The Dutch Cabinet of Prime Minister Wim Kok resigned following a split over whether to give citizens the right to vote in referendums.
(SFC, 5/20/99, p.A13)
1999 Oct 12, Professors Gerardus 't Hooft and Martinus J.G. Veltman of the Netherlands won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of mathematical tools to calculate properties of fundamental particles. From 1981 to his retirement in 1997, Veltman was an active member of the Univ. of Michigan physics department.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A2)(MT, Fall/99, p.7)
1999 Oct 26, The Parliament overturned a 1912 ban on brothels.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.A13)
1999 Dec 7, In Holland a student (17) in Veghel shot and wounded a teacher and 4 fellow students in the 1st school shooting in Dutch history. The student was reported to have been upset over a romance. The student's father (35) and sister (15) were arrested 2 days later as accessories.
(SFC, 12/8/99, p.A15)(SFC, 12/10/99, p.D8)
1999 The Netherlands documentary film "I Love Money" (the title used symbols for "love" and "money") was directed by Johan van der Keuken.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, DB p.36)
1999 In the Netherlands a leftist coalition toppled the long-ruling Christian Democrats.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.A16)
2000 Mar 21, Holland announced that it would give the Jewish community $180 million for injustices suffered after returning from Nazi death camps. Another $114 million was set for Dutch victims of Japanese WW II prison camps in Indonesia and $14 million for Dutch Gypsies persecuted by the Nazis.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A12)
2000 Apr 3, In Bosnia NATO troops arrested Momcilo Krajisnik, former speaker of the Bosnian Serb assembly, for war crimes and flew him to the Netherlands to stand trial. In 2006 Momcilo Krajisnik was convicted by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague for persecuting and forcibly expelling non-Serbs during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia. He was released in 2013 after serving two-thirds of a reduced 20-year sentence.
(SFC, 4/4/00, p.A10)(SFC, 8/31/13, p.A6)
2000 Apr 6, Two Russian cosmonauts docked with Mir. The destruction of the space station was delayed after MirCorp. of Amsterdam agreed in Feb. to pay $10-20 million to lease commercial rights.
(SFC, 4/7/00, p.D2)(SFEC, 6/11/00, p.T12)
2000 Apr 15, Rem Koolhaas (56), Dutch architect, won the annual $100,000 Pritzker Architecture Prize.
(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.A4)
2000 May 4, Hendrik Casimir (b.1909), Dutch physicist, died. He was best known for his research on the two-fluid model of superconductors (together with C. J. Gorter) in 1934 and the Casimir effect (together with D. Polder) in 1946.
(Econ, 5/24/08, p.105)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Casimir)
2000 May 13, In the Netherlands a fireworks depot exploded in Enschede and 20 people were killed with 589 injured. An estimated 100 tons of fireworks exploded and flattened some 400 houses.
(SFEC, 5/14/00, p.A12)(SFC, 5/15/00, p.A13)
2000 Jun 7, It was reported that Patrick Atoon of Nigmegen had spent 8 years building his web site dedicated to the meanings of words in rap music: www.rapdict.org.
(WSJ, 6/7/00, p.A1)
2000 Jun 18, In England officials found 58 bodies in the back of a truck at Dover. The truck had arrived from Zeebrugge under 86-degree heat and 54 male and 4 female Chinese immigrants from Fujian province appeared to have suffocated. There were 2 survivors. The chief suspect was arrested in Rotterdam in 2001. In 2001 Dutch driver Perry Wacker (32) was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Ying Guo (30) was convicted of conspiracy and was sentenced to 6 years in prison.
(SFC, 6/19/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 6/20/00, p.A1)(SFC, 6/21/00, p.A12)(SFC, 1/23/01, p.C14)(SFC, 4/6/01, p.D6)
2000 Sep 12, A bill was passed that converted same-sex partnerships into full-fledged marriages.
(SFC, 9/13/00, p.A12)
2000 Oct, Brothels were legalized. The $1 billion sex industry was estimated as 5% of the Dutch economy.
(SSFC, 8/12/01, p.A15)
2000 Nov 28, In the Netherlands lawmakers of the lower house voted 104 to 40 to legalize euthanasia with strict guidelines.
(SFC, 11/29/00, p.A17)
2001 Jan 1, In the Netherlands a fire in a Volendam café killed at least 5 people and injured over 130.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.A12)
2001 Jan 31, In the Netherlands a Scottish court sentenced Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, to life in a Scottish prison for the 1998 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. A second Libyan was acquitted.
(SFC, 1/31/01, p.A11)(SFC, 2/1/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/1/01, p.A1)(AP, 12/19/03)
2001 Mar 31, In the Netherlands legislation enacted in 2000 to legalize gay marriages went into effect at midnight. This made Netherlands the first country to legalize same-sex marriages.
(SFC, 3/31/01, p.A10)(SSFC, 8/4/13, p.A2)
2001 Apr 5, Dutch driver Perry Wacker was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years in prison in the deaths of 58 Chinese immigrants who suffocated in his truck in Dover, England.
(AP, 4/5/02)
2001 Apr 10, The Dutch Senate legalized euthanasia gave doctors immunity from prosecution for assisting in the deaths of terminally ill patients.
(SFC, 4/11/01, p.C2)
2001 Jul 5, Scientists at Delft Univ. of Tech. in the Netherlands reported the creation of nanotechnology transistors built from a single molecule.
(SFC, 7/6/01, p.B3)
2001 Jul 12, Herman Brood (55), musician, jumped to his death from the roof of an Amsterdam hotel. He had recorded nearly 20 albums and had acted in Dutch films. In 1978 he made a hit with his single "Saturday Night."
(SFC, 7/13/01, p.D5)
2001 Aug 16, Col. Vidoje Blagojevic, former commander of Bratunac, pleaded innocent at the Hague war crimes tribunal for 1995 war crimes in Srebrenica. On January 17, 2005, Col. Vidoje Blagojevic became the second indictee to be convicted on Srebrenica Genocide charges and other human rights violations. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison. On May 9, 2007, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ruled that Col Blagojevic had not been complicit in the genocide at Srebrenica because he had not known his troops intended to commit it. Blagojevic’s sentence was reduced to 15 years.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.A14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre)
2001 A charge of 7 guilders was planned for motorists entering major cities in order to reduce traffic congestion.
(SFC, 12/1/97, p.B8)
2001 KaZaA, an internet file-sharing program, was founded in Amsterdam by Niklas Zennstrom of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark. In 2004 they launched Skype software for internet telephony.
(Econ, 7/3/04, p.54)
2001-2005 Ruud Lubbers (b.1939), former Dutch prime minister (1982-1994), served as the head of the UNHCR.
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.67)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruud_Lubbers)
2002 Jan 3, Alfred Henry Heineken (78), builder of a global beer brand, died in the Noordwijk. Freddie designed the green bottle and logo. In 1983 he was abducted for weeks and released unharmed.
(WSJ, 1/4/02, p.A1)(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A22)
2002 Feb 9, At the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Jochem Uytdehaage of the Netherlands won the gold medal in the men's 5,000-meter speedskating race in world record time of 6:14.66.
(AP, 2/9/03)
2002 Mar, In the Netherlands the Liveable Rotterdam Party catapulted Pim Fortuyn, its chief figurehead, onto the national stage. Fortuyn rode a wave of dissatisfaction over immigration, Islam and the elitism of the ruling Labor Party. He was shot to death May 6.
(Econ, 3/11/06, p.46)
2002 Apr 1, In the Netherlands the "Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act" entered into force.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_in_the_Netherlands)
2002 May 6, In the Netherlands Pim Fortuyn (54), a right-wing populist with an anti-immigrant platform, was shot to death in Hilversum. Volkert van der Graaf (32), an environmental activist, was arrested May 7 for the murder.
(SFC, 5/7/02, p.A1)(WSJ, 5/7/02, p.A1)(SFC, 5/8/02, p.A17)
2002 May 15, Election results in the Netherlands showed the opposition Christian Democrats with a sizeable victory with 43 seats. List, the party of recently slain Pim Fortuyn, took 2nd place with 26 seats and named Mat Herben as leader. Jan Peter Balkenende, head of the Christian Democrats, was set to be PM. The ruling Labor Party won 23 of the 150 seats.
(WSJ, 5/16/02, p.A14)(SFC, 5/16/02, p.A8)(WSJ, 5/17/02, p.A1)
2002 May, Uganda began to fear that too much Western assistance might damage its economy by pushing up the value of its shilling. The phenomenon is called Dutch Disease because decades ago massive oil revenues in the Netherlands unsettled the exchange rates and left exports less competitive.
(WSJ, 5/29/02, p.A4)
2002 Jul 1, In the Hague the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal officially came into existence. It was vehemently opposed by the United States.
(AP, 7/1/02)
2002 Jul 17, Joseph Luns (90), foreign minister for 19 years, died. He had also served for 13 years as NATO sec. gen.
(SFC, 7/18/02, p.A26)
2002 Aug 30, In the Netherlands 8 men were detained for providing financial and logistical services to al Qaeda and for recruiting fighters.
(SFC, 9/3/02, p.A6)
2002 Oct 6, Prince Claus (76), the German-born husband of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, died in Amsterdam.
(AP, 10/6/03)
2002 Oct 16, The Dutch government collapsed amid infighting in the List party.
(WSJ, 10/17/02, p.A1)
2002 Dec, Two thieves broke in through the roof of the Vincent van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and stole two paintings by van Gogh valued at $30 million. The men were convicted a year later. In 2016 the two paintings were recovered by Italian police investigating suspected Italian mobsters for cocaine trafficking. On March 21, 2017, they were put back on display.
(AP, 2/11/08)(AP, 3/21/17)
2003 Jan 13, Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer took over as head of the 55-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe for 2003. He said the Vienna-based OSCE would sharpen its efforts to improve border security and police cooperation and cut off the flow of cash to terrorist groups.
(AP, 1/13/03)
2003 Jan 22, In the Netherlands voters rejected an anti-immigration party and gave 44 seats to the Christian Democrats and 42 to the Labor party.
(SFC, 1/23/03, p.A10)
2003 Mar 2, Netherlands, the world’s 4th largest poultry exporter, discovered a bird flu in some its poultry for the 1st time in 30 years.
(WSJ, 3/6/03, p.A11)
2003 Mar 11, The 18-judge world court was inaugurated at the Hague. It had been approved Jul 17, 1998, by the Rome Treaty.
(SFC, 3/12/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 17, In the Netherlands a law went into effect that allowed pharmacies to fill prescriptions for marijuana.
(SFC, 3/18/03, p.A8)
2003 Apr 15, In the Netherlands, Volkert van der Graaf, the killer of politician Pim Fortuyn, was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
(AP, 4/15/08)
2003 Apr 17, A Dutch veterinarian (57) died from avian influenza 2 days after working on a farm where animals were infected with the bird flu. He was believed to be the 1st victim of the current epidemic.
(WSJ, 4/21/03, p.A10)
2003 May, Heineken paid $2.2 billion for BBAG, Austria's leading beer maker.
(Econ, 6/28/03, p.63)
2003 Jun 6, The Netherlands said it will send 1,100 peacekeepers to southern Iraq to join the British-led multinational stabilization force.
(AP, 6/7/03)
2003 Aug 29, The board of Air France approved a deal to combine with Dutch KLM under a holding company to form the world's #3 airline.
(WSJ, 1/2/04, p.R12)
2003 Sep 1, Marijuana went on sale Monday at Dutch pharmacies to help bring relief to thousands of patients suffering from cancer, AIDS or multiple sclerosis.
(AP, 9/1/03)
2003 Sep 22, NATO selected Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer as the alliance's new secretary general.
(AP, 9/22/03)
2003 Oct 27, Prosecutors in the Netherlands said Momir Nikolic (48), a Bosnian Serb captain who admitted participating in the mass killing of more than 7,000 Muslim boys and men in Srebrenica, should serve up to 20 years in prison. Nikolic accepted that he was on duty when 80-100 prisoners were decapitated and their corpses loaded onto trucks on July 12, 1995. In 2006 a UN appeals court reduced his 27-year sentence to 20 years.
(AP, 10/28/03)(AP, 3/8/06)
2003 Dec 12, Three Dutch Protestant churches formally agreed to put aside their ideological differences and merge, the culmination of a process that began more than 40 years ago.
(AP, 12/12/03)
2003 Dec 23, The Dutch National Flu Center said more than 15 of every 10,000 Dutch citizens have flu symptoms, enough to qualify the current outbreak as an epidemic.
(AP, 12/23/03)
2003 The Groningen Academic Hospital in Amsterdam, Netherlands, carried out 4 mercy killings of terminally ill newborn children in this year. In 2004 the hospital proposed guidelines for such procedures.
(SFC, 12/1/04, p.A17)
2004 Jan 5, Dutchman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer took over as NATO's top official.
(AP, 1/5/04)
2004 Jan 13, The European Commission proposed an initiative aimed at creating a single market for services within the European Union (EU), similar to the single market for goods act of 1986. It came to be known as Bolkestein Directive after the Dutch Commissioner Frits Bolkestein (b.1933), who launched it. Trade unions opposed it. On 16 February 2006, the European Parliament in plenary session in Strasbourg voted in favor of a compromise proposal that went a long way towards meeting the trade union demands.
(www.etuc.org/a/499)
2004 Jan 13, A Dutch high school student walked into his school's crowded cafeteria and shot Hans van Wieren (49), an economics teacher, point-blank in the head, fatally wounding him.
(AP, 1/13/04)
2004 Feb 17, The Dutch parliament approved a measure to expel 26,000 people seeking political asylum, despite objections from left-leaning political parties and human rights groups.
(AP, 2/17/04)
2004 Mar 20, Former Netherlands Queen Juliana (94), who presided over the dismantling of the centuries-old Dutch empire and witnessed the birth of a social revolution during her 32-year reign (1948-1980, died.
(AP, 3/20/04)(SSFC, 3/21/04, p.B7)
2004 Apr 11, Arjan Erkel, A Dutch aid worker who headed the North Caucasus mission of Medecins Sans Frontieres and was kidnapped in Russia nearly two years ago, was freed in a police operation in Dagestan.
(AP, 4/11/04)
2004 Jul 2, The Dutch government backed plans for "seals of quality" for well-run brothels and standard contracts for prostitutes, as well as more support for those who want to leave the world's oldest profession.
(Reuters, 7/2/04)
2004 Aug 29, Hans Vonk (63), Dutch conductor, died in Amsterdam.
(SFC, 9/1/04, p.B7)
2004 Oct, Some 200,000 people demonstrated in Amsterdam against government reforms planned by the Christian-Democrat coalition under PM Jan Peter Balkenende.
(Econ, 10/9/04, p.47)
2004 Nov 2, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh (47), the great-grandnephew of the painter Vincent, was shot and stabbed to death on an Amsterdam street after receiving death threats over “Submission," a movie he made criticizing the treatment of women under Islam. A death threat to a Dutch politician was found pinned with a knife to Gogh’s body by his Islamic attacker. Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali collaborated with Van Gogh on the film. In January prosecutors said Mohammed Bouyeri (26), the alleged killer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, ignored his victim's pleas for mercy and calmly shot him at close range before slitting his throat. In his trial in July, 2005, Bouyeri said he killed van Gogh for insulting God. In 2006 Ian Buruma authored “Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance," an account of the van Gogh murder.
(AP, 1/26/05)(SFC, 7/13/05, p.A10)(WSJ, 9/9/06, p.P8)(Econ, 9/2/06, p.74)
2004 Nov 10, Dutch police mounted a major anti-terror raid against suspects holed up in an apartment in The Hague. 2 men were arrested following a daylong siege. Jason Walters (b.1985) was arrested along with Ismail Akhnikh after a massive 14 hour siege in The Hague. In 2010 Walters, while serving a 15-year sentence said he has renounced Islamic radicalism.
(AP, 11/10/04)(SFC, 11/11/04, p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Walters)
2004 Nov 12, Dutch police raided a suspected Kurdish separatist training camp in a small village in the southern Netherlands, arresting 29 people. 38 members of the group were arrested nationwide. Jason Walters threw a hand grenade and injured several police officers in a standoff at a barricaded house in The Hague. Walters was one of 7 men later convicted for belonging to a terrorist group associated with Mohammed Bouyeri, who killed filmmaker Theo van Gogh on Nov 2. In 2008 Their conviction was overturned, but a 15-year sentence against Walters was upheld. The court also reduced the sentence for Ismail Aknikh, who was with Walters during the standoff, from 13 years to 15 months.
(AFP, 11/12/04)(SFC, 11/13/04, p.A18)(AP, 1/23/08)
2004 Dec 1, Prince Bernhard (93), father of Queen Beatrix, died in Utrecht. It was soon reported that he had acknowledged in a series of secret interviews 2 illegitimate children and the acceptance of bribes in 1976 from Lockheed to persuade the Dutch government to purchase its planes. The money was reportedly passed to charities.
(SFC, 12/15/04, p.A12)
2004 Frits Hoekstra, a former Dutch security official authored “In the Service of the BVD" (In Dienst van de BVD), a book on Dutch secret service operations. It included an account of “Project Mongol," the use of a mock Maoist movement to gather intelligence during the cold war, which the CIA called “Operation Red herring."
(WSJ, 12/3/04, p.A1)
2004 Geert Mak (b.1946), Dutch journalist, authored “In Europe: Travels through the Twentieth Century." An updated version in English was published in 2007.
(Econ, 2/24/07, p.96)
2005 Jan 1, Netherlands was forecast for 2% annual GDP growth with a population at 16.4 million and GDP per head at $38,950.
(Econ, 1/1/05, p.89)
2005 Feb 20, Ruud Lubbers, former prime minister of the Netherlands, was forced to resign as UN High Commissioner for Refugees in a sexual harassment scandal. Lubbers maintained his innocences.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruud_Lubbers)(SSFC, 2/18/18, p.C12)
2005 Feb 25, In the Netherlands diamonds and jewelry valued at $72 million (67 million euros) were taken during the hold up of a KLM armored car in a high-security portion of Schiphol airport. Part of the loot was quickly recovered from a getaway car, but diamonds worth $43 million remained missing. In January, 2017, seven suspects were arrested.
(AP, 1/21/17)
2005 Mar 30, Dutch bank ABN Amro announced a 6.3 billion euros ($8.1 billion) bid for the 87 percent of Italian bank Antonveneta it does not already own, the second foreign offer for an Italian bank in as many days.
(AP, 3/30/05)
2005 Apr 19, Dutch authorities arrested a Chechen citizen in the Netherlands in connection with the November 2 slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. A 2nd suspect was arrested May 18 in Tours, France. Both were believed to have ties to a group of Islamic fundamentalists which prosecutors dubbed the Hofstad network.
(AP, 5/27/05)
2005 May 8, President Bush paid homage in the Netherlands to the "terrible price" paid by World War II soldiers who never came home from their fight against tyranny.
(AP, 5/8/05)
2005 Jun 1, Dutch voters worried about social benefits and immigration overwhelmingly rejected the European Union constitution in what could be a knockout blow for a charter meant to create a power rivaling the United States. Slow economic growth in the Netherlands was seen as a key reason for the massive rejection of the EU constitution
(AP, 6/1/05)
2005 Jun 6, The International Criminal Court at the Hague formally announced the opening of a war crimes investigation in Sudan's Darfur region after receiving a list of 51 potential suspects from UN.
(AP, 6/6/05)
2005 Jun 9, In the Netherlands thousands of civil servants went on strike to protest declining social benefits and low wages.
(WSJ, 6/10/05, p.A6)
2005 Jun, In the Netherlands Nouriddin el Fahtni, an Islamic radical, was arrested with a loaded machine. His group was linked with the so-called "Hofstad." In 2011 a court found that Fahtni's 8-year sentence was longer than allowed by law and reduced it to 7 years and four months. His ex-wife, Soumaya Sahla, tried to get her sister, who worked at a pharmacy, to give her the home addresses of Dutch politicians. Allegedly she intended to supply the addresses to other group members who planned attacks.
(AP, 11/15/11)
2005 Jul 11, The Dutch market research firm, VNU, announced its acquisition of IMS Health, the leading supplier of research to pharmaceutical firms, for $7 billion.
(Econ, 7/16/05, p.60)
2005 Jul 12, Mohammed Bouyeri, a Muslim extremist on trial in the slaying of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, unexpectedly confessed in court, saying he was driven by religious conviction. Bouyeri was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2005 Jul 26, A Dutch court sentenced Mohammed Bouyeri (27), the killer of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, to life in prison. He was linked to the “Hofstad Group," some of whom were accused of wild plans to blow up Schiphol airport, the Dutch parliament and a nuclear reactor.
(AP, 7/26/05)(Econ, 7/16/05, p.13)
2005 Jul 27, The US charged Iraqi-born Wasem al Delaema (32), a Dutch citizen, with conspiring to kill Americans in Iraq and asked the Dutch government to extradite him for prosecution. Authorities alleged al Delaema was one of several men calling themselves the Fighters of Fallujah who plotted attacks near that Iraqi city in October 2003. In 2010 a Dutch court reduced his sentenced to 8 years and released him.
(AP, 7/30/05)(AP, 10/13/10)
2005 Jul 30, Wim Duisenberg (b.1935), Dutch-born first chief of the European Central Bank who helped create the euro currency, was found dead at a home in southeastern France.
(AP, 7/31/05)
2005 Aug 3, Dutch authorities seized 5 tons of cocaine, valued at $275 million, hidden in reels of steel cable in the Port of Rotterdam in what was described as one of the country's biggest drug busts. 13 suspects (aged 15-50) from the Netherlands, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Greece and the US, were arrested later.
(AP, 9/5/05)
2005 Sep 12, Armed men broke into an upscale Amsterdam home and kidnapped Claudia Melchers (37), the daughter of a millionaire whose fortune came from selling chemicals, including to Iraq in the 1980s. Her children were left unharmed. The kidnappers demanded 660 pounds of cocaine. Melchers was released 2 days later. It was not clear whether any ransom was paid.
(AP, 9/13/05)(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 13, The Dutch government said it plans to open an electronic file, effective Jan 1, 2007, on every child at birth as a tool to spot and protect the troubled kids of the future.
(AP, 9/13/05)
2005 Sep 26, Dutch bank ABN Amro said it had signed a contract with Banca Popolare Italiana and its allies to buy their 39.37 percent stake in Banca Antonveneta for a total outlay of 3.2 billion euros (3.85 billion dollars).
(AP, 9/26/05)
2005 Sep 27, Andre Rieu introduced violinist, Akim Camara (b.10/27/2001), during his 'Flying Dutchman Concert' at Parkstad Stadium in the Netherlands. Akim played Concerto G Major op.11 with the Johan Strauss Orchestra.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akim_Camara)
2005 Sep 28, In Australia a team from Holland, known more for its windmills than its sunshine, won a four-day, 1,860 mile, international solar-powered car race across deserts, notching up their third straight victory. The "Challenge," to design and build a car capable of crossing Australia on the power of daylight, was launched in 1987 and teams and individuals from corporations and universities throughout the world take part.
(AP, 9/29/05)
2005 Sep, Philips Corp. unveiled new LED technology for consumer lighting in Paris.
(Econ, 10/1/05, p.58)
2005 Oct 6, A UN official said the International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued arrest warrants for Joseph Kony and 5 henchmen of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan cult notorious for raping, maiming and killing children.
(Reuters, 10/6/05)(Econ, 10/22/05, p.48)
2005 Oct 12, A Dutch court blocked the extradition of a Dutch terror suspect to the United States, saying his legal rights in U.S. custody could not be guaranteed.
(AP, 10/12/05)
2005 Oct 14, Dutch police detained seven suspects in an anti-terrorism operation in three cities, including the capital, aimed at thwarting a suspected plot to attack politicians and a government building.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 17, Dutch police arrested 45 members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang and seized an assortment of weapons during nationwide raids on the group's clubhouses. Prosecutors said those arrested face charges of murder, extortion, intimidation and weapons and drug trafficking.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Oct 27, In the Netherlands a fire roared through a prison complex at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, killing 11 illegal immigrants awaiting deportation and injuring 15 other people.
(AP, 10/27/05)
2005 Nov 1, A trade union said a strike at the Dutch operations of Royal Dutch Shell PLC over pensions will be broadened to include the company's natural-gas production in the north of the Netherlands.
(AP, 11/1/05)
2005 Nov 14, It was reported that India's top oil exploration firm Oil & Natural Gas Corp. and the world's largest steel maker, the Netherlands-based Mittal Group, plan to build an oil refinery in Nigeria. They offered to invest another $6 billion in building a power plant and railroads there.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 18, A Dutch television show claimed to have knocked down a chain of 4,155,476 dominoes in a new world record, but organizers conceded the event was overshadowed by the earlier shooting of an errant sparrow. The bird caused some 23,000 dominoes to fall on Nov 14. The record was later adjusted to 4,002,146 after a legal expert ruled that a person had illegally caused 153,340 dominoes to fall.
(AP, 11/18/05)(SFC, 11/23/05, p.A2)(www.dodemus.nl/)
2005 Dec 2, In the Netherlands a broad coalition of political parties unveiled a pilot program to regulate marijuana farming on the model of tobacco, which opponents say would be tantamount to legalizing growing the drug.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 5, Frits Philips (100), Dutch businessman, grandson of the founder of Philips, died. He turned a family business into Philips Electronics in 40 years of leadership.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/dfnu4)
2005 Dec 7, The Hague war crimes tribunal sentenced Miroslav Bralo (aka Cicko), a former Bosnian Croat soldier, to 20 years in jail on eight counts of war crimes and human rights abuses committed during the 1993 Muslim-Croat war in central Bosnia.
(Reuters, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 16, A Dutch court sentenced Henk Slebos, a Dutch businessman who oversaw the sale of dual-use nuclear technology to Pakistan (1999-2002), to a year prison.
(AP, 12/16/05)
2005 Dec 19, US federal authorities fined Dutch bank ABN Amro Holding NV $80 million for violating US money-laundering laws and sanctions against Iran and Libya. Nearly a decade of violations involved billions in transactions passing through bank offices in NY and Dubai, UAR.
(WSJ, 12/20/05, p.A3)
2005 Dec 22, The Dutch government said it planned to send up to 1,400 additional troops to Afghanistan for expanded NATO peacekeeping.
(AP, 12/22/05)
2005 Dec 23, In the Netherlands a court jailed Frans van Anraat (63), a Dutch businessman, for 15 years after finding him guilty of complicity in war crimes for selling chemicals to Iraq used to carry out gas attacks, but acquitted him of genocide charges.
(Reuters, 12/23/05)
2005 In the Netherlands the fiercely anti-immigrant Freedom Party (PVV) was founded.
(Econ, 8/11/12, p.45)
2006 Jan 19, Lifeline Systems Inc. announced that it has signed a definitive merger agreement with Royal Philips Electronics under which Philips will acquire Lifeline, a leader in personal emergency response services. Royal Philips Electronics NV paid $750 million for Massachusetts based Lifeline.
(WSJ, 1/11/07, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/334w4c)
2006 Jan, In the Hague Col. Vidoje Blagojevic (56), Bosnian Serb wartime commander of the Bratunac brigade, was convicted of war crimes and complicity in genocide by the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal. In 2007 an appeals panel overturned the charge of complicity in genocide.
(AP, 5/9/07)
2006 Feb 1, In Amsterdam an experimental ban on smoking marijuana went into effect intended to reduce loitering and petty crime. “No toking" signs appeared as part of the ban on the street in "De Baarsjes," one of the city's poorer neighborhoods. Amsterdam soon began selling the "no toking" signs to prevent the official ones from being stolen as collector's items.
(AP, 2/4/06)
2006 Feb 3, Foreign Minister Ben Bot said Netherlands will send 1,200 additional troops to Afghanistan, the day after parliament gave the green light to the deployment.
(AP, 2/3/06)
2006 Feb 9, Some 58 containers were swept from the P&O Nedlloyd ship Mondriaan, which got caught in a storm about 9 miles off the coast of the island of Terschelling, in the North Sea. The next day thousands of tennis shoes, aluminum briefcases and children's toys washed onto the beach of a Dutch island, drawing crowds of treasure-hunting residents.
(AP, 2/10/06)
2006 Feb 14, Bilal Lamrani (21), a Dutch Muslim, was sentenced to three years in prison for plotting murder and attempting to recruit prison inmates to carry out terrorist attacks.
(AP, 2/14/06)
2006 Feb 24, Japan suspended all French poultry imports and threatened a similar ban on the Netherlands following reported cases of H5N1 bird flu.
(Reuters, 2/25/06)
2006 Feb 27, In the Netherlands the International Court of Justice heard arguments by Bosnia accusing Serbia of genocide, the first time a state has faced trial for humanity's worst crime.
(AP, 2/27/06)
2006 Mar 5, Milan Babic (50), the Serb leader of a rebel republic in Croatia and one of the key figures in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, committed suicide in prison in the Netherlands.
(AP, 3/6/06)
2006 Mar 10, A Netherlands court convicted 9 Muslims of belonging to a terrorist group because they incited hatred for non-Muslims. Among the defendants was Mohammed Bouyeri, the convicted killer of filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
(AP, 3/10/06)
2006 Mar 11, In the Netherlands former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic (b.1941), the so-called "butcher of the Balkans" being tried for war crimes after orchestrating a decade of bloodshed during his country's breakup, was found dead in his prison cell. Milosevic spent nearly five years at a UN detention facility in Scheveningen, a suburb of The Hague. An autopsy showed that he died of a heart attack. A Dutch toxicologist said he took unprescribed pills that neutralized heart medication.
(SFC, 3/13/06, p.A3)(WSJ, 3/14/06, p.A1)(Econ, 3/18/06, p.83)
2006 Mar 15, In the Netherlands 2 Bosnian Muslim army commanders were convicted of war crimes for failing to rein in foreign Muslim volunteers who murdered and tortured Bosnian Croats and Serbs in a 1990s "holy war."
(AP, 3/16/06)
2006 Mar 17, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a Congolese militia leader accused of conscripting and enlisting children aged under 15 for warfare (1998-2002), became the first suspect sent for trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands.
(Reuters, 3/17/06)(WSJ, 3/18/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 21, Royal Dutch Shell said it paid $465 million Canadian dollars for the rights to explore 219,000 acres in Alberta’s oil sands.
(WSJ, 3/22/06, p.A14)
2006 Mar 22, In the Netherlands an appeals chamber of the UN war crimes court dropped the life sentence of Bosnian Serb Milomir Stakic and instead sentenced him to 40 years for overseeing detention camps in Bosnia.
(AFP, 3/22/06)
2006 Mar 27, The Dutch Equal Treatment Commission ruled that a Muslim woman who refuses to shake men's hands for religious reasons cannot be barred from a Dutch teacher-training program.
(AP, 3/28/06)
2006 Apr 19, US Immigration agents arrested 7 executives and 1,187 illegal immigrants employed by IFCO Systems, a Netherlands-based manufacturer of crates and pallets, as part of a crackdown on employers of illegal workers.
(AP, 4/19/06)(SFC, 4/21/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 27, A Dutch agency said the number of reported cases of legal euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide in the Netherlands increased in 2005 for the third year in a row. Doctors reported 1,933 cases in 2005, up from 1,886 in 2004 and 1,815 in 2003.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 May 8, In the Hague the UN war crimes court sentenced Ivica Rajic, a Bosnian Croat former militia leader, to 12 years in prison. Rajic admitted that forces under his command operating in the Muslim village of Stupni Do in central Bosnia in October 1993 "forced Bosnian Muslim civilians out of their homes and hiding places, robbed them of their valuables, willfully killed Muslim men, women and children and sexually assaulted Muslim women".
(AFP, 5/8/06)
2006 May 16, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born member of Parliament, said she will resign and leave Holland after the government said she was improperly granted citizenship. She became an internationally known opponent of some violent types of Islam.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 17, Under withering criticism, the Dutch immigration minister Rita Verdonk agreed to rethink her threat to revoke the citizenship of a Somali-born former lawmaker known for her opposition to fundamentalist Islam.
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 May 22, A court found the former chief executive and chief financial officer of Dutch retailer Royal Ahold NV guilty of fraud, but ruled the pair will not have to serve prison time.
(AP, 5/22/06)
2006 May 23, The Dutch parliament approved new anti-terrorism measures that make it easier to arrest suspects without strong evidence and hold them longer without charge.
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 31, Dutch pedophiles registered a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage.
(Reuters, 5/31/06)
2006 Jun 6, The Spanish interior ministry said that 67 suspects had been arrested for accessing child porn on the Internet over the past five days. The international police operation arrested 38 in France, 10 in Spain, 9 in Slovakia, 7 in Belgium and 3 in the Netherlands.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 7, A Dutch court convicted Guus Kouwenhoven (64) of violating a UN arms embargo imposed on the regime of former Liberian President Charles Taylor and sentenced him to eight years in prison. The court found that he had traded guns for timber rights and used his lumber company to smuggle weapons that were later used by militias to commit atrocities against civilians in West Africa.
(AP, 6/7/06)
2006 Jun 16, A Russian state vodka company won Stolichnaya brand rights back from a Dutch firm.
(WSJ, 6/17/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 27, Netherlands’ Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk reversed a politically divisive decision of six weeks earlier, when she announced Hirsi Ali's 1997 naturalization was invalid because she lied on her asylum application.
(AP, 6/28/06)
2006 Jun 30, The Dutch PM Jan Peter Balkenende and his Cabinet resigned after a split in its ranks over the citizenship case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a prominent Somali-born critic of Islam.
(AP, 6/30/07)
2006 Jul 21, The Netherlands’ military chief said Dutch commandos had killed 18 enemy fighters who set up positions in rugged hills overlooking a Dutch camp in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 7/21/06)
2006 Jul 28, Dutch retail giant Ahold has announced that its 1.1 billion-dollar (941,000-euro) settlement with US and Dutch investors over the company's accounting scandal that broke in 2003 and sent share prices plummeting, is now final.
(AFP, 7/29/06)
2006 Aug 1, Dutch Cardinal Johannes Willebrands (96), a key figure in the Roman Catholic Church's efforts to improve relations with other Christians and Jews, died.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 7, Dutch police arrested a Rwandan immigrant, identified as Joseph M. (38), and charged him with war crimes and torture for his alleged role in the 1994 genocide that tore apart his home country.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Aug 17, An outbreak of strain of bluetongue, a disease transmitted to sheep by insects but which is not contagious nor known to affect humans, was detected in the southern Netherlands. Belgium and Germany soon reported cases.
(AFP, 8/28/06)
2006 Aug 19, In Ivory Coast waste, which contained hydrogen sulphide, was unloaded from a Panamanian-registered ship, the Probo Koala, at Abidjan port and then dumped in at least eight open air sites, including the city's main rubbish dump. By mid-September 6 people had died and 16,000 had sought treatment. Dutch-based Trafigura Beheer BV, one of the world's leading commodities traders, said it had chartered the ship and said the material was a "mixture of gasoline, water and caustic washings" following the unloading of a cargo of gasoline in Nigeria. The sludge was later blamed for killing 15 people and sickening 100,000 more. In 2009 Greenpeace said it had obtained internal e-mails and other documents that show Trafigura Beheer BV executives were aware the sludge was hazardous.
(Reuters, 9/7/06)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.58)(AP, 9/17/09)
2006 Aug 28, In the Netherlands prosecutors at the International Criminal Court filed their first indictment, charging Thomas Lubanga, a former Congolese warlord, for allegedly abducting and recruiting children as young as 10 to fight in Congo's brutal civil war.
(AP, 8/29/06)
2006 Sep 27, At the Hague, Netherlands, a UN tribunal sentenced Momcilio Krajisnik (61), the former speaker of the Bosnian Serb parliament, to 27 years in prison for war crimes, but acquitted him of the harsher charge of genocide.
(AP, 9/27/06)
2006 Oct 20, Corus, an Anglo-Dutch steel-maker, accepted an $8.1 billion buyout bid from Tata Steel, a smaller Indian firm.
(Econ, 10/28/06, p.74)
2006 Nov 4, Swathes of Austria, Belgium, Croatia, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands and went dark for up to an hour in the late evening as cold Germans rushing to switch on heaters sucked up electricity from Europe's interconnected networks.
(AP, 11/5/06)
2006 Nov 6, In the Netherlands 6 people were arrested on suspicion of recruiting volunteers for jihad, or Islamic holy war, prosecutors said after a year-long investigation.
(AFP, 11/7/06)
2006 Nov 22, Dutch voters picked a new parliament in an election that could determine whether the country's tight immigration rules get even tougher or follow what the opposition calls a more humane path. Dutch PM Jan Peter Balkenende’s center-right Christian Democrats won the most seats in elections, but nearly complete returns showed a sharply splintered parliament with no alliance winning a clear mandate to govern.
(AP, 11/22/06)(AP, 11/23/06)(Econ, 11/25/06, p.50)
2006 Nov 30, Amsterdam city officials said they are shutting down nearly a third of the 350 prostitution "windows" in the famed Red Light District as part of a crackdown on crime.
(AP, 11/30/06)
2006 Dec 1, In the Netherlands a court convicted four Dutch Muslims of plotting terrorist attacks against political leaders and government buildings and sentenced them to up to eight years in prison. A man in a hooded coat killed an 8-year-old boy in the corridor of a Dutch grade school. Police said they arrested a 22-year-old suspect.
(AP, 12/1/06)
2006 Dec 4, Against a backdrop of protests, the defense minister gave citations to Dutch troops who served in the UN peacekeeping force that failed to prevent the slaughter of Muslims in the Srebrenica enclave during the Bosnian war.
(AP, 12/4/06)
2006 Dec 11, The Netherlands ended transmission of "free to air" analog television, becoming the first nation to switch completely to digital signals.
(AP, 12/11/06)
2006 Daniel Estulin, Lithuanian-born writer, authored "The Secrets of the Bilderberg Club," in which he argues that the international Bilderberg group largely runs the world. It has held a secretive annual forum of prominent politicians, thinkers and businessmen since it was founded in 1954 at the Bilderberg Hotel in Holland. Estulin published a second book, Los secretos del club Bilderberg, released in September 2006. The English version, The Secrets of the Bilderberg Club, was released in the US on September 22, 2007.
(AP, 8/19/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Estulin)
2006 Some 2,000 Netherlands’ forces took control of Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province.
(Econ, 3/14/09, p.48)
2000 Rembrandt’s “Portrait of a Lady" (1632) was sold in London to Dutch art dealer Robert Noortman (1946-2007) for $28.6 million.
(WSJ, 1/27/06, p.A6)
2006 The $100-million Betuwe Line, a high-speed freight line from Rotterdam to Germany, was expected to be completed at a cost of some $5.87 billion.
(WSJ, 11/3/04, p.A12)
2007 Jan 27, The Netherlands' government extradited Iraqi-born Wesam al Delaema (32), a naturalized Dutch citizen, to the US. He was charged with involvement in terror attacks on US troops in Iraq. In 2009 Delaema was sentenced in Washington DC to 25 years in prison. His actual term was up to the Netherlands. In 2010 a court in Rotterdam slashed the sentence to eight years and released him for time served.
(AP, 1/28/07)(SFC, 4/17/09, p.A6)(AP, 10/13/10)
2007 Feb 6, Dutch media reported that the parties of the incoming centre-left Dutch government agreed to grant amnesty for some 30,000 failed asylum seekers who came to the Netherlands before April 2001.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 13, Officials in the Ivory Coast said that Trafigura, a Dutch-based oil trading company, agreed to pay $197 million to secure the release of three executives from an Ivory Coast prison and settle claims that it dumped toxic waste that killed at least 10 people in the West African nation.
(AP, 2/14/07)
2007 Feb 27, The International Criminal Court's prosecutor in Netherlands named Ahmed Muhammed Harun, a former Sudanese junior minister, and Ali Mohammed Ali Abd-al-Rahmann (aka Ali Kushayb), a janjaweed leader, as suspects in war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. Sudan rejected the legitimacy of the ICC, insisting it would try Darfur war criminals.
(Reuters, 2/27/07)(AFP, 2/27/07)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.55)
2007 Mar 5, Kosovo's former PM Ramush Haradinaj went on trial in the Netherlands at the UN tribunal on war crimes charges related to his time as a guerrilla leader in the war against Serb forces between 1998-99. Haradinaj, a former regional commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), resigned as prime minister in 2005 after being indicted for murder, rape and torture allegedly committed by forces under his command.
(Reuters, 3/5/07)
2007 Mar 6, Dutch judges ruled that a chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang is not a criminal organization, rejecting prosecutors' attempts to have the group outlawed.
(AP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 8, The Netherlands said it has ratified an accord to open to a long-secret archive of Nazi death camp records in Germany, another step toward giving scholars access to a vast collection of historically invaluable Holocaust documents.
(AP, 3/8/07)
2007 Mar 12, New Jersey based Schering-Plough Corp. said it will buy the pharmaceuticals division of Akzo Nobel NV for 11 billion euros ($14.5 billion) in cash, acquiring the Organon brand of birth control and strengthening its drug pipeline with an anti-schizophrenia medication.
(AP, 3/12/07)
2007 Mar 21, In Afghanistan Dutch ministers urged the Afghan government to step up its presence and development in the troubled south, where Taliban insurgents are most entrenched, saying NATO cannot do it alone.
(AFP, 3/21/07)
2007 Apr 13, In Tanzania the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) ordered that Michel Bagaragaza, the former head of Rwanda's national tea industry who is accused of involvement in the mass slaughter, be tried by a court in the Netherlands.
(AFP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 18, Scientists in the Netherlands said they have discovered a fungus in elephant dung that will help them break down fibers and wood into biofuel.
(Reuters, 4/18/07)
2007 Apr 20, In southern Afghanistan separate explosions killed two NATO soldiers. A Dutch soldier was killed in one explosion, the first fatality from hostile action among Dutch troops serving with NATO forces in the country.
(AP, 4/20/07)
2007 Apr 23, British bank Barclays Plc has agreed to buy Dutch rival ABN AMRO for about 67 billion euros ($91 billion) in shares as it attempts to fight off rivals to clinch the world's biggest bank takeover.
(Reuters, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 25, Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis, a Belgian-Dutch lender and Santander of Spain launched a blockbuster 72-billion-euro takeover battle for Dutch group ABN Amro, outgunning by far an agreed offer by Barclays.
(AFP, 4/25/07)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.85)(Econ, 7/19/08, p.84)
2007 May 1, Thirty people were arrested in raids across Belgium, England, and the Netherlands targeting suspected animal rights extremists.
(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 May 2, The International Criminal Court in the Hague said it has issued arrest warrants for the Sudanese government's humanitarian affairs minister and a janjaweed militia leader suspected of committing war crimes in Darfur.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 18, In the Netherlands a 400-pound gorilla escaped from his enclosure and ran amok in a Rotterdam zoo, biting one woman, dragging her around, and causing panic among dozens of visitors before he was finally subdued.
(AP, 5/18/07)
2007 May 26, The newly installed Dutch government said some 25,000 asylum-seekers whose applications for refuge were rejected will be allowed to stay, reversing the previous administration's hardline immigration policy. The amnesty will apply to asylum-seekers who arrived before April 1, 2001 and were found not to qualify but who remained in the country anyway.
(AP, 5/26/07)
2007 May 30, It was reported that coffee shops licensed to sell marijuana in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht will begin fingerprinting customers and scanning their IDs this summer to help prove they're following rules governing such sales.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 31, The Dutch news agency ANP reported that almost half of Rotterdam's coffee shops will be forced to stop selling cannabis because they are too close to secondary schools.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 Jun 3, Some 2,000 men and women participated in a series of four nude group photos in Amsterdam in the early hours of the morning as part of the latest project of US photographer Spencer Tunick.
(AP, 6/3/07)
2007 Jun 3, Pope Benedict XVI named four new saints from France, Malta, the Netherlands and Poland at a ceremony in St. Peter's Square. Among those honored was Sister Marie Eugenie de Jesus Milleret, a French nun who in 1839 founded the Religious of the Assumption to educate young girls; the Rev. George Preca of Malta, who founded the Society of Christian Doctrine in 1932 as a group of lay people who teach the faith to others; the Rev. Szymon z Lipnicy of Poland, a Franciscan monk who comforted Poles afflicted by the plague that broke out in Krakow from 1482-83 and died of it himself; and the Rev. Charles of St. Andrew (Dublin), who was born Karel Van Sint Andries Houben in the Netherlands in 1821.
(AP, 6/3/07)
2007 Jun 4, Thousands of survivors of Europe's worst massacre since World War II filed a lawsuit against the UN and the Dutch government for their failure to protect civilians in the Srebrenica safe haven when Bosnian Serb forces overran it in 1995 and slaughtered some 8,000 men.
(AP, 6/4/07)
2007 Jun 6, It was reported that Dutch students have developed powdered alcohol which they say can be sold legally to minors. The latest innovation in inebriation, called Booz2Go, is available in 20-gramme packets that cost 1-1.5 euros ($1.35-$2). Alcohol powder, classified as a flavoring, was sold in the United States three years ago.
(Reuters, 6/6/07)
2007 Jun 11, In the Netherlands an international conference on endangered species banned almost all trade in sawfish, large shark-like rays, whose long snouts bristling with teeth are in high demand among collectors.
(AP, 6/11/07)
2007 Jun 12, In the Netherlands the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal convicted Milan Martic (52), a wartime leader of Croatia's rebel Serbs, of murder, torture and persecution and sentenced him to 35 years in prison for the 1991-1995 brutal ethnic cleansing campaign of non-Serbs in Croatia.
(AP, 6/12/07)(WSJ, 6/13/07, p.A1)
2007 Jun 14, In the Netherlands four African states (South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe), after an 18-year ban, were allowed to put their ivory stocks on the market in a one-time sale as part of a hard-fought compromise reached with other Africans who tried to block the sale. The 171-member Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, approved the deal by consensus.
(AP, 6/14/07)
2007 Jun 20, A Dutch government-funded agency said China has overtaken the United States as the top emitter of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, because of surging energy use amid an economic boom. However consumption and emission levels per head remained a mere fraction of America’s.
(AP, 6/20/07)(Econ, 6/13/09, p.45)
2007 Jun 25, In the Netherlands former Liberian president Charles Taylor boycotted the resumption of his war crimes trial.
(AP, 6/25/07)
2007 Jul 12, Authorities announced a major crackdown on organized crime in Amsterdam's Red Light District, for the first time bringing national police investigators and tax authorities to bear on what had long been seen as a local problem.
(AP, 7/13/07)
2007 Aug 2, In the Netherlands Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch maker of consumer goods and food products, announced that it would cut 20,000 jobs worldwide, 11 percent of its total workforce, over the next four years.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 10, A Dutch cruise ship rescued 14 African migrants after their boat capsized in rough Mediterranean waters as they tried to reach Europe, while authorities searched for 11 other passengers who were feared drowned.
(AP, 8/11/07)
2007 Aug 13, AkzoNobel, a Dutch chemicals group under Hans Wijers, made a cash offer for the British firm ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) under John McAdam for $16 billion. The deal turned Akzo into the world’s biggest maker of paints.
(Econ, 10/04/08, p.72)(www.ici.com/main/cms/cmRender.asp?i=2162)
2007 Aug 17, The UN announced that the Netherlands has agreed to host the tribunal that will prosecute suspects in the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri.
(AP, 8/17/07)
2007 Aug 27, An official said the Dutch government will spend $38 million over the next four years to prevent both the growth of Islamic fundamentalism and right-wing nationalism.
(AP, 8/27/07)
2007 Aug 28, Jose Maria Sison (68), a Philippine communist leader, accused of commanding a rebel uprising from exile for more than 20 years was arrested by Dutch police in Utrecht on suspicion of ordering the murder of two former allies in his home country. He was accused of ordering the killings in 2003 and 2004 of Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara, who were gunned down in the Philippines.
(AP, 8/29/07)
2007 Aug, Dutch schools were forced to offer afternoon child-care following a government effort to get house-bound Dutch mothers to work.
(Econ, 9/8/07, p.55)
2007 Sep 8, In the Netherlands Carlos Hartmann (41), of Tecumseh, Mich., killed Thijs Geers (22), a Dutch student, on a train platform in the southern city of Roosendaal. Hartmann hoped to punish the Netherlands for its government's support of the war in Iraq and confessed to axing the student to death after failing to find a soldier to kill.
(AP, 9/11/07)
2007 Sep 26, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema (b.1917), the Dutch World War II resistance hero better known as the "Soldier of Orange," died at his home in Hawaii. His fame in the Netherlands leaped after he published his book, "Soldaat van Oranje" (Soldier of Orange) in 1971. He became known outside the country after the book was made into a film of the same name by director Paul Verhoeven in 1977, starring Rutger Hauer in the title role.
(AP, 9/29/07)(SFC, 10/9/07, p.B4)
2007 Oct 3, A Dutch court rejected a prosecution appeal against the release of Philippine communist leader Jose Maria Sison, accused of being involved in murders in the Philippines.
(AFP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 4, Dutch authorities said their customs officers had found 100 dead beetles stuffed with cocaine whilst examining a parcel from Peru.
(Reuters, 10/4/07)
2007 Oct 12, The Netherlands said it will ban the sale of hallucinogenic mushrooms, rolling back one element of the country's permissive drug policy after a teenager on a school visit jumped to her death after taking the narcotic.
(AP, 10/12/07)
2007 Oct 13, Dutch police arrested 11 Greenpeace activists who boarded a cargo ship to stop it unloading newsprint paper they suspected was made from ancient trees felled in Canadian forests.
(AP, 10/13/07)
2007 Oct 8, A consortium of Belgian, Scotch and Spanish banks announced that shareholders of ABN AMRO, a Dutch bank, had accepted a $101 billion offer in the world’s biggest banking transaction ever.
(Econ, 10/13/07, p.17)
2007 Oct 30, Nordin Benallal (27), a Belgian gangster dubbed "The Eel" for his skill at slipping away from Belgian prison authorities, was caught in the Netherlands two days after his latest jailbreak.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Nov 26, High school students clashed with riot police in Amsterdam and demonstrated in cities across the Netherlands to protest a national increase in classroom hours.
(AP, 11/26/07)
2007 Nov 26, Amsterdam based Royal Philips Electronics announced the purchase of Genlyte Group, based in Louisville, Kentucky, for $2.7 billion. The deal made Philips the biggest lighting firm in the American market.
(www.newscenter.philips.com/about/news/press/20071126.page)
2007 Nov, Geert Wilders, Dutch member of Parliament, revealed plans to air on television an expose of the wickedness of the Koran.
(Econ, 2/9/08, p.57)
2007 Dec 12, The UN Yugoslav war crimes tribunal at The Hague sentenced former Bosnian Serb general Dragomir Milosevic (b.1942) to 33 years imprisonment for the shelling of Sarajevo during the Bosnian war, one of the court's toughest sentences. In 2009 UN judges trimmed the sentence from 33 to 29 years but upheld his convictions for leading troops who terrorized Sarajevo with a deadly rain of shells and sniper bullets.
(AP, 12/12/07)(AP, 11/12/09)
2007 Ayaan Hirsi Ali (b.1969), Somalia born writer and resident at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, authored her autobiography “Infidel." In the Netherlands it was published under the title “My Freedom."
(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.P12)(Econ, 2/10/07, p.87)
2007 The Netherlands launched its €2.3 billion “Room for the River" project in an effort to make the country more resilient to flooding.
(Econ, 1/14/12, p.62)
2008 Jan 12, In southern Afghanistan Dutch troops killed two of their own men during a nighttime battle in Uruzgan province, and separately two allied Afghan soldiers they mistook for enemies. About 1,650 Dutch troops were deployed in Uruzgan as part of the NATO mission there. 14 Dutch troops have died since their mission began last year.
(AP, 1/13/08)
2008 Feb 5, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to the Beatles who introduced the West to transcendental meditation, died at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop.
(AP, 2/6/08)(Econ, 2/16/08, p.95)
2008 Mar 11, Three generals regarded as national heroes in Croatia went on trial at the Hague, accused of orchestrating the killing of at least 150 Serbs in a 1995 military campaign that unleashed widespread murder and pillage.
(AP, 3/11/08)
2008 Mar 13, The Dutch parliament voted unanimously to outlaw bestiality and pornography involving animals.
(AP, 3/14/08)
2008 Mar 15, Alitalia, Italy’s state-owned national airline, accepted a takeover offer worth $217 made by air France-KLM, a French-Dutch airline group. The Italian government accepted the offer on March 17.
(Econ, 3/22/08, p.73)
2008 Mar 20, In the Netherlands a new attraction officially opened in Oegstgeest called Corpus. The $31 million project organized led by businessman Henri Remmers featured a 115-foot seated human shape on the outside and large-scale exhibits of the human anatomy inside.
(SSFC, 4/6/08, p.E7)
2008 Mar 23, Network Solutions, an American network provider, said it had suspended a website that Dutch MP Geert Wilders had reserved to post his anti-Islamic film, which has sparked wide condemnation and fears of a backlash.
(AP, 3/23/08)
2008 Mar 27, Geert Wilders, a Dutch lawmaker, released his 15-minute film “Fitna," which linked verses of the Koran to violent images from terrorist attacks.
(SFC, 3/28/08, p.A4)
2008 Mar 31, Malaysia's Islamic opposition party delivered a protest note to the Netherlands' embassy over the release of an anti-Islam movie by a maverick Dutch lawmaker, while hard-line Muslims in neighboring Indonesia demanded the death of the filmmaker.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Apr 3, Alitalia edged closer to bankruptcy protection after Air France-KLM abruptly broke off talks to buy the struggling national airline and Alitalia's chairman of seven months resigned in frustration.
(AP, 4/3/08)
2008 Apr 3, The UN tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled that there was not enough evidence to convict former Kosovo PM Ramush Haradinaj of murder, torture and rape of Serbs and non-Albanians during the Kosovo war.
(AP, 4/4/08)
2008 Apr 18, In Afghanistan the son of the Netherlands' top military officer was killed by a roadside bomb, the day after his father assumed command of the Dutch armed forces.
(AP, 4/18/08)
2008 Apr 29, The International Criminal Court in The Hague published an arrest warrant for Bosco Ntaganda (35), known as "the Terminator," a Congo militia leader wanted for allegedly using child soldiers.
(Reuters, 4/29/08)
2008 May 23, The International Court of Justice awarded Singapore sovereignty over a disputed island at the eastern entrance of the Singapore Straits. The ICJ ruled in favor of Singapore in the 28-year dispute with Malaysia over a tiny but strategic uninhabited island the size of half a football field. The court, however, gave Malaysia ownership of a smaller uninhabited outcropping. Sovereignty over a third disputed cluster of rocks was left to be determined later between the countries when they sort our their territorial waters.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 25, The Amiya Scan, a Dutch freighter, was hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia. The ship and its crew of 4 Russians and 5 Filipinos were freed on June 25.
(AP, 6/26/08)
2008 May 26, Dutch scientists claimed they have completed the first sequencing of an individual woman's DNA.
(AP, 5/26/08)
2008 Jun 5, Dutch police arrested Aqueel Ur Rehman Abbasi, a 26-year-old Pakistani man, sought in Spain on terrorism charges. He was arrested in his prison cell in Vught where he was being held by the immigration and naturalization services.
(AFP, 6/6/08)
2008 Jul 1, A smoking ban went into effect in cafes, restaurants and bars across the Netherlands, as the country joins a growing list of European countries to tighten rules on tobacco use in public places. Smoking marijuana in the Netherlands' infamous "coffee shops" is still permitted under the new law, as long the drug is not mixed with tobacco.
(AFP, 7/1/08)
2008 Jul 2, Deutsche Bank acquired the Dutch corporate banking arm of ABN AMRO from Fortis, a Benelux bank, for $1.1 billion in cash.
(Econ, 7/12/08, p.83)
2008 Jul 3, Former Congolese rebel leader Jean-Pierre Bemba arrived in the Netherlands to face war crimes charges before the International Criminal Court.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 11, In the Netherlands health authorities announced a Dutch woman, infected during a holiday to Uganda by the contagious Marburg virus, had died overnight. The Marburg virus is similar to Ebola and causes heavy bleeding. About 100 people who may have had contact with the woman were under surveillance.
(AFP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 30, Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic sat in a UN jail cell after being flown to the Netherlands in the dead of night to face charges of genocide against Muslims and Croats during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
(AP, 7/30/08)
2008 Aug 12, Georgia's Pres. Mikhail Saakashvili said his government will declare that its breakaway regions are occupied territories and will designate Russian peacekeepers as occupying forces. Russia ordered a halt to military action in Georgia, after five days of air and land attacks sent Georgia's army into headlong retreat and left towns and military bases destroyed. More than 2,000 people were reported killed. A Dutch television journalist was killed overnight when Russian warplanes bombed the central Georgian city of Gori. Russia later counted 133 civilian deaths in South Ossetia. Rights activists later said fewer than 100 civilians were killed in South Ossetia.
(AP, 8/12/08)(Econ, 8/23/08, p.43)(WSJ, 9/12/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 19, The Dutch Navy and a squad of US Coast Guard raiders seized 4.6 tons (4,200 kilograms) of cocaine from a Panamanian-flagged freighter that had set sail from Venezuela. The freighter was boarded on Aug 17 and it took 36 hours of searching to find the drugs.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 23, Italian police said a gang of men badly beat a Dutch couple and raped the woman while they camped in an isolated field outside Rome during a cycling tour of Europe. The attackers also stole some US$2,200.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Sep 9, The Iraqi oil ministry said Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to a gas joint venture with Iraq worth up to four billion dollars, becoming the first Western oil major to gain access to the violence-wracked country's vast energy reserves.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 10, A Dutch court dismissed a bid by Bosnian Muslim survivors of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre to hold the Netherlands liable for its troops' failure to protect the so-called safe haven.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Mar 26, TimeRime BV was founded by Marijn Bom, Jaap Joziasse, Gerard Pastwa and Pico Wilbrenninck, as a spin-off of the Dutch webdevelopment company Hoppinger.com.
(www.timerime.com/)
2008 Sep 28, The governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg took partial control of struggling bank Fortis NV.
(AP, 9/29/08)
2008 Oct 15, The Shell Anglo-Dutch group said a Nigerian court has ordered it to hand over land around its giant Bonny oil terminal to the local population, a key demand of armed rebels in the volatile region. Shell said ruling was given some months ago but we have appealed.
(AFP, 10/15/08)
2008 Nov 1, In southern Afghanistan Dutch Major General Mart de Kruif replaced Canadian Major General Marc Lessard as head of 19,000 mostly British, Canadian, Dutch and US NATO-led soldiers of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
(AP, 11/1/08)
2008 Nov 7, An environmentalist group and four Nigerians filed suit against Royal Dutch Shell PLC in the Netherlands, claiming the company was negligent in cleaning up oil spills in Nigeria.
(AP, 11/7/08)
2008 Nov 21, Amsterdam said it will order the closure of dozens of coffee shops that sell cannabis near schools in accordance with new legislation.
(AP, 11/21/08)
2008 Nov 22, Dutch electronics giant Philips said it will cut "about five percent" of its 32,000 strong workforce in the medical division worldwide, affecting 1,600 workers.
(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Dec 6, Amsterdam unveiled plans to close brothels, sex shops and marijuana cafes in its ancient city center as part of a major effort to drive organized crime out of the tourist haven.
(AP, 12/6/08)
2008 Dec 19, Three Danish soldiers and one from the Netherlands were killed in separate incidents in Afghanistan, losing their lives just as the commitment of some countries to the fight in Afghanistan begins to wane.
(AP, 12/19/08)
2008 Netherlands ended a record period of economic expansion that lasted nearly 26 years.
(Econ, 5/21/16, p.68)
2008 In the Netherlands Saban Baran (38) was convicted of leading a gang notorious for forcing more than 100 women into prostitution, tattooing some of them to mark them as the gang's property. Prosecutors also say some women who came from Germany and eastern Europe were forced to have breast implants and illegal abortions while working in brothels in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities. In 2009 he fled while on a temporarily release from prison, where he was serving a 7½ year term, to visit his wife and newborn baby.
(AP, 9/17/09)
2009 Jan 5, Ahmed Aboutaleb (47), a Moroccan immigrant, was installed as mayor of Rotterdam, the Netherlands' second largest city, in a move hailed as a significant step for the integration of minorities in the European Union nation.
(AP, 1/5/09)
2009 Jan 19, The International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled that the United States defied its order when authorities in Texas on Aug 5, 2008, executed a Mexican convicted of rape and murder.
(AP, 1/19/09)
2009 Jan 21, Germany banned the production, sale or possession of a synthetic marijuana-like drug known as "Spice," effective as of Jan 22, becoming the 4th nation to ban the substance, marketed as an herbal room-freshener, after Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
(AP, 1/21/09)
2009 Jan 26, In the Netherlands the first-ever trial of the International Criminal Court began at The Hague with Thomas Lubanga, a Congolese militia commander, denying he committed war crimes by recruiting hundreds of child soldiers to kill and rape.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Feb 10, The British government banned Dutch right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders from visiting the country to show his anti-Islam film "Fitna" at the Houses of Parliament. In a telephone interview Wilders called the government's decision "cowardly" and vowed to defy it.
(AP, 2/10/09)
2009 Feb 11, Judges at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal voted to suspend the trial of ultranationalist Serb leader Vojislav Seselj after the prosecution said its case was being undermined by witness intimidation. The decision came after 71 prosecution witnesses had already been heard and with only a handful still to testify.
(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 Feb 23, Swedish power company Vattenfall said it had made a friendly 8.5-billion-euro (10.9-billion-dollar) offer for Nuon of the Netherlands in a takeover aimed at creating one of Europe's biggest energy groups.
(AP, 2/23/09)
2009 Feb 25, A Turkish Airlines plane with 135 people aboard slammed into a muddy field while attempting to land at Amsterdam's main airport. Nine people were killed and more than 50 were injured, many in serious condition.
(AP, 2/25/09)
2009 Feb 26, At The Hague UN judges in the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal acquitted former Serb President Milan Milutinovic of ordering a deadly campaign of terror by Serb forces against Kosovo Albanians in 1999. The court convicted five other senior Serbs and gave them prison sentences of between 15 and 22 years. The marathon trial started July 10, 2006.
(AP, 2/26/09)
2009 Mar 4, The International Criminal Court at The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. He is the first sitting head of state the court has ordered arrested. The French medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was pulling staff out of Darfur after the Sudanese government ordered them to leave. Sudan ordered at least 10 humanitarian groups expelled from Darfur.
(AP, 3/4/09)(AFP, 3/4/09)
2009 Mar 12, Dutch police arrested Giovanni Strangio (30), an Italian man wanted for the August 15, 2007, mob killings of six people in the western German city of Duisburg.
(AP, 3/13/09)
2009 Mar 17, In the Netherlands the UN criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia reduced the jail sentence of Bosnian Serb leader Momcilo Krajisnik from 27 to 20 years, quashing some convictions from a 2006 judgment.
(AP, 3/17/09)
2009 Mar 23, In the Netherlands Joseph Mpambara (40), a Hutu man, was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for the slaying of two Tutsi mothers and at least four of their children during Rwanda's 1994 genocide. The Hague District Court acquitted Mpambara of involvement in the massacre of hundreds of other Tutsis who had sought shelter in a church. He was also acquitted of raping four women and killing one of them in a separate incident.
(AP, 3/23/09)
2009 Mar 30, Malaysia's national car maker Proton and Detroit Electric, a Dutch-based company, signed a $555 million deal to make zero emission electric cars that they said would be more powerful that any existing model.
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Mar 31, At the Hague Afghan President Hamid Karzai and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton offered an olive branch to Taliban fighters who reject al-Qaida and pressed an international conference for help in strengthening Afghanistan's security forces.
(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 31, In Yemen Jan and Heleen Janszen, a Dutch couple, were kidnapped in a suburb of Sanaa and taken to a mountainous area near the capital. They were released on April 14 after Yemen's government paid more than a quarter million dollars in ransom.
(AFP, 3/31/09)(SFC, 4/1/09, p.A2)(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 6, German Chancellor Angela Merkel made an unannounced visit to northern Afghanistan to meet with her country's troops and view rebuilding efforts. She pressed President Karzai to review carefully a new law that critics say legalizes marital rape. In southern Afghanistan an insurgent rocket attack hit the Netherlands' main military base, killing one Dutch soldier and wounding 5 of his colleagues and 2 Afghan soldiers.
(AP, 4/6/09)
2009 Apr 10, In the Netherlands a man (44) pulled a gun in Rotterdam’s Laurenshof cafe after an argument and shot a patron inside, then rushed outside where he shot three more people. Several people chased the gunman when he ran outside, overpowered and disarmed him, and wrestled him to the ground until police arrived.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 18, Somali pirates attacked two ships off the Horn of Africa, seizing the Belgian-flagged Pompei carrying 10 crew. NATO forces intervened in the other assault, chasing the pirates down. Dutch commandos then freed 20 fishermen on a Yemeni dhow hijacked earlier. Seven pirates attempted to attack the Norwegian-flagged MV Front Ardenne but fled after crew took evasive maneuvers and alerted warships in the area. NATO warships and helicopters pursued the Somali pirates for seven hours after they attacked the tanker, and the high-speed chase only ended when warning shots were fired at the pirates' skiff. NATO forces boarded the skiff, where they found a rocket-propelled grenade, and interrogated, disarmed and released the pirates. The Pompei and its crew were released on June 28.
(AP, 4/18/09)(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Apr 29, Lebanon released four generals held for nearly four years in the 2005 truck-bomb assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri after a UN-backed tribunal in the Netherlands ordered them freed, setting off celebrations with fireworks and dancing.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 30, In the Netherlands 5 people died when a car slammed into a crowd at the Queen's Day festival attended by members of the royal family in the western city of Apeldoorn. A policeman as well as the assailant died the next day from their injuries. The suspect was identified by Dutch media as Karst Tates (38). Neighbors said Tates recently was fired from his job as a security guard and was to be evicted from his home in the small eastern town of Huissen because he could no longer afford the rent. An injured woman died a week later bringing the total to 7 victims.
(AFP, 4/30/09)(AP, 5/1/09)(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 1, In the Netherlands robbers at the Scheringa Museum for Realism in Spanbroek stole "Adolescence," a 1941 gouache by Salvadore Dali and "La Musicienne," an oil painting from 1929 by Polish-born art deco painter Tamara de Lempicka. The museum houses the art collection of wealthy Dutch banker Dirk Scheringa and his wife.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 7, Somali pirates captured the Netherlands Antilles-flagged MV Marathon in the Gulf of Aden. The ship listed 19 Ukrainian crew members. One of the crew members died from a gun shot wound. On June 23 the Dutch Defense Ministry reported that the ship was released.
(AP, 5/7/09)(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 May 11, In the Netherlands thieves pried open the emergency door of the IJsselstein City Museum near Utrecht. They made off with six 17th- and 19th-century landscape paintings, the second major art heist in 10 days in the Netherlands.
(AP, 5/12/09)
2009 May 15, Hugh Van Es (67), a Dutch photojournalist, died in Hong Kong. He covered the Vietnam War and recorded the most famous image of the fall of Saigon in 1975, a group of people scaling a ladder to a CIA helicopter on a rooftop.
(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 17, The International Criminal Court said Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, a Sudanese rebel leader, has turned himself in to face war crimes charges for an attack that killed 12 African Union peacekeepers in Darfur in September 2007.
(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 Jun 4, About 375 million voters across the 27-nation European Union began 4 days of voting, to appoint candidates to 736 seats on the assembly in the second-largest election in the world after India's. Voting began in Britain and the Netherlands.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 7, Zimbabwe PM Morgan Tsvangirai launched a three-week trip to the West. He spoke at The Hague saying he is seeking re-engagement, not touring with a "begging bowl" asking for aid. Pres. Robert Mugabe launched a new pact aimed at tearing down trade barriers across 19 African nations with appeals for external investors and an end to domestic conflicts.
(AP, 6/7/09)(AFP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 15, The Hague-based International Criminal Court ordered former Congolese rebel warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba to stand trial on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, rape and pillaging.
(Reuters, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 30, The Dutch Supreme Court upheld the war crimes conviction of businessman Frans van Anraat for selling chemicals to Iraq, which were turned into poison gas and unleashed in 1988 by the regime of Saddam Hussein on Kurds and Iranians. The court shaved six months off Anraat’s 17-year sentence because his case took so long.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jul 20, A UN war crimes court in the Hague convicted Milan Lukic and Sredoje Lukic, two Bosnian Serb cousins, for a "callous" 1992 killing spree that included locking scores of Muslims in two houses and burning them alive in Visegrad. He sentenced Milan to life in prison and Sredoje to 30 years.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Aug 28, Iceland's parliament approved a controversial deal to pay back billions of euros (dollars) lost by British and Dutch savers in the collapse of the online Icesave bank. The deal provided for the payment of 3.8 billion euros by 2023 to the British and Dutch governments for the compensation they forked out to disgruntled savers.
(AFP, 8/28/09)
2009 Sep 2, Dutch prosecutors said they will charge an Arab cultural group under hate speech laws for publishing a cartoon that suggests the death of 6 million Jews during World War II is a fabrication.
(AP, 9/2/09)
2009 Sep 15, In the Netherlands the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal announced it has approved the early release from prison of former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic (79) after she served two-thirds of her 11-year sentence for persecution.
(AP, 9/15/09)
2009 Sep 20, Trafigura, a Netherlands-based oil trading company, said it has agreed to a settlement with people who claim they fell ill after a tanker dumped hundreds of tons of waste around the Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan in 2006. Trafigura paid Ivory Coast's government euro152 million (US$197 million) in 2007 to assist in cleaning up the waste without admitting responsibility.
(AP, 9/20/09)
2009 Oct 14, A hot air balloon crashed in a southern Chinese resort town with dramatic limestone formations, killing four Dutch tourists.
(AP, 10/14/09)
2009 Oct 27, At The Hague Radovan Karadzic boycotted his UN trial for a second day while prosecutors began outlining their genocide case against the former Bosnian Serb leader.
(AP, 10/27/09)
2009 Oct 30, ING, the biggest bank in the Netherlands, said that it would dismember itself by splitting its banking and insurance business and selling its American online banking arm.
(Econ, 10/31/09, p.85)
2009 Nov 1, Mohamud Said Omar (43) was arrested at the request of US authorities in an asylum seeker's center in Dronten, Netherlands. US authorities suspected Omar of bankrolling the purchase of weapons for Islamic extremists and helping other Somalis travel to Somalia in 2007 and 2008. He had a US green card and was also suspected of recruiting youth in Minneapolis for Islamic terrorism in Somalia.
(AP, 11/13/09)
2009 Nov 5, In the Netherlands the UN war crimes tribunal decided that former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic will be appointed a lawyer to represent him whenever he fails to appear in court.
(AP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 5, A consortium grouping US and European oil giants Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC signed a $50 billion deal to develop one of Iraq's most prized oil fields, as the OPEC nation looks to revamp its battered energy sector. The deal to develop the 8.6 billion West Qurna Stage 1 field is the third such agreement in less than a week between a foreign oil consortium and Iraq, which sorely needs foreign company expertise and funding to revive an oil sector hammered by years of neglect, sanctions and, most recently sabotage.
(AP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 13, The Dutch government announced to bring the polluter-pays principle into the home garage. As of 2012 rather than an annual road tax for their cars, drivers will pay a few cents for every kilometer on the road, in a plan aimed at breaking chronic traffic jams and cutting carbon emissions.
(AP, 11/14/09)
2009 Nov 18, The United States attended a meeting of the International Criminal Court's management board at The Hague for the first time in a sign it has stopped shunning the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal.
(AP, 11/18/09)
2009 Nov 23, UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, announced today that its renewable jet fuel process technology was used to convert second-generation, renewable feedstocks to green jet fuel for a biofuel demonstration flight by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.
(http://tinyurl.com/yb877n3)(SFC, 11/24/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 2, Turkish diplomat Ahmet Uzumcu was elected to be director of the 188-nation Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, based in The Hague. He takes over next July. He said that he will pursue the last seven holdouts (Angola, Egypt, Israel, North Korean, Myanmar, Somalia and Syria) to get them to sign a disarmament treaty and submit weapons stockpiles for inspection.
(AP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 2, Somali pirates on speedboats tried to board the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged BBC Togo, but were repelled after firing on the vessel. 13 pirates then fled to a larger fishing boat 150 nautical miles (280km) south of Salalah where a Dutch frigate captured them.
(AP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 4, Amsterdam City councilwoman Marijke Vos planted a sapling, in the Amsterdamse Bos park. It was derived from a 150-year-old chestnut tree that once cheered Anne Frank as her family hid from the Nazis. 149 Others will be planted around the world.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 20, Dutch sports carmaker Spyker said it has made a new bid for Sweden's Saab Automobile, two days after General Motors said it would close the loss-making unit.
(AFP, 12/20/09)
2009 Dec 30, The Netherlands announced it will immediately begin using full body scanners for flights heading to the United States, issuing a report that called the failed Christmas Day airline bombing a "professional" terror attack.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Luuk van Middelaar, Dutch political philosopher, authored “The Passage to Europe: How a Continent Became a Union." In 2012 it won the European Book Prize. In 2013 it came out in English.
(Econ, 5/25/13, p.86)
2009 In the Netherlands actor and comedian Herman Koch authored his novel “The Dinner." It went on to sell over 1 million copies in 24 countries and in 2012 became available in English.
(Econ, 8/11/12, p.72)
2009 In the Netherlands 6 people died this year from Q-fever. Some 2,300 had become infected by Coxiella burnetti, the infectious bug responsible for the disease. The bug is released into the air during birthing or miscarriages by infected goats. 40,000 pregnant goats were slated to be destroyed in early 2010.
(Econ, 1/9/10, p.52)
2010 Jan 11, Dutch brewer Heineken said it will buy the beer-making operations of Mexico’s Femsa, the maker of Dos Equis and Sol beers, in an all-share deal valued at $5.5 billion, excluding debt.
(SFC, 1/12/10, p.D3)
2010 Jan 13, Edgar Vos (78), "the emperor of Dutch fashion," died of a heart attack while on vacation in Florida. Vos built a chain of 15 stores across the Netherlands, where he sold designer clothes cut to bring out the best from all figures and tailored to most budgets.
(AP, 1/14/10)
2010 Jan 21, A Dutch airlift brought 106 children from quake-ravaged Haiti to new lives in the Netherlands and Luxembourg, as anxious families waited to hug children they had been in the process of adopting for months.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 26, General Motors agreed to sell Saab, its Swedish subsidiary, to Spyker Cars, a Dutch maker of sports cars, for $74 million in cash and preference shares worth $326 million.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.76)
2010 Feb 3, At The Hague appeals judges said the International Criminal Court was wrong when it decided that Sudan's Pres. Omar al-Bashir can't be charged with genocide in Darfur. The unprecedented ruling could lead al-Bashir's indictment with humanity's worst crime.
(AP, 2/3/10)
2010 Feb 16, Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it was freezing executive pay and revamping bonus policy in the wake of a shareholder rebellion at its annual meeting last year.
(AP, 2/16/10)
2010 Feb 20, The Dutch coalition government collapsed over whether to extend the country's military mission in Afghanistan, leaving the future of its 1,600 soldiers fighting there uncertain. An early election is now expected.
(AP, 2/20/10)
2010 Mar 1, Daniel Houghton (25), a former MI6 spy, was arrested after British intelligence posed as the potential buyer of top secret files on intelligence gathering techniques. Prosecutor Piers Arnold later said Houghton, who is a dual Dutch and British national, is accused of copying top secret files from the domestic agency MI5 to CD and DVDs while working for the MI6 overseas intelligence service between September 2007 and May 2009. On Sep 3, 2010, Houghton was sentenced to one year in prison. He was expected to walk free as he has already spent 184 days in custody.
(AP, 3/3/10)(AFP, 9/3/10)
2010 Mar 5, Dutch anti-Islam maverick Geert Wilders (46) took his cinematic assault on the Quran to Britain's House of Lords, sparking heated debate inside the building and angry protests outside. Wilders screened his 15-minute film "Fitna" to about 60 people, including a half-dozen peers, in a wood-paneled committee room in Parliament. The film associates the Quran with terrorism, homophobia and repression of women.
(AP, 3/5/10)
2010 Mar 8, In Australia Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina joined forces for a 2.96 billion US dollar bid for Australia's Arrow Energy, hoping for a bigger slice of the country's booming liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector.
(AP, 3/8/10)
2010 Mar 12, A union representing Dutch nurses launched a national campaign against demands for sexual services by patients who claim it should be part of their standard care.
(Reuters, 3/11/10)
2010 Mar 25, A Netherlands court fined the owner of what was the biggest marijuana-selling "coffee shop" in the country almost euro10 million ($13.34 million) for violating liberal Dutch drug laws, in what is seen as a test for authorities seeking to rein in the growth of such cafes.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Apr 4, Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean seized the Taipan, a Germany-flagged freighter. The Dutch navy captured 10 Somalis hours after the seizure. In 2012 the Somalis were convicted on piracy charges and sentenced to prison terms of 2-7 years.
(SFC, 10/20/12, p.A2)
2010 Apr 9, In the Netherlands the Political Reformed Party, known by its Dutch acronym SGP, a fundamentalist Christian political party led entirely by men, was told by the Netherlands' Supreme Court that it must accept women in leadership roles.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 20, The Dutch Supreme Court overturned the acquittal of Guus Kouwenhoven, a businessman accused of supplying arms to former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor, and ordered a new appeals hearing in the case. He had been convicted in 2006 of breaching a UN arms embargo by trading weapons for timber in Liberia and sentenced to eight years imprisonment, but the conviction was overturned in 2008.
(AP, 4/20/10)
2010 May 4, Royal Dutch Shell said it spilled nearly 14,000 tons of oil into the creeks of the Niger Delta in 2009 and blamed thieves and militants for the environmental damage.
(SFC, 5/5/10, p.A2)
2010 May 6, Julio Alberto Poch (57), a pilot who allegedly flew death flights for Argentina's military dictatorship, was extradited from Spain. Spain acted on Argentina's request, arresting him in front of his passengers and family during a stop in Valencia on what was supposed to be his final flight back to the Netherlands before retiring from Transavia.
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 12, A Libyan Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330-200 carrying 104 people crashed on approach to Tripoli's airport. Ruben van Assouw, a Dutch boy (9), was the only known survivor. The Royal Dutch Tourism Board said 61 of the dead came from the Netherlands.
(AP, 5/12/10)(AFP, 5/14/10)
2010 May 19, Royal Dutch Shell PLC announced it will spend more than $2 billion to sharply reduce the burning off of natural gas at its oil wells in Nigeria, gases that when burned contribute to global warming and sicken people living nearby.
(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 Jun 4, A Dutch court ordered 10 suspected Somali pirates to be extradited to Germany, where Hamburg prosecutors want to charge them with hijacking a German container ship.
(AP, 6/4/10)
2010 Jun 9, The Netherlands held parliamentary elections. Voters appeared likely to shift the Netherlands to the right in national elections dominated by concerns over the rising national debt and discontent over immigration. Dutch politicians scrambled the next day to sort out who will form the country's next government, after polarized voters backed parties on both the right and the left with very different ideas on budget cuts and Muslim immigration. With 99.5 percent of votes counted, the pro-business VVD led Labor 31 seats to 30 in the 150-seat parliament.
(AP, 6/9/10)(AP, 6/10/10)
2010 Jun 17, A Dutch court sentenced five Somali pirates, the first to stand trial in Europe, to five years in prison for attacking a Dutch Antilles-flagged ship in 2009.
(AP, 6/17/10)
2010 Jun 17, Royal Dutch Shell PLC warned Nigeria that $40 billion of planned investments in the oil-rich nation could be in jeopardy if lawmakers pass a proposed bill to overhaul the petroleum industry. Government officials say the bill would allow more oil money to return to Nigeria's people. The bill also would require the government-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., which partners with all foreign oil firms, to seek profits like a private business and not rely on government subsidies.
(AP, 6/17/10)
2010 Jul 6, Britain's Queen Elizabeth (84) addressed the UN for the first time since1957. The queen's 10-minute speech to a special session of the General Assembly was finished before Netherlands and Uruguay returned to their soccer match in Cape Town. Netherlands moved to the finals after beating Uruguay 3-2.
(Reuters, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 9, Prosecutors at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague cited Ratko Mladic's diaries, seized in a raid on his wife's Belgrade home in February, in a motion to reopen the trial of former Bosnian Croat political leader Jadranko Prlic and five other political and military Croat officials that ended two months ago.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 11, In South Africa Spain beat Holland for soccer’s World Cup.
(AP, 7/12/10)
2010 Jul 23, A Dutch court slapped a one million euro fine on Trafigura, a Swiss-based company whose chartered ship dumped hazardous waste the Ivory Coast says killed 17 people on its soil. It was also found guilty of concealing what the charge sheet referred to as the "harmful nature" of the waste on board the Probo Koala ship that arrived at the port of Amsterdam on July 2, 2006, but was redirected to the Ivory Coast.
(AFP, 7/23/10)
2010 Jul 27, Dutch judges gave the green light for a teenage girl's bid to become the youngest person to sail around the world solo, thwarting a bid to have Laura Dekker (14) kept in child care.
(AFP, 7/27/10)
2010 Aug 1, Dutch troops ended their mission in Afghanistan after four "proud" years, in a departure experts say signals the beginning of a drawdown of foreign forces that will leave a worrying void. Troops held a "change of command" ceremony at the main military base in central Uruzgan province where most of the country's 1,950 soldiers have been deployed. About 150 Dutch fighting forces were left in country, and they are set to leave next week.
(AFP, 8/1/10)(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 1, UNESCO added five cultural sites to its World Heritage List, including the Imperial Citadel of Thang Long-Hanoi in Vietnam. The other new sites include the historic monuments of Dengfeng in China, the archaeological site Sarazm in Tajikistan, the Episcopal city of Albi in France and a 17th-century canal ring in Amsterdam.
(AP, 8/1/10)
2010 Aug 5, In the Netherlands Naomi Campbell testified before a war crimes tribunal that she had received some "dirty-looking stones" after a 1997 dinner party with former Liberian ruler Charles Taylor. Still, the supermodel said she didn't know if the stones were actually diamonds or if the gift came from Taylor himself. Campbell said that she gave the stones to a friend, Jeremy Ratcliffe, who was the director of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, intending he use them for charity.
(AP, 8/5/10)
2010 Aug 17, Amsterdam police found 7,000 kg of marijuana and hashish in a warehouse near Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, after arresting a 35-year-old man on suspicion of selling narcotics. The estimated street value was 40 million euros (32.8 million pounds).
(Reuters, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 20, Conny Mus (59), a veteran Dutch correspondent in the Middle East who covered conflicts from Romania's revolution to the wars in Iraq, died while on vacation in his home country.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 21, Laura Dekker, a 14-year-old Dutch sailor, departed in secrecy from Gibraltar on her quest to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world, avoiding the media because her manager said she didn't want the attention.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 23, In the Netherlands the monumental chestnut tree that cheered Anne Frank while she was in hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam was toppled by wind and heavy rain.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 25, Cosan, Brazil’s biggest sugar and ethanol producer, signed a $12 billion joint venture with Royal Dutch Shell.
(Econ, 9/4/10, p.41)
2010 Sep, The FBI and its counterparts in Ukraine, the Netherlands and Britain took down a cyber-theft ring they first got wind of in May 2009 when a financial services firm tipped the bureau's Omaha, Neb., office to suspicious transactions. Since then, the FBI's Operation Trident Breach has uncovered losses of $14 million and counting.
(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Oct 1, In the Netherlands more than 100 people protesting the outlawing of squatting at unused buildings clashed with police in Amsterdam's historic center, throwing stones, setting fires and erecting barricades.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 10, Curacao, St Maarten, Bonaire, Saba and St Eustatius were scheduled to go their own ways. The former Dutch Caribbean colonies of Curacao and St. Maarten became autonomous countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in a change of constitutional status dissolving the Netherlands Antilles.
(Econ, 5/1/10, p.38)(Reuters, 10/10/10)
2010 Oct 14, Dutch Queen Beatrix swore in her country's new right-wing minority Cabinet, ushering in a new era of budgetary austerity and tighter immigration rules.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 22, In the central Netherlands a collision between the German cargo ship Duisburg Ruhror and a small Dutch passenger ferry on a canal took the life of ferry skipper Hendrik Plomp (56). Divers soon recovered his body.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Nov 23, Police in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands arrested at least 10 people on suspicion of planning an Islamist militant attack in Belgium.
(Reuters, 11/23/10)
2010 Nov 26, The Dutch navy said it has captured 20 suspected pirates off the Somali coast in two operations in the last week and is holding them on a warship on suspicion of involvement in hijacking a South African yacht.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 28, More than 250,000 classified US State Department documents were released by online whistleblower WikiLeaks. Among the leaked memos was information that Iranian Red Crescent ambulances were used to smuggle weapons to Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group during its 2006 war with Israel. Memos said the "IRC shipments of medical supplies served also to facilitate weapons shipments." Documents also detailed concerns by US officials in Baghdad about Iran’s influence on Iraq. Memos also said King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program to stop Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon. One cable revealed that the US kept nuclear weapons in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Turkey.
(AP, 11/28/10)(Econ, 12/4/10, p.35)
2010 Nov 29, A Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship, Karam 1, sank after colliding with the Dutch tanker Alessandro DP, 10 miles (16 km) off Cape Emine in the Black Sea. 5 sailors were rescued and 5 were missing.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Dec 3, The Netherlands' justice minister and five southern Dutch cities said they will implement new restrictions on marijuana cafes after a wave of drug-related gangland violence.
(AP, 12/3/10)
2010 Dec 7, In the Netherlands a teacher (27) was arrested on suspicion of molesting dozens of very young children. The man's computers containing child pornography were seized and he later confessed to dozens of sex crimes allegedly committed over the past year and a half.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 9, Netherlands arrested a young hacker who confessed to participating in attacks by WikiLeaks sympathizers on websites, including MasterCard, PayPal and Visa.
(AP, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 21, Netherlands-based Royal DSM NV, the world’s largest maker of vitamins, agreed to buy Martek Biosciences, a US maker of nutritional ingredients for baby food, for $1.09 billion.
(SFC, 12/22/10, p.D3)
2010 Dec 24, Dutch police arrested 12 Somali men in the key port city of Rotterdam on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack. Dutch authorities on Dec 26 cleared five of the 12 Somali men who were detained Christmas Eve on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack. By Dec 30 the remaining Somalis were released but 3 were still considered suspect.
(AP, 12/25/10)(AP, 12/27/10)(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 The Netherlands enter for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries sent Cees van Casteren to Bolivia to help local vintners break into Europe. Bolivia's modern wine industry had started in the 1960s when the Kohlberg family brought vines from Europe to make wine to relieve a family member's heart condition.
(Econ, 4/25/20, p.24)
2011 Jan 2, In Iran Sahra Bahrami, a Dutch-Iranian woman, was sentenced to death for drug smuggling. Bahrami reportedly was arrested in Dec 2009 after taking part in anti-government demonstrations. She also faced trial and the possibility of another death sentence, likely within two months, for allegedly belonging to an armed opposition group.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 6, In the Netherlands the daily Het Parool reported that prostitutes in Amsterdam will be required to pay taxes this year. Over 3,000 sex workers were affected by the move.
(SFC, 1/7/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 26, Environmental groups accused Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell of destroying lives and the environment in the Niger Delta, and urged Dutch MPs to intervene as the company defended its record.
(AFP, 1/26/11)
2011 Jan 29, In Iran Zahram Bahrami, an Iranian-Dutch woman detained after participating in protests against Iran's disputed presidential election in 2009, was hanged. She was allegedly hanged for possessing and selling drugs. The Dutch government froze official contacts with Iran to protest the hanging.
(AP, 1/29/11)(SSFC, 1/30/11, p.A4)
2011 Feb 27, In Libya hundreds of armed anti-government forces backed by rebel troops who control the city closest to the capital Tripoli prepared to repel an expected offensive by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi surrounding Zawiya, a city of 200,000. Armed forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi captured 3 Dutch marines and their helicopter during a botched evacuation mission after landing near Sirte in a Lynx helicopter from the navy ship HMS Tromp.
(AP, 2/27/11)(AP, 3/3/11)
2011 Mar 2, In the Netherlands prosecutors at the International Criminal Court said they will open a formal investigation into possible crimes against humanity in Libya.
(AP, 3/2/11)
2011 Mar 11, In the Netherlands the war crimes trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, once among West Africa's most powerful figures, ended with judges expected to take months to reach a verdict on whether he can be linked to murders and amputations during Sierra Leone's civil war.
(AP, 3/11/11)
2011 Apr 3, Dutch marines killed 2 pirates and captured 16 others during an operation to free a hijacked Iranian fishing boat of Somalia.
(www.dailybulletin.com/ci_17767176)
2011 Apr 8, Netherlands’ officials said the government will cut 12,000 military jobs as part of spending cuts to balance the budget by 2015.
(SFC, 4/9/11, p.A2)
2011 Apr 9, In the Netherlands Tristan van der Vlis (24), opened fire at the Ridderhof mall in Alphen aan den Rijn with an automatic rifle killing 6 people and wounded least 17 others. He fired more than 100 rounds in a few minutes and ended the rampage by shooting himself fatally in the head.
(AP, 4/10/11)(AP, 4/11/11)
2011 Apr 15, In the Netherlands Gen. Ante Gotovina (55), a commander hailed by Croats as a hero of the Balkan conflict, was convicted of war crimes by a UN court and sentenced to 24 years in prison for a campaign of shelling, shootings and expulsions aimed at driving Serbs out of a Croatian border region in 1995.
(AP, 4/15/11)
2011 Apr 23, Max van der Stoel (86), former Dutch human rights watchdog for Iraq and the first High Commissioner on National Minorities at the 54-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), died.
(AP, 4/24/11)
2011 May 21, In the Netherlands the Salesian order's top official, Delegate Herman Spronck, confirmed in a statement that a priest, identified by RTL Nieuws as 73-year-old "Father Van B.," had served on the board of "Martijn," a group that campaigns to end the Dutch ban on adult-child sex.
(AP, 5/21/11)
2011 May 27, The Dutch government said it would start banning tourists from buying cannabis from "coffee shops" and impose restrictions on Dutch buyers by the end of the year.
(Reuters, 5/27/11)
2011 Jun 16, Capital One Financial agreed to pay $9 billion in cash and stock for ING Direct USA, the US subsidiary of ING Group, a Dutch banking and insurance giant.
(SFC, 12/29/11, p.D6)(http://tinyurl.com/3v6mthz)
2011 Jun 23, A Dutch court acquitted right-wing politician Geert Wilders of hate speech charges finding that his inflammatory comments about Muslims were protected by rules governing discourse in a free society.
(SFC, 6/24/11, p.A5)
2011 Jun 27, The International Criminal Court in the Netherlands issued arrest warrants for Moammar Gadhafi, his son Seif, and his intelligence chief for crimes against humanity in the Libyan leader's four-month battle to cling to power.
(AP, 6/27/11)
2011 Jun 28, The Dutch parliament agreed with the Dutch Party for the Animals (pvdD) and passed a bill banning the slaughter of livestock without stunning it first, removing an exemption that has allowed Jews and Muslims to butcher animals according to centuries old dietary rules.
(SFC, 6/28/11, p.A2)(Econ, 12/21/13, p.80)
2011 Jul 5, An appeals judges ruled that the Netherlands was responsible for the deaths of three Bosnian Muslim men slain by Serbs during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, ordering the Dutch government to compensate the men's relatives.
(AP, 7/5/11)
2011 Jul 7, In the Netherlands a large section of the roof of a soccer stadium collapsed during off-season construction work in Enschede, killing one person and leaving 10 hospitalized.
(AP, 7/7/11)
2011 Jul 9, Interpol, at the request of the Netherlands-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon, issued its highest-level international alerts against four Hezbollah men indicted in the 2005 slaying of Lebanon's former prime minister.
(AP, 7/9/11)
2011 Jul 20, The Dutch government announced plans to equip 125 police officers with mobile devices that can scan detainees' fingerprints to check whether they are illegal immigrants.
(AP, 7/20/11)
2011 Jul 20, Dutch prosecutors released some details about four Dutch citizens arrested on suspicion of involvement in cyber attacks as part of the loosely-knit hackers group known as "Anonymous." They said the suspects are thought to have belonged to a splinter group called AntiSec NL, which hacked the sites of dating service Pepper.nl and communications software maker Nimbuzz, among others.
(AP, 7/20/11)
2011 Aug 3, British officials said they have seized about 300 million pounds ($492 million) worth of cocaine in a record-setting drug bust on a pleasure boat. 1.2 tons of cocaine were found hidden in a specially-designed compartment on a boat docked in southern England in June and it took six days of searching the Louise to find the drugs. Six men arrested were all Dutch nationals.
(AP, 8/3/11)
2011 Aug 12, A Dutch court sent two Somalis to jail for up to seven years for hijacking a South African yacht last year and seizing a South African couple who are still missing. Three others also were convicted of piracy. The five men were caught by the Dutch navy in the Gulf of Aden in November, heavily armed with machine guns and bazookas.
(AP, 8/12/11)
2011 Aug 22, Royal Dutch shell said sabotage in Nigeria has led to six oil spills from one Shell pipeline since the start of the month, while damage to another line has caused a temporary production halt.
(AFP, 8/22/11)
2011 Sep 6, At the Hague, Netherlands, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal sentenced Gen. Momcilo Perisic, the former chief of the Yugoslav army, to 27 years imprisonment for providing crucial military aid to Bosnian Serb forces responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre and for a deadly four-year campaign of shelling and sniping in Sarajevo.
(AP, 9/6/11)
2011 Sep 29, In the Netherlands author Hella Haasse (93), an award-winning author best known for chronicling colonial life in the Dutch East Indies, died. Haasse's first novel, "Oeroeg" (1948), was an instant hit and has been read at school by generations of Dutch children.
(AP, 9/30/11)
2011 Oct 7, The Dutch government said it would move to reclassify high-potency marijuana alongside hard drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy.
(SFC, 10/8/11, p.A2)
2011 Dec 2, Royal Bank of Scotland said it has sold its 918 tenanted pubs in Britain to Dutch brewer Heineken for 422 million pounds, another step in its exit from non-core businesses following a government bailout.
(Reuters, 12/2/11)
2011 Dec 20, American authorities said they had asked the world’s leading scientific journals to withhold research on bird flu after researcher teams in Madison and Rotterdam engineered the virus so that it could be transmitted through the air from ferret to ferret. In January scientists agreed to suspend their research for 60 days. On April 20, 2012, the US reversed its stance. On April 27 the Dutch government gave Ron Fouchier permission to publish his paper. A 2nd paper by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison was published in May.
(www.economist.com/node/21542156)(SFC, 1/21/12, p.A4)(Econ, 5/5/12, p.78)(Econ, 6/23/12, p.81)
2011 Dec 23, The International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague freed Rwandan rebel Callixte Mbarushimana and returned him to France after dismissing murder and rape charges against him. He spent 11 months in detention and was the first war crimes suspect to be arrested and freed without trial since the court began work in 2002.
(AP, 12/23/11)
2011 In the Netherlands Charlotte van den Berg (20), a student working part-time in Amsterdam’s city archives, discovered letters from Jewish Holocaust survivors complaining that the city was forcing them to pay back taxes and late fines on property seized after they were deported to Nazi death camps. By 2014 a review found 217 cases in which the city had demanded that returning Jews pay the taxes and penalty fees.
(SSFC, 4/20/14, p.A9)
2011 Japanese and Dutch scientists said had created a version of bird flu that could be transmitted between mammals by the respiratory route. The announcement prompted the Netherlands to treat the relevant academic papers as sensitive goods subject to export controls.
(Econ, 4/25/20, p.20)
2012 Jan 6, In Peru Dutch citizen Joran Van der Sloot said he would "sincerely confess" to killing a Peruvian woman in 2010 in a plea strategy that aimed to reduce his eventual prison sentence, prompting judges to suspend the trial until Jan 11.
(Reuters, 1/6/12)
2012 Jan 11, In Peru Joran van der Sloot (24) pleaded guilty to the 2010 murder of a Peruvian woman he met at a Lima casino who was killed five years to the day after the unsolved disappearance in Aruba of an American teen in which he remains the main suspect. On Jan 13 he was sentenced to 28 years in prison. Due to time already served, his sentence would end in June 2038.
(AP, 1/11/12)(AP, 1/13/12)
2012 Jan 16, Gustav Leonhardt (b.1928), Dutch keyboard player and father of the early-music movement, died in Amsterdam.
(Econ, 1/28/12, p.90)
2012 Jan 21, Dutch sailor Laura Dekker (16) set foot aboard a dock in St. Maarten, ending a yearlong voyage aboard a sailboat named "Guppy" that apparently made her the youngest person ever to sail alone around the globe. She had set out from St. Maarten on Jan. 20, 2011.
(AP, 1/21/12)
2012 Feb 8, In the Netherlands organizers of the legendary Eleven Cities Tour skating marathon ruled the ice is to thin for it to go ahead.
(AP, 2/9/12)
2012 Mar 14, The International Criminal Court at The Hague convicted Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga of using child soldiers, a verdict hailed as a legal landmark in the fight against impunity for the world's most serious crimes.
(AP, 3/14/12)
2012 Mar 19, UPS under Scott Davis announced that it would buy TNT Express, a Dutch company, for $6.8 billion.
(Econ, 3/24/12, p.67)
2012 Apr 5, Dutch PM Mark Rutte denounced Suriname's decision to grant amnesty to President Desi Bouterse for crimes committed under his earlier military dictatorship as "totally unacceptable" and recalled the country's ambassador from its former colony in protest.
(AP, 4/5/12)
2012 Apr 21, In the Netherlands two trains in Amsterdam were involved in a head-on collision that seriously wounded 42 people. One passenger died the next day.
(AFP, 4/22/12)
2012 Apr 22, A prize-winning, super-energy-saving 10-watt LED bulb from Dutch electronics giant Philips, went on sale to coincide with Earth Day. The bulb, said to last over 20 years, has won the US Department of Energy's "Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prize" and was now available from retailers for $50, down from an initial $60 price tag.
(AFP, 4/22/12)
2012 Apr 23, Dutch PM Mark Rutte and his Cabinet resigned after failing to reach agreement on reducing the country's budget to meet European guidelines.
(AP, 4/23/12)
2012 Apr 26, In the Netherlands an international court convicted former Liberian President Charles Taylor (64) of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity for supporting notoriously brutal rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone in return for "blood diamonds." Taylor became the first head of state convicted by an international court since the post-World War II Nuremberg military tribunal.
(AP, 4/26/12)
2012 Apr 27, A Dutch judge upheld the government's plan to introduce a "weed pass" to prevent foreigners from buying marijuana in coffee shops in the Netherlands.
(AP, 4/27/12)
2012 May 30, In the Netherlands international judges sentenced former Liberian President Charles Taylor to 50 years in prison for atrocities in Sierra Leone during the 1990s.
(AP, 5/30/12)(SFC, 5/31/12, p.A2)
2012 Jul 1, A Russian Soyuz space capsule landed in Kazakhstan bringing an end to a 193-day mission for American astronaut Donald Petit, Dutchman Andre Kuipers and Russian Oleg Kononenko.
(SFC, 7/2/12, p.A2)
2012 Jul 10, In the Netherlands the International Criminal Court sentenced Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga to 14 years in prison, a potential landmark in the struggle to protect children during wartime. Lubanga was found guilty in March of recruiting and using children in his Union of Congolese Patriots militia. An appeal in 2014 upheld his conviction.
(AP, 7/10/12)(SFC, 12/2/14, p.A2)
2012 Jul 15, Sewing needles were found in 5 sandwiches on flights originating in Amsterdam. One passenger on a flight to Minneapolis was injured. The other needles were on two flights to Atlanta and one to Seattle. The sandwiches were made in the Amsterdam kitchen of catering company Gate Gourmet.
(AP, 7/17/12)
2012 Jul 27, The Netherlands said it has suspended part of its development aid to Rwanda because of Kigali's alleged support for rebels in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AFP, 7/27/12)
2012 Aug 13, Dutch sailors taking part in NATO's pirate-busting operation Ocean Shield helped rescue the crew of a Somali dhow hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden.
(AFP, 8/14/12)
2012 Sep 11, Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics NV, the largest maker of lights, said it plans to cut another 2,200 jobs by 2014 to save €300 million ($383 million) a year.
(AP, 9/11/12)
2012 Sep 12, The Netherlands held national elections. Dutch caretaker PM Mark Rutte led his conservative VVD party to victory. The VVD was forecast to take 41 seats in the 150-member Dutch parliament, compared to Labor's 39 seats.
(AP, 9/12/12)(AP, 9/13/12)
2012 Sep 28, Shareholders of Singapore-based conglomerate Fraser & Neave agreed to sell their 39.7 percent stake in Asian Pacific Breweries, the owner of Tiger and other popular Asian brands, to Heineken. Heineken NV is spending another €3.2 billion ($4.0 billion) to gain control over the Tiger beer brand as part of a strategy to significantly expand its operations in Asia.
(AP, 9/28/12)
2012 Oct 2, The US National Institute for Public Health and the Environment said a salmonella outbreak traced to smoked salmon has sickened hundreds of people in the Netherlands and the United States. It has been traced to Dutch company Foppen, which sells fish to many major Dutch supermarkets and to stores around the world.
(AP, 10/2/12)(http://tinyurl.com/m3wv4tr)
2012 Oct 11, Nigerian farmers asked a Dutch court to rule that oil company Shell is liable for poisoning their fish ponds and farmland with leaking pipelines. Royal Dutch Shell PLC long argued that the case, which was launched in 2008, should be heard in Nigeria.
(AP, 10/11/12)
2012 Oct 16, In Rotterdam, Netherlands, thieves grabbed seven paintings from the Kunsthal gallery of works by celebrated artists including Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and Henri Matisse and vanished into the night. The paintings were estimated to be worth roughly $100 million if sold at auction.
(AP, 10/17/12)(AP, 10/18/12)
2012 Oct 18, Sylvia Kristal (b.1952), Dutch film star, died in Amsterdam. She was best known for her role in 4 of 7 “Emmannuelle" films.
(Econ, 11/3/12, p.94)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Kristel)
2012 Nov 5, In the Netherlands Queen Beatrix swore in the new center-left coaltion of PM Mark Rutte. The new government brought togethere the liberal VVD party and the center-left Labor Party.
(SFC, 11/6/12, p.A2)
2012 Nov 28, A majority of Dutch parties said the Netherlands no longer needs a law making it a crime to insult God, which hasn't been invoked in the past half-century.
(AP, 11/28/12)
2012 Dec 3, In the Netherlands volunteer soccer linesman Richard Nieuwenhuizen (42) died a day after he was beaten by players from Osdorp following a match against his club Buitenboys in the city of Almere. The offenders, aged 14-17, were all ethnic Moroccans.
(Econ, 1/12/13, p.46)(http://tinyurl.com/cdpsf42)
2012 Dec 5, The 148m (485-foot) Baltic Ace sank after colliding with the 134m (440-foot) container ship Corvus J in darkness near busy shipping lanes some 65 kilometers (40 miles) off the coast of the southern Netherlands. 5 bodies were recovered and 6 others remained missing.
(AP, 12/6/12)(SFC, 12/7/12, p.A2)
2012 Dec 7, The Dutch government approved a NATO request to send two batteries of Patriot missile defense systems to Turkey, following in Germany's footsteps.
(AP, 12/7/12)
2012 Dec 12, Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan said he would formally ban students from smoking marijuana at school, making the Dutch capital the first city in the Netherlands to do so.
(AP, 12/12/12)
2013 Jan 7, The Dutch military shipped Patriot missiles to Turkey, a fellow NATO member, after the alliance agreed in December to deploy the anti-missile systems along Turkey's southern border with Syria. Fighting in Syria continued unabated.
(AP, 1/7/13)
2013 Jan 16, In the Netherlands Alexander Dolmatov (36), a rocket engineer who feared arrest in Russia after an opposition protest turned violent in May, was taken to the prison-like deportation center in Rotterdam. The next morning he was found dead in his cell. Dutch authorities had denied his asylum request on Dec 14.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Jan 28, The Netherlands' Queen Beatrix announced that she is ending her reign after 33 years and passing the crown to her eldest son, Willem-Alexander (45), who has long been groomed to be king.
(AP, 1/28/13)
2013 Feb 1, The Netherlands nationalized SNS Reaal bank and expropriated its bonds in a $14 billion rescue. Investors in the subordinated bonds were wiped out.
(Econ, 3/16/13, p.72)(http://tinyurl.com/bllbeqf)
2013 Feb 26, The Hague Appeals Court ruled that a 2005 law, which makes it mandatory for all people older than 14 to carry ID cards and show them to police upon request, does not have a religious exemption.
(AP, 2/26/13)
2013 Mar 1, A Dutch court convicted Yvonne Basebya (66), a Rwandan-born Dutch woman, of inciting genocide in Rwanda's 1994 mass murders of ethnic Tutsis by members of the Hutu tribe — the first conviction of a Dutch citizen for the crime. She was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for her role.
(AP, 3/1/13)
2013 Mar 11, The Clinton Foundation announced that grants for over $700,000 will go toward efforts in Haiti to plant trees, build a coffee farm and train farmers. Heineken NV announced that it would invest $40 million to expand a brewery and help farmers who supply it with sorghum.
(AP, 3/12/13)
2013 Mar 25, TNT Express NV, a Dutch-based package delivery company, said it will restructure operations, taking €150 million ($195 million) in charges and cutting 4,000 jobs, or 6 percent of its work force, by the end of 2015. A takeover by UPS was blocked by European regulators in January.
(AP, 3/25/13)
2013 Mar 27, The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague convicted two senior Bosnian Serbs of war crimes in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin were each sentenced to 22 years in prison. In 2016 appeals were rejected.
(SFC, 3/28/13, p.A3)(SFC, 7/1/16, p.A2)
2013 Apr 8, In Amsterdam President Vladimir Putin defended Russia's treatment of homosexuals, as 1,000 gay rights activists waved pink and orange balloons and blasted out dance music to press home their protest.
(Reuters, 4/8/13)
2013 Apr 8, In Egypt Dutch journalist Rena Netjes was arrested by Egyptian citizens while reporting in Cairo, accused of being a spy and handed to authorities who detained her overnight.
(AP, 4/9/13)
2013 Apr 11, Netherlands-based Royal Philips NV said it has developed a working prototype of an LED lamp that will confine the fluorescent bulb to the recycling bin of history.
(AP, 4/11/13)
2013 Apr 11, The Dutch Cabinet brokered a deal with unions that scraps planned salary freezes for government and healthcare workers.
(AP, 4/12/13)
2013 Apr 13, Netherlands' Queen Beatrix officially reopened the Rijksmuseum, the country's national museum, after a 10-year, 375 million euro ($480 million) renovation.
(AP, 4/13/13)
2013 Apr 23, A Dutch court sentenced diplomat Raymond Poeteray (61) to 12 years in prison for delivering confidential NATO and European Union documents to Russian agents. He was arrested in March 2012 in connection with a German investigation.
(AP, 4/23/13)
2013 Apr 24, A Dutch court ordered Hans van Anraat, convicted of selling Saddam Hussein raw materials for mustard gas, to pay compensation to victims of chemical weapon attacks by the late Iraqi dictator's regime. The landmark ruling was largely symbolic for the 16 survivors as the businessman is serving a prison sentence for selling the chemicals and is believed to be destitute.
(AP, 4/24/13)
2013 Apr 25, Spanish agents arrested a Dutch citizen, identified as S.K. (35), for using a vehicle to hack into networks. He was accused of attacking the Swiss-British antispam watchdog group Spanhaus.
(SFC, 4/29/13, p.A3)
2013 Apr 30, In the Netherlands Beatrix ended her 33-year reign as queen. Willem-Alexander became the first Dutch king in more than a century and pledged to use his ceremonial position as head of state to help steer his country through uncertain economic times.
(AP, 4/30/13)
2013 Apr 30, UAE state news agency WAM said that Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) would own 60% of the Bab joint venture's equity and Royal Dutch Shell would hold the rest.
(AP, 4/30/13)
2013 May 15, Dutch sociologist Saskia Sassen was awarded Spain's Prince of Asturias social sciences prize for her work in the field of globalization and urban sociology. The jury said that one of her greatest scientific contributions was "her concept of the 'global city', now accepted and used worldwide."
(AP, 5/15/13)
2013 May 29, The EU granted France, Spain, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia more time to bring their budget deficits under control to support the bloc's shrinking economy. The European Commission approved France’s request to postpone by 2 years the target of cutting its budget deficit to 3% of GDP.
(AP, 5/29/13)(Econ, 6/1/13, p.55)
2013 May 29, A UN court in the Netherlands convicted six Bosnian Croat political and military leaders of persecuting, expelling and murdering Muslims during Bosnia's war and said leaders in neighboring Croatia helped hatch and execute their plan to carve out a Croat state in Bosnia.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 Jun 8, In Yemen Judith Spiegel, a Dutch journalist, was kidnapped along with her partner Boudewijn Berendsen. Both were reported released on Dec 10.
(AFP, 12/10/13)
2013 Jun 15, Yemeni police confirmed the kidnapping of Judith Spiegel, a Dutch journalist, along with her partner Boudewijn Berendsen, earlier this month. In July the couple appealed for help, saying their captors have threatened to kill them in days unless the Dutch government meets unspecified demands.
(Reuters, 7/16/13)(http://tinyurl.com/n4zl2pj)
2013 Jul 17, A Romanian museum official said that ash from the oven of a woman whose son is charged with stealing 7 multi-million-dollar paintings from Rotterdam’s Kunsthal Musum (Nov 16, 2012) contains paint, canvas and nails. Olga Dogaru has claimed to have burned the stolen paintings last February after police began searching the village of Caracliu, where she lived. On July 22 Olga Dogaru told a Bucharest court that she did not burn the paintings in her stove.
(SFC, 7/18/13, p.A2)(AP, 7/22/13)
2013 Jul 23, Dutch judges blocked the extradition of a terror suspect, identified as Sabir K., to the United States, saying he was tortured in Pakistan after his 2010 arrest and it is unclear whether American authorities had any involvement. US authorities have accused him of working with al-Qaida from 2004 to 2010, and of plotting a suicide attack on an American military base in Afghanistan.
(AP, 7/23/13)
2013 Aug 5, In Britain Dutch scientists served hamburgers made from cow stem cells at a public tasting in London. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, underwrote the 250,000-euro ($330,000) project, which began in 2006.
(AP, 8/5/13)
2013 Aug 13, In Romania a trial opened on artwork stolen last october in the Netherlands. Lawyers for the defendents said the paintings have not been burned and that the gang responsible would like to cut a deal so the artwork can be returned.
(SFC, 8/14/13, p.A2)
2013 Aug 23, The Belgian prosecutor's office said a three-nation investigation (Belgium, Netherlands, Poland) has led to one of the biggest seizures of synthetic drugs in Europe, a haul of core products to create Ecstasy pills with a street value of 1.3 billion euros ($1.75 billion).
(AP, 8/23/13)
2013 Sep 6, The Netherlands supreme court ruled that the Dutch state is liable for the deaths of three Bosnian Muslims who were expelled from a UN compound at Srebrenica in 1995.
(AFP, 9/6/13)
2013 Sep 12, The Netherlands sought to "close a difficult chapter" with its former colony Indonesia by publicly apologising for mass killings carried out by the Dutch army in the 1940s war of independence.
(AFP, 9/12/13)
2013 Sep 16, Representatives from 15 Caribbean nations gathered in St. Vincent to seek slavery reparations from Britain, France and the Netherlands.
(SFC, 9/17/13, p.A2)
2013 Sep 21, The Italian government announced that police in The Netherlands have arrested Francesco Nirta, a senior mafia boss and one of Italy's 10 most wanted men.
(AP, 9/21/13)
2013 Sep 24, In the Netherlands the commission that vets cases of euthanasia said cases rose by 13% in 2012 from 2011, the sixth consecutive year of increases. 4,188 cases were recorded in 2012.
(AP, 9/24/13)
2013 Sep 26, A Russian court ordered two Greenpeace activists to be detained for two months over a protest on an Arctic oil platform, as the Netherlands called for the activists' immediate release and threatened legal action against Moscow.
(AFP, 9/26/13)
2013 Oct 4, The Netherlands launched legal proceedings against Russia, saying it had unlawfully detained activists and others on the Dutch-registered ship last month as it protested against drilling in the Arctic.
(Reuters, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 5, Russia shrugged off Dutch legal action over its detention and prosecution of Greenpeace activists for piracy, saying the group's protest at an Arctic oil platform had been "pure provocation."
(Reuters, 10/5/13)
2013 Oct 7, Dutch coastguards scrambled helicopters and divers to search for three sailors missing in the North Sea after their ship sank following a collision with a fishing trawler.
(AFP, 10/7/13)
2013 Oct 9, The Dutch foreign minister apologized to Moscow for the detention of a Russian diplomat in The Hague, saying his right to diplomatic immunity had been violated. Dutch child protection services said earlier they were investigating a complaint from neighbors of diplomat Dmitry Borodin about his treatment of his children.
(Reuters, 10/9/13)
2013 Oct 15, Dutch police said a total of 15 people have been arrested since July, related to cocaine packages stashed aboard planes arriving from Latin America. Seven of them employed by the same company at Schiphol.
(AFP, 10/15/13)
2013 Oct 15, In Russia unknown attackers posing as electricians broke into the apartment of a Dutch diplomat, forced him to the ground, hit him and drew a heart containing the letters LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) on a mirror in pink lipstick.
(Reuters, 10/16/13)
2013 Oct 18, The Netherlands Supreme Court said municipalities are entitled to to tax dog ownership because they have to pick up the bill for keeping public parks and streets clean.
(SFC, 10/18/13, p.A2)
2013 Oct 23, Russia said it will boycott maritime court hearings sought by the Netherlands in a bid to free 30 crew members of a Greenpeace ship who were detained during a protest against Arctic oil drilling. Russia dropped piracy charges against 30 people involved in a Greenpeace protest against Arctic oil drilling, replacing them with lesser offences and cutting the maximum jail sentence they face to seven years from 15.
(AFP, 10/23/13)(Reuters, 10/23/13)
2013 Oct 28, A major storm, dubbed the St Jude storm, lashed southern Britain, the Netherlands and parts of France, knocking down trees, flooding low areas and causing travel chaos. 5 deaths were reported.
(AP, 10/28/13)
2013 Nov 1, Dutch PM Mark Rutte said the Netherlands will send 380 soldiers and four Apache attack helicopters to war-torn Mali following an appeal for more UN peacekeepers.
(AFP, 11/1/13)
2013 Nov 5, Lyon-based Interpol said it was waiting for information from Dutch authorities after a rights group said it had identified 1,000 paedophiles by offering online sex with a computer-generated girl (10).
(AFP, 11/5/13)
2013 Nov 20, The International Criminal Court's vexed relationship with Africa took center stage on the opening day of the annual summit of its 122 member states at The Hague.
(AP, 11/20/13)
2013 Nov 29, Standard & Poor's stripped the Netherlands of its triple-A credit rating, saying that the country's growth prospects have deteriorated and it is not performing as well as peers.
(AP, 11/29/13)
2013 Dec 1, In Germany Heinrich Boere (92), who murdered Dutch civilians as part of a Nazi Waffen SS hit squad during World War II but avoided justice for six decades, died in a prison hospital while serving a life sentence.
(AP, 12/2/13)
2013 Dec 3, Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it has completed building the hull of the world's largest floating facility, which has been constructed to process natural gas off the coast of western Australia.
(AP, 12/3/13)
2013 Dec 6, Romania's Interior Ministry said Adrian Procop (21), a Romanian man accused of stealing seven masterpieces from a Dutch museum, was arrested in Britain after months on the run. Procop entered the Kunsthal museum at night in Oct 2012 with a friend, Radu Dogaru, and stole artworks worth 18 million euros ($24 million).
(AFP, 12/6/13)
2013 Russell Shorto authored “Amsterdam: A History of the World’s Most Liberal City."
(Econ, 10/26/13, p.95)
2014 Jan 8, Dutch pension asset manager PGGM, one of the largest in the country, said it was divesting from five Israeli banks because they finance Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
(AFP, 1/8/14)
2014 Jan 23, Dutch authorities said they have detained Jean Baptiste M. (54), a former Rwandan politician suspected of compiling death lists during the country's 1994 genocide, and would send him home for court hearings.
(Reuters, 1/23/14)
2014 Jan 30, Royal Dutch Shell said it will suspend drilling in offshore Alaska after a US court decision and as the oil major streamlines operations following a slump in annual profits.
(AFP, 1/30/14)
2014 Feb 10, In the Netherlands former health minister Els Borst (81), a woman who drafted the nation's landmark 2002 law permitting euthanasia, was found dead in her garage. Police ruled out natural causes.
(AP, 2/11/14)
2014 Feb 11, German and Dutch authorities arrested five men in a sting operation against a website allegedly used to sell illegal drugs and weapons.
(AP, 2/13/14)
2014 Feb 27, Uganda shrugged off foreign aid cuts and int’l criticism of its tough new anti-gay law, saying it could do without Western aid. Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands cut aid over Uganda’s anti-gay law.
(AFP, 2/27/14)(SFC, 2/28/14, p.A4)
2014 Feb, In the Netherlands the Allard Pierson museum opened the "Crimea — Gold and secrets of the Black Sea" exhibition. In April curators said they are not sure where to return the objects on display when it ends in August due to Russia’s takeover of Crimea.
(AP, 4/4/14)
2014 Mar 7, Congolese warlord Germain Katanga was convicted of being an accessory to war crimes including murder and pillage - only the second conviction in the 12-year history of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
(Reuters, 3/7/14)
2014 Mar 22, The Netherlands-based ICC said Charles Ble Goude, wanted by the International Criminal Court in connection with a wave of violence after Ivory Coast's 2010 elections, is in its court's custody and is on his way to its jail in The Hague.
(Reuters, 3/22/14)
2014 Mar 23, China and the Netherlands signed a trade pact pledging Dutch dairy expertise to help Chinese producers boost the quality and quantity of their milk. It was part of a raft of deals and memoranda of understanding inked on the 2nd day of a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is in the Netherlands with a large trade delegation.
(AP, 3/23/14)
2014 Mar 24, Belgium and Italy said they had moved excess nuclear materials to the United States for disposal or downgrading under the terms of past agreements, at the start of a nuclear summit in the Netherlands.
(Reuters, 3/24/14)
2014 Mar 24, Japanese and US leaders said Japan will turn over hundreds of kilograms of sensitive atomic material of potential use in bombs to the United States to be downgraded and disposed. This was shortly before leaders from 53 countries, including Obama and Abe, were due to hold a two-day summit at The Hague aimed at preventing al Qaeda-style militant groups from acquiring nuclear bombs.
(Reuters, 3/24/14)
2014 Mar 25, In the Netherlands 35 countries pledged to turn international guidelines on nuclear security into national laws, a move aimed at preventing terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear material.
(AP, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, Dutch police detained 28 anti-nuclear demonstrators at a reactor ahead of a visit by a delegation of energy sector bosses.
(Reuters, 3/25/14)
2014 Mar 25, In the Netherlands US President Barack Obama, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Park Geun-hye met to discuss North Korea's security threat.
(AP, 3/26/14)
2014 Mar 28, Netherlands’ public prosecutor said Milutin Graic (41), wanted in Croatia on suspicion of war crimes during the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, has been arrested in Roosendaal.
(Reuters, 3/28/14)
2014 Apr 9, The Dutch government scrapped a trade mission to Russia that was intended to forge closer ties between the two countries' energy sectors, blaming developments in eastern Ukraine.
(AP, 4/9/14)
2014 Apr 10, The Dutch government announced that relatives of three men killed during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre will each receive 20,000 euros ($28,000) in compensation. Seven months earlier the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the Netherlands was liable in the deaths of the three Bosnian Muslims because Dutch troops serving in a UN peacekeeping force should not have turned the men over to Bosnian Serb forces.
(AP, 4/10/14)
2014 Apr 13, In the Netherlands Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya won the Rotterdam Marathon, but failed in his bid to break the course record on a windy day in the port city.
(AP, 4/13/14)
2014 Apr 26, The Dutch donned crazy orange-colored outfits and celebrated their first ever "King's Day" — a national holiday held in honor of the newly installed monarch, King Willem Alexander. King's Day replaced the traditional "Queens' Day" festival held this time of year.
(AP, 4/26/14)
2014 May 1, Dutch police stormed a Greenpeace ship and ended environmentalists' attempts to block a Russian tanker carrying oil from the Arctic Ocean from mooring at Rotterdam Port. 31 activists were detained.
(AP, 5/1/14)
2014 May 22, EU parliamentary elections began in Britain and the Netherlands at the start of 4 days of balloting across the 28 members.
(SFC, 5/23/14, p.A5)
2014 May 23, The Int’l. Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague sentenced Germain Katanga, a Congolese militia leader, to 12 years in prison for his role in a 2003 attack where more than 200 civilians were killed.
(SFC, 5/24/14, p.A3)
2014 Jul 3, In the Netherlands an Amsterdam court ruled that the traditional figure known as Black Pete, the sidekick to the Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus, is a negative stereotype of black people and the city must rethink its involvement in holiday celebrations involving him.
(AP, 7/3/14)
2014 Jul 11, Aruba's PM Mike Eman and several legislators launched a hunger strike to protest what they say is meddling by the Dutch government in local financial affairs. This came after the Dutch government asked Aruba's governor to hold off on signing the 2014 budget into law pending an evaluation of it.
(AP, 7/13/14)
2014 Jul 16, A civil court in The Hague court cleared the Netherlands of liability in the deaths of the most of the 8,000 Bosnian Muslims slain in the July, 1995, Srebrenica massacre, but did order the nation to compensate the families of more than 300 men turned over to Bosnian Serb forces and later killed.
(AP, 7/16/14)
2014 Jul 17, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 with 298 people on board was shot down over eastern Ukraine. Officials strongly suspected the Boeing 777 was downed by a missile fired by Ukrainian separatists backed by Moscow. More than half of the dead passengers, 189 people, were Dutch. Twenty-nine were Malaysian, 27 Australian, 12 Indonesian, 9 British, 4 German, 4 Belgian, 3 Filipino, one Canadian, one New Zealand and 4 as yet unidentified. All 15 crew were Malaysian.
(Reuters, 7/18/14)
2014 Aug 14, In the Netherlands Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan said the controversial winter holiday character Black Pete would change in appearance over the next four years to make him less of an offensive racial figure and eventually just resemble someone who has climbed through a chimney.
(SFC, 8/15/14, p.A5)
2014 Aug 19, Statistics Netherlands said sanctions Russia has imposed on agricultural products from the EU will cut Dutch exports by "at least 300 million euros" ($400 million), based on 2013 figures.
(Reuters, 8/19/14)
2014 Sep 28, In the Netherlands a tricked-out truck, sporting outsized tires and a powerful engine, surged off the track after driving over a line of prop cars, crashing through a barricade and into the audience in the eastern town of Haaksbergen. 3 people died in the accident.
(AFP, 9/29/14)
2014 Nov 12, Netherlands authorities announced the arrest of 12 people with suspected links to militant Islamists.
(Reuters, 11/13/14)
2014 Nov 16, Authorities in the Netherlands said they have identified a "highly pathogenic" strain of bird flu at a farm in the central area of the Netherlands and announced a temporary ban on all transport to and from poultry farms across the country. They said it was the highly contagious H5N8 strain first detected in Europe less than two weeks ago.
(Reuters, 11/16/14)
2014 Nov 20, Dutch authorities said a case of bird flu has been confirmed at a chicken farm, the second infection identified in the country this week.
(AP, 11/20/14)
2014 Nov 21, Dutch authorities said they will slaughter poultry at a cluster of three farms after new cases of bird flu were found in Kamperveen, in the 3rd outbreak this week.
(SFC, 11/22/14, p.A2)
2014 Nov 26, Dutch researchers sought to add a new, largely untapped renewable energy source to the world's energy mix with the opening of a "Blue Energy" test facility. Blue energy takes advantage of the difference in salt concentration between sea water and fresh water to produce electricity.
(AP, 11/26/14)
2014 Nov 30, The Netherlands Economic Affairs Ministry said in a statement that poultry at the farm in the town of Zoeterwoude were suffering from an H5 strain of bird flu and that all 28,000 birds there were being slaughtered.
(AP, 11/30/14)
2014 Dec 5, Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court withdrew their crimes against humanity charges against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. Kenyatta said he was "vindicated" after the ICC's decision.
(Reuters, 12/5/14)(SFC, 12/6/14, p.A4)
2014 Dec 8, A Dutch court ruled in a preliminary judgment that Uber, a California-based ride-sharing service, must stop working with drivers who charge fares but do not possess a taxi license.
(AP, 12/8/14)
2014 Dec 11, In Vienna, Austria, several states (Britain, Norway, Netherlands and the US) pledged to back a UN nuclear agency (IAEA) request for 4.6 million euros ($5.7 million) as soon as possible to pay for its monitoring of an extended, interim nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.
(AP, 12/11/14)
2014 Dec 15, A Dutch privacy watchdog ordered Google to make changes to the way it handles users' personal data or face fines of up to 15 million euros ($18.7 million).
(AP, 12/15/14)
2014 Dec 17, The United States slapped sanctions on Dutch and Swiss oil trading firms for their dealings with the Syrian government. This put Netherlands-based Staroil B.V. as well as two Swiss-based firms, Rixo International Trading Ltd and Bluemarine SA, on its list of sanctioned entities, which effectively cuts them off from the US financial system.
(AP, 12/17/14)
2015 Jan 7, It was announced that Royal Dutch Shell will pay more than $80 million to people in Bodo, a Nigerian fishing community "devastated" by two serious oil spills in 2008. The clean-up could take years.
(AFP, 1/7/15)
2015 Jan 27, A Netherlands judge approved the extradition of Vladimir Drinkman to the US. He was one of four Russians and a Ukrainian charged in a data breach that netted at least 160 million credit and debit card numbers resulting in losses of hundreds of millions over seven years.
(SFC, 1/28/15, p.A2)
2015 Feb 10, In the Netherlands a "distributed denial of service" attack was responsible for taking down several of government websites for hours.
(AP, 2/11/15)
2015 Feb 13, The Netherlands extradited Vladimir Drinkman to the US. The Russian was suspected of involvement in a huge data breach that racked up hundreds of millions of dollars in losses over seven years for US companies. Drinkman was arrested in the Netherlands in June 2012.
(AP, 2/13/15)
2015 Feb 18, The Dutch Safety Board said Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp and the Dutch government ignored the danger of earthquakes caused by gas extraction at the massive Groningen gas field for decades.
(Reuters, 2/18/15)
2015 Mar 11, In the Netherlands a court ruled that the Dutch government must pay compensation to nine widows and children of Indonesian men summarily executed in their country's war for independence, a ruling that could open the door to many more claims.
(AP, 3/11/15)
2015 Mar 27, In The Netherlands trains, trams and planes ground to a temporary halt in and around Amsterdam as a huge power outage hit the Dutch capital and surrounding towns. Power was soon restored.
(AFP, 3/27/15)
2015 Apr 7, Dutch businessman Willy Selten was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. He was at the center of a Europe-wide fraud in which falsely labeled horsemeat led to thousands of tons of meat being recalled.
(Reuters, 4/7/15)
2015 Apr 7, FedEx said it has agreed to take over TNT Express, a Dutch delivery firm, for $4.8 billion in an all cash offer of $8.75 per TNT share.
(SFC, 4/8/15, p.C3)
2015 Apr 8, Royal Dutch Shell said it will pay the equivalent of 13.67 pounds in cash and stock for each share of British rival BG Group, 50 percent more than the April 7 closing price.
(AP, 4/8/15)
2015 Apr 27, The Netherlands turned out in orange as King Willem-Alexander turned 48 and the whole country celebrated King's Day.
(AP, 4/27/15)
2015 May 13, In the Netherlands an appeals court cleared Albert Heringa of any criminal responsibility for helping his mother (90) take her life in 2008.
(SFC, 5/14/15, p.A2)
2015 May 27, Dutch police detained 20 people, 14 of them members of the Bandidos motorcycle gang, and seized weapons including five rocket-propelled grenade launchers and six automatic handguns. The 19 men and one woman were suspected of crimes including drug trafficking, extortion and money laundering.
(AP, 5/27/15)
2015 Jun 2, The Dutch Safety Board made a draft report on last year's crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 available to representatives of Malaysia, Ukraine, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands. It did not publicize details of the confidential draft.
(AP, 7/1/15)
2015 Jun 17, In southern Portugal a bus carrying Dutch tourists crashed, killing 3 tourists and injuring 30 others and the Portuguese bus driver.
(AP, 6/18/15)
2015 Jun 24, A Dutch court ordered the state to slash greenhouse gas emissions nationwide by at least 25 percent by 2020.
(AFP, 6/24/15)
2015 Jun 28, In the Netherlands Mitch Henriquez (42), from the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba, died in the hands of police. Preliminary findings from an autopsy indicated that Henriquez died of asphyxiation after being held in a chokehold and pinned down by five white police officers.
(Reuters, 7/2/15)
2015 Jul 2, Dutch police fired warning shots and arrested 34 people during a third straight day of unrest triggered by the June 28 death of a Caribbean man in police custody. A temporary ban on public gatherings was imposed in a neighborhood hit by rioting.
(Reuters, 7/2/15)
2015 Jul 3, Dutch police have detained some 200 people for ignoring a ban on public assembly imposed in a neighborhood hit by four days of late-night rioting following the death of a man in police custody.
(AP, 7/3/15)
2015 Jul 30, Royal Dutch Shell announced deep cuts to jobs and investment on as the global energy giant prepares for a prolonged period of low oil prices.
(AP, 7/30/15)
2015 Aug 4, Russia tightened controls on imports of cut flowers from the Netherlands, a move that comes amid a strain in ties over the downing of a Malaysia Airlines plane in Ukraine.
(AP, 8/4/15)
2015 Aug 24, An international arbitration panel said Russia must compensate the Netherlands for seizing a Greenpeace ship protesting at an oil platform in Arctic waters in breach of an international treaty regulating the laws of the sea. The Arctic Sunrise, sailing under a Dutch flag, was seized by Russian authorities in September 2013 during a protest against an offshore oil platform.
(AP, 8/24/15)
2015 Sep 8, Joost Zwagerman (b.1963), Dutch writer, poet and essayist, committed suicide. In 2017 “The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories," edited by Zwagerman, was published.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joost_Zwagerman)(Econ, 3/11/17, p.79)
2015 Sep 14, The Netherlands said police will carry out spot border checks in response to a surge in asylum seekers into the European Union.
(Reuters, 9/14/15)
2015 Sep 24, The International Criminal Court unveiled at least 60 new war crimes charges against Dominic Ongwen, the deputy leader of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, including the use of child soldiers and keeping sex slaves.
(AFP, 9/24/15)
2015 Sep 28, At the Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon tribunal set up to try the killers of former Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri fined journalist Karma Khayat 10,000 euros for obstruction of justice. The judge found her guilty of obstruction of justice because she failed to remove the broadcasts from the Al-Jadeed TV website and social media as ordered.
(AFP, 9/28/15)
2015 Oct 13, The Dutch Safety Board concluded that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine by a Russian-made Buk missile in its final report on the crash on July 17, 2014, that killed all 298 people on board, most of them Dutch.
(Reuters, 10/13/15)
2015 Nov 10, Dutch electronics giant Philips announced the inking of a multi-million-euro contract with Canada's Mackenzie Health to install and run a raft of state-of-the-art hospital equipment over the next 18 years.
(AFP, 11/10/15)
2015 Dec 10, A Dutch court convicted six men of belonging to a network recruiting young Muslims to join the Islamic State jihadist group, handing them jail terms of up to six years.
(AFP, 12/10/15)
2015 Dec 16, Dutch police fired warning shots and arrested 14 demonstrators when a protest by hundreds of people against the opening of a refugee center turned violent, leaving several injured.
(AFP, 12/17/15)
2015 Dec 18, A Dutch appeals court ruled that Royal Dutch Shell may be held liable for oil spills at its subsidiary in Nigeria, potentially opening the way for other compensation claims against multinationals in the Niger Delta and elsewhere.
(Reuters, 12/18/15)
2015 In the Netherlands the flow of refugees rose to a record 59,100 this year.
(SFC, 1/9/16, p.A2)
2016 Jan 1, The Netherlands took over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union.
(Econ, 1/9/16, p.10)
2016 Jan 11, In the Netherlands police, politicians and intelligence officials from more than 50 countries met at The Hague to discuss how to improve coordination in the fight against extremist violence and crack down on foreigners traveling to fight in conflict-torn countries like Syria and Iraq.
(AP, 1/11/16)
2016 Jan 12, In the Netherlands five sperm whales beached on Texel Island. All 5 died before anyone could attempt a rescue operation. Sperm whales began to wash up on German, Dutch, French and British shores. Over the next two months 29 beached whales surprised scientists after only 82 previous beaching of sperm whales had been documented since the 1990s. In 2017 German scientists said the mass beachings could have been due to solar storms.
(AP, 1/13/16) (Reuters, 9/5/17)
2016 Jan 27, Judges at the International Criminal Court gave its prosecutor a green light to launch a new inquiry into allegations of war crimes during a brief but bloody 2008 war between Russia and Georgia.
(AFP, 1/27/16)
2016 Feb 8, Bosnian Serb Gen. Zdravko Tolimir, jailed for life for committing genocide during the Balkans wars, died of natural cases in a UN detention center at The Hague.
(AFP, 2/12/16)
2016 Feb 11, The Netherlands said it would create a 300-strong rapid response security team that could be deployed for border control anywhere, but primarily within the European Union.
(Reuters, 2/11/16)
2016 Feb 23, A Dutch passenger train derailed after hitting a maintenance crane during rush hour, killing one person and injuring several others.
(Reuters, 2/23/16)
2016 Mar 16, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Saudi Arabian Oil Co. said they will split up the assets of their joint US venture, which will see the kingdom's state-owned producer take full ownership of America's biggest oil refinery. The Port Arthur, Texas, refinery, had been part of a 50-50 joint venture between the two companies called Motiva Enterprises LLC, which formed in 1998.
(AP, 3/17/16)
2016 Mar 24, At The Hague Florence Hartmann, now a freelance journalist, was arrested outside the UN war crimes tribunal just before the court convicted Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. Her attorney said it was almost certainly an attempt by the UN to make her serve out a previous sentence for contempt of court. The tribunal convicted her in 2009 for publishing confidential material, giving her a fine which was later converted into a seven-day prison sentence. Hartmann was released on March 29.
(AP, 3/28/16)(AP, 3/29/16)
2016 Mar 27, Dutch police found ammunition in the house of a French national arrested in Rotterdam on suspicion of plotting an attack. The man (32), thought to be called Anis B., was detained on suspicion of receiving orders from the Islamic State group to attack targets in France along with Reda Kriket, who was detained near Paris last week.
(AFP, 3/28/16)
2016 Apr 6, Dutch voters went to the polls and rejected a key EU pact with Ukraine in a referendum triggered by grassroots eurosceptic groups and seen as a yardstick on ties with Brussels.
(AFP, 4/6/16)(Reuters, 4/7/16)
2016 Apr 20, A Dutch court quashed a $50 billion award Russia had been ordered to pay the former majority shareholders of Yukos, a major win for Moscow in the high-stakes dispute over the dismantling of what was once Russia's largest oil producer. The Dutch court said a Hague-based arbitration panel in 2014 did not have jurisdiction to rule in the case because the arbitration was based on an energy treaty that Russia had signed but had not ratified.
(AP, 4/20/16)
2016 Apr 26, Dutch prosecutors said the former spokesman of Geert Wilder, the far-right Dutch politician who wants to ban Muslim immigration in Europe, embezzled nearly 180,000 euros ($203,000) in party funds to finance a luxury lifestyle.
(Reuters, 4/26/16)
2016 May 18, The Dutch finance minister said the country's national debt declined last year for the first time since 2006 as the economy reaped the benefits of reforms and recovered from the global economic turmoil of recent years. The 2015 national debt was 442 billion euros, 10 billion less than the previous year. The debt equals 65.1 percent of gross domestic product.
(AP, 5/18/16)
2016 May 30, European Union ministers meeting in the Dutch capital endorsed a "Pact of Amsterdam" aimed at improving living conditions in towns and cities throughout the 28-nation bloc.
(AP, 5/30/16)
2016 Jun 1, Dutch prosecutors raided a string of locations and seized cash and hundreds of thousands of fraudulent letters in an investigation into worldwide mail scams. The next day US law enforcement authorities said the scams had defrauded "elderly and vulnerable" Americans out of tens of millions of dollars.
(AP, 6/2/16)
2016 Jun 22, It was reported that the Dutch Ocean Cleanup Foundation has developed floating barriers to try to collect trash from the world's oceans, and will launch a 100 meter-long prototype in the North Sea this week to see how it fares during storms. Chief Executive Boyan Slat (21) first had the idea for the system as a teenager.
(Reuters, 6/22/16)
2016 Jun 24, Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch anti-immigrant PVV party, said the Netherlands should hold its own referendum on whether to leave the European Union following Britain's vote in favor of exiting the bloc.
(Reuters, 6/24/16)
2016 Jun 28, A Dutch court ruled that Aydin Coban (38) can be extradited to Canada to face charges of using a computer to harass and blackmail teenager Amanda Todd. She committed suicide in October 2012, a month after releasing a widely-viewed YouTube video in which she detailed her suffering.
(Reuters, 6/28/16)
2016 Jul 12, An international tribunal at The Hague rejected China's extensive claims in the South China Sea in a landmark ruling that also found the country had aggravated the regional dispute and violated the Philippines' maritime rights by building up artificial islands that destroyed coral reefs and by disrupting fishing and oil exploration. China immediately rejected it.
(AP, 7/12/16)
2016 Jul 14, A Dutch court sentenced a Turkish-born man (44) to 30 days imprisonment for calling the country's king a "murderer, rapist and thief," in a rare use of a law against insulting the monarch. He has spent two weeks in pretrial detention and will not have to serve any prison time.
(AP, 7/14/16)
2016 Jul 14, In the Netherlands Mark Langedijk (41), a long-term alcoholic, chose to end his life by lethal injection saying he could no longer go on.
(AP, 12/1/16)
2016 Jul 22, A Dutch court convicted four men in absentia for travelling to Syria to join extremists, including the Islamic State group, and sentenced them to six years in prison. All four suspects were believed to be in Syria, where some 260 Dutch citizens have gone to fight in recent years.
(AP, 7/22/16)
2016 Sep 6, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, during a visit to the Netherlands, said the Dutch government will assist Israel in improving water and gas supplies to energy-strapped Gaza.
(Reuters, 9/6/16)
2016 Sep 9, The Dutch government says it is extending its involvement in a military training mission in Iraq until the end of 2017.
(AP, 9/9/16)
2016 Sep 28, A Dutch-led inquiry into the July 2014 downing of Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine said the Boeing 777 was shot down by a BUK missile system from an area in eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists, and that the system was brought in from Russia and then taken back there. Russian missile-maker Almaz-Antey said the BUK missile was fired from territory held by the Ukrainian army and the prosecutors' findings were not supported by technical evidence.
(AFP, 9/28/16)(Reuters, 9/28/16)
2016 Sep 29, In China Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde opened what he calls the world's largest air purifier in Beijing, beginning the first leg of a China tour to raise awareness of environmental problems. The seven-meter-high (7.66-yard-high) Smog Free Tower, part of the Smog Free Project started by the artist, creates a bubble of clean air enabling citizens to experience clean air for free.
(Reuters, 9/29/16)
2016 Sep 30, Investigators said Italian police have found two Van Gogh paintings that were stolen from an Amsterdam museum in 2002 hidden in a farmhouse near an organized crime syndicate's Naples-area stronghold. Investigators seized some 20 million euros ($22 million) worth of assets, including farmland, villas and apartments, which they say are linked to two Camorra drug kingpins, Mario Cerrone and Raffaele Imperiale.
(AP, 9/30/16)
2016 Oct 5, A trio of European scientists has won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing molecular machines that could one day be injected to fight cancer or used to make new types of materials and energy storage devices. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Scotland's J. Fraser Stoddart and Dutchman Bernard Feringa developed molecules that produce mechanical motion in response to a stimulus, allowing them to perform specific tasks.
(Reuters, 10/5/16)
2016 Oct 10, Royal Dutch Shell confirmed that it had signed an initial deal with Iran's National Petrochemical Company, paving the way for its return to the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 10/10/16)
2016 Nov 27, Dutch officials said they have culled 190,000 ducks on a farm where inspectors have confirmed the presence of a highly infectious strain of bird flu.
(AFP, 11/27/16)
2016 Nov 28, Belgium and the Netherlands signed a deal for a peaceful exchange of land between them for the mere fact that it makes sense to do so. Belgium gave up a tiny peninsula on the Meuse river linked only to the Netherlands and got in return a nearby piece from its neighbor.
(AP, 11/28/16)
2016 Nov 29, The Dutch parliament voted to ban face veils in some public places, a law the government said was essential for security but which opponents said pandered to anti-Muslim sentiment.
(Reuters, 11/29/16)
2016 Dec 2, The Dutch government backed a multi-year inquiry into the end of its colonial period in Indonesia in the 1940s, when troops from the Netherlands are accused of massacres in Southeast Asia's largest nation.
(Reuters, 12/2/16)
2016 Dec 7, Netherlands said it will gradually phase out subsidizes for renewable energy and shift its climate change strategy to areas such as energy saving and carbon capture.
(Reuters, 12/7/16)
2016 Dec 9, In the Netherlands police acting on a tip-off from the Dutch intelligence agency arrested a 30-year-old "terrorist" suspect and seized an arsenal of weapons in the port city of Rotterdam.
(Reuters, 12/9/16)
2016 Dec 9, Dutch populist anti-Islam Dutch MP Geert Wilders was found guilty on of discrimination against Moroccans, but acquitted of hate speech in a closely-watched trial ahead of next year's key elections. Judges decided not to impose any sentence or fine, and Wilders immediately vowed to appeal against what he said was a bid to "neutralize" him ahead of the March polls.
(AFP, 12/9/16)
2016 Dec 14, A Dutch court ruled that a priceless collection of gold artifacts from Crimea that was on loan to a Dutch museum when Russia seized the peninsula must be returned to Ukraine and not Crimea.
(Reuters, 12/14/16)
2016 Mark Spoerer, German historian, authored “C&A: A family business in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom 1911-1961."
(Econ, 10/29/16, p.57)
2017 Jan 21, Authorities in the Netherlands and Spain arrested five male and two female suspects, all Dutch nationals, over the last 24 hours over the robbery of $72 million in jewelry, one the world's biggest ever heists, from Amsterdam's airport in 2005.
(AFP, 1/21/17)
2017 Jan 26, Britain’s High Court ruled that Royal Dutch Shell cannot be sued in London over oil spills in Nigeria, in a setback to attempts to hold British multinationals liable at home for their subsidiaries' actions abroad. The court also said the claimants should be able to use Nigerian courts.
(Reuters, 1/26/17)
2017 Jan 26, German geologist Kay Holtzmann, contracted by the Dutch-British multinational Royal Dutch Shell's Nigeria subsidiary, wrote a letter to the Bodo Mediation Initiative saying the company "fiercely opposed" environmental testing and is concealing data showing thousands of Nigerians are exposed to health hazards from a stalled cleanup of the worst oil spills in the West African nation's history.
(AP, 3/24/17)
2017 Jan 27, It was reported that Belgium has sealed an agreement with France and the Netherlands to draw up passenger lists and introduce passport checks on Thalys and Eurostar international rail services.
(AP, 1/27/17)
2017 Feb 1, In the Netherlands a major computer malfunction crippled traffic at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport for hours, causing delays or cancellations of more than 100 flights at one of Europe's largest transportation hubs. The outage was caused by faulty hardware.
(Reuters, 2/1/17)
2017 Feb 16, Dutch artist and illustrator Dick Bruna (89), creator of beloved children's character Miffy the white rabbit, died in Utrecht. Miffy, the white bunny with two dots for eyes and a cross for her mouth, was inspired by a rabbit seen hopping around the garden during a family seaside holiday in 1955.
(AFP, 2/17/17)
2017 Feb 21, Dutch lawmakers voted in favor of tolerating the cultivation of cannabis, a move that could bring to an end a key paradox of the relaxed Dutch policy on marijuana and hashish.
(AP, 2/21/17)
2017 Feb 24, Guatemala's immigration office ordered the expulsion of a ship run by a Dutch nonprofit organization that performs free abortions onboard in international waters. The ship, operated by Women on Waves, travels the globe offering abortion services to women in countries where the procedure is illegal.
(AP, 2/25/17)
2017 Mar 7, A European Union court struck down a 2013 decision by EU regulators to block a planned takeover of Dutch-based package delivery company TNT Express by United Parcel Services Inc.
(AP, 3/7/17)
2017 Mar 11, The Netherlands barred Turkey's foreign minister from landing in Rotterdam in a row over Ankara's political campaigning among Turkish emigres, and President Tayyip Erdogan retaliated, branding his NATO partner a "Nazi remnant". Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency said family minister Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya will travel to the Dutch city of Rotterdam by land. Dutch authorities expelled Kaya for seeking to woo the vote of expatriate Turks for a key referendum at home.
(Reuters, 3/11/17)(AFP, 3/12/17)
2017 Mar 12, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on international organizations to "raise their voices" against the Netherlands after it escorted a minister out of the country and prevented another one from landing in the country.
(AP, 3/12/17)
2017 Mar 14, Hundreds of Twitter accounts were hijacked amid the ongoing diplomatic feud between Turkey and two European nations, Germany and the Netherlands. Most if not all high-profile accounts soon returned to normal.
(AP, 3/15/17)
2017 Mar 15, Millions of Dutch flocked to the polls in a test of the "patriotic revolution" promised by far-right MP Geert Wilders. PM Mark Rutte's conservative VVD party won the elections with 33 seats. Wilders increased his bloc from 15 in 2012 to 20. The Denk party, catering to Dutch Muslims, won three seats.
(AFP, 3/15/17)(AP, 3/16/17)(Econ, 3/18/17, p.59)
2017 Mar 15, Turkey said its red meat association has ordered a consignment of prize Dutch cattle to be sent back to the Netherlands, saying it no longer wants to farm the cows due to the diplomatic crisis between the countries.
(AFP, 3/15/17)
2017 Mar 22, At the Hague International Criminal Court judges sentenced former Congolese VP Jean-Pierre Bemba to a year in jail and fined him 300,000 euros for bribing witnesses during his war crimes trial in an unprecedented case before the ICC.
(AFP, 3/22/17)
2017 Mar 24, The International Criminal Court at The Hague awarded $250 dollars as "symbolic" damages to each victim of former Congolese warlord Germain Katanga, a sum swiftly dismissed as meaningless by those who lost homes and loved ones in a militia attack on their village 14 years ago.
(AFP, 3/24/17)
2017 Mar 27, In the northern Netherlands two people were killed when a train hit a car at a rail crossing near Harlingen.
(AP, 3/27/17)
2017 Apr 4, A Dutchman convicted of cyberbullying lost his appeal against being extradited to Canada to face charges linked to the 2012 suicide of Amanda Todd (15), who suffered online harassment. Aydin C. was sentenced last month to almost 11 years in jail, after being found guilty of 72 charges including computer sex crimes.
(AFP, 4/4/17)
2017 Apr 6, Dutch public broadcaster NOS reported that as many as 100 Dutch citizens of Turkish descent are being prevented from leaving Turkey. NOS said those affected, many of whom had been to Turkey on holiday or to see their families, had all been publicly critical of President Tayyip Erdogan.
(Reuters, 4/6/17)
2017 Apr 14, Dutch prosecutors said they have arrested eight people suspected of involvement in robbing or extorting money from tourists by forcing them to pay extreme prices for journeys from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport into the popular Dutch city.
(AP, 4/14/17)
2017 Apr 21, Dutch timber trader Guus Kouwenhoven (74) was convicted as an accessory to war crimes for selling weapons to Liberia's then-President Charles Taylor between 2000 and 2003 in violation of a UN embargo. He was sentenced to 19 years in prison. Kouwenhoven was initially sentenced to eight years by the Dutch district court for Den Bosch in 2008 on weapons smuggling charges, but was acquitted on appeal.
(Reuters, 4/21/17)
2017 Apr, In the southern Netherlands police searching a barn discovered a large quantity of a synthetic drug that is popular in the Arab world. The pills with captagon logos contained amphetamines and caffeine. They also uncovered laboratory equipment, a pill making machine and some 80 kilograms (176 pounds) of amphetamines and MDMA, also known as ecstasy.
(AP, 5/10/17)
2017 May 4, In the Netherlands an asylum-seeker (33) from Eritrea was sentenced to 12 years in prison for raping a 17-year-old woman last September after attempting to strangle and drown her.
(AP, 5/4/17)
2017 May 9, A Dutch appeals court ruled that Russian authorities knowingly plunged oil giant Yukos into bankruptcy in 2006 by ordering it to pay huge tax bills, the latest ruling in a long-running battle over the assets of a Dutch Yukos subsidiary.
(AP, 5/9/17)
2017 May 15, Massachusetts-based Thermo Fisher said it will pay $35 for each share of Patheon NV, based in the Netherlands, a 35 percent premium to the company's last closing price of $26. The $5.2 billion deal will give the scientific instrument maker more access to the contract development and manufacturing organization market.
(AP, 5/15/17)
2017 May 16, Boyan Slat, a 22-year-old Dutchman, said it would be possible to reduce by half the millions of tons of plastic garbage in the Pacific by deploying floating barriers.
(Reuters, 5/16/17)
2017 May 18, A Dutch court convicted 20 people of insulting or threatening Sylvana Simons, a former dancer and television presenter of Surinamese descent, in a racially charged case that shocked the nation. One person was acquitted.
(AP, 5/18/17)
2017 May 19, Organizations from Netherlands and Qatar said they are joining forces to get 6,000 Syrian refugees into higher education courses, a move aimed at helping them integrate in the countries where they live now and rebuild their own nation if they are able to return.
(AP, 5/19/17)
2017 Jun 20, The Dutch Senate approved legislation that obliges all new migrants to sign a declaration pledging to respect "the values and rules of Dutch society" as part of a civic integration test to help them gain citizenship or residency.
(AP, 6/20/17)
2017 Jun 25, In Belgium thousands of protesters demanded that Belgium immediately shut down two nuclear reactors because of safety concerns. People from Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands formed a human chain across the border triangle of the three countries over the safety of the pressure vessels at the Tihange 2 and Doel 3 reactors in Belgium.
(AP, 6/25/17)
2017 Jun 27, A Dutch court ruled that the state was partly to blame for the deaths of hundreds of Muslims in Srebrenica, as the 1995 genocide cast another shadow over the country two decades on.
(AFP, 6/27/17)
2017 Jul 11, In the Netherlands an appeals judge confirmed that a 12-year-old boy does not have to undergo chemotherapy if he does not want it.
(AP, 7/11/17)
2017 Jul 18, An international tribunal ordered Russia to pay damages and costs of nearly 5.4 million euros ($6.2 million) to the Netherlands for unlawfully seizing a Greenpeace ship protesting at an oil platform in Arctic waters. The Arctic Sunrise, sailing under a Dutch flag, was seized by Russian authorities in September 2013 during a protest against an offshore oil platform.
(AP, 7/18/17)
2017 Jul 20, European and US authorities said they had shut down AlphaBay and Hansa Market and arrested their operators. AlphaBay, the largest so-called darknet market, was taken down in early July at the same time that authorities arrested Alexandre Cazes (25), a Canadian man living in Bangkok. Dutch police said they had taken control of Hansa market in June. Two men accused of operating Hansa were arrested in Germany.
(SFC, 7/21/17, p.C1)
2017 Jul 26, The Netherlands' highest court told the government it must fund an Islamic school in Amsterdam that authorities had tried to ban, tapping into a divisive debate about the role of Muslim culture in Dutch society.
(Reuters, 7/26/17)
2017 Jul 29, Dutch police arrested five Romanian men suspected of stealing iPhones worth 500,000 euros ($590,000) in a dangerous heist on a moving truck.
(AP, 7/31/17)
2017 Aug 3, Researchers said euthanasia has become a common way to die in the Netherlands, accounting for 4.5 percent of deaths, and that requests are increasing from people who aren't terminally ill.
(AP, 8/3/17)
2017 Aug 10, Dutch investigators detained two men suspected of being involved in the illegal use of pesticide at poultry farms that sparked a food safety scare in several European countries.
(AP, 8/10/17)
2017 Aug 23, A Dutch court sentenced a 47-year-old woman to 40 hours of community service for threatening the country's prime minister in a Facebook post. The woman from Leiden posted an image of PM Mark Rutte with a noose around his neck.
(AP, 8/23/17)
2017 Aug 25, Hungary said it is recalling its ambassador to the Netherlands and suspending high-level diplomatic ties in response to critical remarks by the Dutch ambassador about Hungary. Scheltema was critical of Hungary's unwillingness to participate in a European Union plan to relocate asylum-seekers from Greece and Italy. He also criticized the Hungarian government's campaign against billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros and drew parallels between the government's efforts to "create enemies" and those of the Islamic State group.
(AP, 8/25/17)
2017 Sep 7, A Dutch court ordered the government to take immediate action to limit air pollution, as emissions in various parts of the country were in breach of European rules.
(Reuters, 9/7/17)
2017 Sep 7, Britain, France and the Netherlands sent water, emergency rations and rescue teams to their stricken territories in the Caribbean hit by Hurricane Irma.
(AFP, 9/7/17)
2017 Sep 11, The Dutch government said it will continue contributing to the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali and NATO's force in Afghanistan.
(AP, 9/11/17)
2017 Sep 13, Netherlands' Justice Minister Stef Blok said he has revoked the Dutch citizenship of four people the government alleges traveled to a foreign conflict zone to join a terrorist organization.
(AP, 9/13/17)
2017 Sep 25, Unilver, an Anglo-Dutch behemoth, said it will buy Carver Korea, a Korean beauty firm for 2.27 billion euros.
(Econ, 9/30/17, p.61)
2017 Sep 26, In the Netherlands the bodies of a couple, reportedly 63 and 62, were discovered in Katlijk, a rural village with some 600 inhabitants that lies 140 km (87 miles) northeast of Amsterdam. Police detained the son (14) the same evening on suspicion of involvement in the deaths. The boy soon confessed to killing his parents with a knife.
(AP, 9/29/17)
2017 Oct 3, In the Netherlands a former spokesman for Geert Wilders was convicted of buying cocaine, alcohol and clothes and funding personal travel with money embezzled from the Dutch anti-Islam lawmaker's party. He was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
(AP, 10/3/17)
2017 Oct 5, In the Netherlands thousands of primary school teachers went on a one-day strike to back demands for better pay and conditions.
(AP, 10/5/17)
2017 Oct 5, In the Netherlands Eberhaard van der Laan (62), the popular mayor of Amsterdam who ran the city with both a firm hand and compassionate touch, died after a long battle with lung cancer.
(AP, 10/6/17)
2017 Oct 10, The Netherlands' new center-right, four-party coalition led by PM Mark Rutte published its policy blueprint for the coming four years, including everything from a raft of tax cuts to an experiment with state-sanctioned cannabis plantations. It included plans to shut all coal-fired power plants by the year 2030.
(AP, 10/10/17)(Reuters, 10/10/17)
2017 Oct 18, A report on human trafficking published at least 1,320 underage Dutch girls between the ages of 12 and 17 fall victim to sexual exploitation in the Netherlands each year.
(Reuters, 10/18/17)
2017 Oct 26, Netherlands PM Mark Rutte presented his third government, a new coalition that is set to move the country further to the right.
(AP, 10/26/17)
2017 Nov 2, The Dutch defense minister announced an investigation after soldiers revealed fresh allegations of harassment, abuse, assault and rape in the army.
(AFP, 11/2/17)
2017 Nov 3, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands issued a statement late today critical of Egypt’s detention of Ibrahim Metwaly, who was helping investigate the 2016 murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni. Metwaly was taken by airport security in September while heading to Geneva to attend a UN conference on enforced disappearances.
(Reuters, 11/5/17)
2017 Nov 8, In the Netherlands Iranian political activist Ahmad Mola Nissi (52), who founded an Arab nationalist group seeking an independent state inside Iran, was shot dead at The Hague. A suspect was detained at the scene. Nissi had established the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA), which seeks a separate state in the country's oil-rich southwestern Khuzestan province.
(Reuters, 11/9/17)
2017 Nov 9, German police detained a 29-year-old man suspected of trading narcotic drugs internationally over the internet through anonymous websites and sending them by mail to customers in Germany. A day earlier, in Ingolstadt in Bavaria, police had arrested a man who had ordered marijuana and amphetamines. In cooperation with Dutch authorities, police soon seized 400,000 euros ($470,840) and 75 kg (165 lb) of ecstasy, marijuana, cocaine, amphetamine and heroin at the apartments of the suspect and at his mother in the Netherlands.
(Reuters, 11/22/17)
2017 Nov 9, The International Criminal Court (ICC) approved a prosecution request to investigate war crimes allegedly committed in Burundi by the government and government-linked groups against political foes from April 2015 to October 2017.
(Reuters, 11/9/17)
2017 Nov 13, In the Netherlands Laura Hansen (22), who had traveled to Syria and Iraq to support her family while her husband fought with the Islamic State group, was convicted of supporting terrorist acts and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Judges suspended 13 months of Hansen's sentence, meaning she won't have to go to prison following the conviction since she spent a year in pretrial detention.
(AP, 11/13/17)
2017 Nov 14, In the Netherlands Human rights lawyers presented evidence to International Criminal Court prosecutors alleging that forces loyal to Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter, a key player in Libya's ongoing power struggle, are responsible for crimes including murder, torture and persecution.
(AP, 11/14/17)
2017 Nov 29, At The Hague appeals judges at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal upheld the convictions of six Bosnian Croats found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1990s.
(Reuters, 11/29/17)
2017 Nov 29, At The Hague Slobodan Praljak (72), a convicted Bosnian Croat war criminal, died after drinking from a small bottle in court. Praljak drank from a bottle shortly after judges at the tribunal upheld his sentence for involvement in a campaign to drive Muslims out of a would-be Bosnian Croat mini-state in Bosnia in the early 1990s. A toxicological test revealed potassium cyanide in Praljak’s blood.
(AP, 11/29/17)(SSFC, 12/3/17, p.A7)
2017 Dec 1, Dutch authorities said two men suspected of having fought for an al Qaeda-linked group in Syria were among four Syrian migrants arrested in the Netherlands.
(Reuters, 12/1/17)
2017 Dec 8, The Dutch government ordered the country's farmers to keep all poultry indoors after H5 bird flu was discovered at a duck farm.
(AP, 12/7/17)
2017 Dec 11, High winds and heavy snow in Europe stranded thousands of travelers, kept schoolchildren at home and even played havoc with international diplomacy. A second day of snowfall closed schools and disrupted travel across parts of Britain and the Netherlands.
(AFP, 12/11/17)(Reuters, 12/11/17)
2017 Dec 13, The Dutch government said it is joining Austria's lawsuit against Germany at the European Court of Justice over plans for a road toll for foreign drivers.
(Reuters, 12/13/17)
2017 Dec 14, In the Netherlands a man (37) was arrested late today in a mosque in Maastricht shortly after a man and a woman were killed and two other people were injured.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 15, In the Netherlands judges at the International Criminal Court ruled that former Congo DRC warlord Thomas Lubanga, convicted in 2012 of using child soldiers, is liable for $10 million in reparations to victims in the African nation.
(AP, 12/15/17)
2017 Dec 20, A court in the Netherlands banned the Dutch branch of the Bandidos motorcycle club, ruling in a civil case that the biker gang is a threat to public order.
(AP, 12/20/17)
2017 Dec 27, A Dutch court said that the government could not be accused of doing too little to improve the quality of the air, although emissions in various parts of the country are in breach of European rules.
(Reuters, 12/27/17)
2017 Netherlands stood as the world’s fifth largest exporter of goods. A third of its GDP came from exporting goods and services.
(Econ, 3/11/17, p.72)
2018 Jan 17, It was reported that the Dutch government has told the highest representative of Eritrea in the Netherlands to leave the country as the government saw mounting evidence of Eritrea continuing to force tax payments from people who fled the country.
(AP, 1/17/18)
2018 Jan 17, Air France-KLM canceled 228 European flights to and from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport planned for Jan. 18, as a storm is expected to disrupt traffic at the Dutch national airport.
(Reuters, 1/17/18)
2018 Jan 18, In the Netherlands at least 260 flights were scrapped and falling roof tiles led to the closure of airport terminals as powerful winds toppled trees and blew trucks off the road. Three people were killed in the Netherlands, three in Germany and one person in Belgium.
(Reuters, 1/18/18)(AFP, 1/18/18)(SFC, 1/19/18, p.A5)
2018 Jan 26, A Dutch newspaper and television show jointly reported that the Netherlands' spy service in 2014 broke into the computers used by a powerful Russian hacking group, often nicknamed Cozy Bear, and may be sitting on evidence relating to the breach of the US Democratic National Committee.
(AP, 1/26/18)
2018 Jan 31, A Dutch appeals court convicted a man for helping his ailing, 99-year-old stepmother take her own life a decade ago, a case that has become a focal point in the fierce debate in the Netherlands about end-of-life issues. The city court in Den Bosch gave Albert Heringa a suspended six-month sentence.
(AP, 1/31/18)
2018 Feb 1, A mining watchdog advised the Dutch government to significantly reduce the amount of gas extracted from the Groningen region, saying a cut is necessary to lower the risk of damage from subsequent earthquakes.
(AP, 2/1/18)
2018 Feb 14, In the Netherlands former prime minister Ruud Lubbers (b.1939), died in Rotterdam. He had governed the country from 1982 to 1994.
(SSFC, 2/18/18, p.C12)
2018 Feb 14, Former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili vowed to press on with his fight, as the stateless politician arrived in the Netherlands to join his family after being expelled from Ukraine.
(AFP, 2/14/18)
2018 Feb 22, Dutch anti-smoking activists vowed to fight after prosecutors rejected their call for a criminal investigation into four major tobacco companies on charges including attempted murder or manslaughter, on the grounds that such a case would be unlikely to lead to a conviction.
(AP, 2/22/18)
2018 Feb 26, US delivery giant UPS said it is suing the European Union's antitrust regulator for blocking a merger with Dutch firm TNT Express, which later was snapped up by UPS rival FedEx Corp.
(AP, 2/26/18)
2018 Mar 6, The Maersk Honam container vessel, a unit of Danish shipping firm A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S built in 2017, caught fire in the Arabian Sea. 23 crew members were safely evacuated from the vessel, but four remained missing.
(Reuters, 3/7/18)
2018 Mar 7, The EU’s executive branch pointed the finger at Belgium, Cyprus, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands for "aggressive" tax policies designed to undercut others to attract multinational companies.
(AP, 3/7/18)
2018 Mar 9, In the Netherlands trams ground to a halt across Amsterdam and the Rijksmuseum was evacuated after workers hit an electricity cable in the Dutch capital, causing a power outage that left 28,000 homes without electricity.
(AP, 3/9/18)
2018 Mar 15, Anglo-Dutch consumer giant Unilever chose The Netherlands over London to host its headquarters, dealing a blow to Britain's efforts to keep multinational companies onside following Brexit.
(AFP, 3/15/18)
2018 Mar 21, The Netherlands held municipal elections. Thierry Baudet (35) and his Forum for Democracy won two seats in the March 2017 parliamentary election and was expected to make major gains. Baudet has been called sexist and racist for various remarks, including saying last year that women "generally excel less in many occupations and lack ambition" and that Dutch "people are being homeopathically diluted by mixing them with all the peoples of the world". The Christian Democrats emerged with the most votes — around 13.5 percent — slightly ahead of PM Mark Rutte's center-right Party of Freedom and Democracy. The right-wing populist party of anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders gained footholds for the first time in dozens of municipalities.
(Reuters, 3/21/18)(AP, 3/22/18)
2018 Mar 22, A new study from the Netherlands-based Ocean Cleanup Foundation said that the mass of floating plastic between San Francisco and Hawaii contains 1.8 trillion pieces of trash and covers an area nearly four times the size of California. This was sixteen time more than previous thought.
(SFC, 3/23/18, p.A1)(SSFC, 4/1/18, p.C14)
2018 Mar 27, In the Netherlands an appeals court ruled that Dutch police were liable for the April 9, 2011, mall shooting in which six people were killed as the gunman should never have been granted an gun license.
(AFP, 3/27/18)
2018 Apr 4, At The Hague Britain and Russia accused each other of duplicity and untrustworthiness. London slammed as "perverse" a Russian proposal for a joint probe into the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia at the start of a meeting of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
(AFP, 4/4/18)(AFP, 4/4/18)
2018 Apr 25, European law enforcement agencies said a British and Dutch-led operation brought down webstresser.org, a website linked to more than four million cyberattacks around the world, with banking giants among the victims. Authorities in five countries including the Netherlands, Serbia, Croatia and Canada, with support from Scotland and Europol, targeted six members of the crime group.
(AFP, 4/25/18)
2018 Apr 26, In the Netherlands Russian officials brought purported Syrian witnesses for a briefing at The Hague headquarters of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Moscow says they were filmed in "staged videos" in the aftermath of the April 7 reported chemical weapons attack in Douma. Britain and France denounced this as a stunt and an "obscene masquerade".
(AP, 4/26/18)
2018 Apr 27, A two-day operation led by Belgian prosecutors seized servers and data from Islamic State propaganda outlets in a multi-country effort aimed at tracking down radicals and crimping the group's ability to spread its violent message. The operation involved authorities in the US, Canada, Britain, France, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Romania.
(AP, 4/27/18)
2018 May 2, The European Union's executive branch proposed a budget to finance new priorities like defense and border control as well as compensating for Britain's departure from the bloc. Dutch PM Mark Rutte says the new seven-year budget is unacceptable because it will mean the Netherlands' EU bill will increase too much.
(AP, 5/2/18)
2018 May 3, A team of experts from the OPCW returned to the Netherlands from their mission after going to Damascus on April 14. Inspectors for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had completed their work at the site of a suspected gas attack in the Syrian town of Douma.
(Reuters, 5/4/18)
2018 May 5, Dutch police shot and arrested a man know for confused behavior after three people were stabbed in the center of The Hague.
(SSFC, 5/6/18, p.A4)
2018 May 18, The Netherlands announced that it will ban the use of coal in electricity generation in the coming decade and shut down two of its five coal-fired plants at the end of 2024 unless they switch fuels.
(Reuters, 5/18/18)
2018 May 24, Dutch prosecutors said a detailed analysis of video and photos by an international team of investigators has unequivocally established that the Buk missile that brought down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine nearly four years ago came from a Russia-based military unit in Kurst. Russia's military denied that any Russian missile complex had ever crossed the border between Russia and Ukraine.
(AP, 5/24/18)(Reuters, 5/24/18)
2018 May 25, The Netherlands and Australia announced they were holding Moscow legally responsible for its role in the July 17, 2014, missile attack and downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine nearly four years ago.
(AP, 5/25/18)
2018 May 30, At The Hague hundreds of Rohingya victims appealed to judges at the International Criminal Court to grant prosecutors jurisdiction to investigate deportations from Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh.
(Reuters, 5/31/18)
2018 Jun 4, The Dutch government apologized and agreed to compensate military personnel who contracted illnesses including cancer after working with paint containing the toxic element chromium-6. The apology followed publication of a critical report into the use of paint containing chromium-6 by staff at five NATO storage depots in the Netherlands from 1984-2006.
(AP, 6/4/18)
2018 Jun 8, At The Hague International Criminal Court appeals judges overturned the convictions of former Congolese Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba for atrocities committed by his forces in Central African Republic. Bemba was sentenced in 2016 to 18 years in prison.
(AP, 6/8/18)
2018 Jun 11, Dutch King Willem-Alexander started a tour of three Baltic countries in Riga, Latvia, where he met with Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis. He is scheduled to go to Estonia on July 12 and will be in Lithuania on July 14. The trip was to coincide with the Baltic nations celebrating the centenary of their declarations of independence from the Russian Empire.
(AP, 6/11/18)
2018 Jun 18, In the Netherlands a van ran into a small group of pop music fans near the Pinkpop festival, killing one person and injuring three others before fleeing the scene. A suspect turned himself in to police hours later.
(AP, 6/18/18)
2018 Jun 26, The Dutch Upper House of parliament passed a law banning the wearing of face-covering veils in public buildings, such as schools, government offices and hospitals.
(AP, 6/26/18)
2018 Jun 27, At The Hague the world's chemical weapons watchdog won new powers to assign blame for attacks with banned toxic munitions. The rare special session agreed that the OPCW's secretariat "shall put in place arrangements to identify the perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic." Russia and 23 other countries voted against the move, which was initiated by Britain.
(Reuters, 6/27/18)(AFP, 6/27/18)(AP, 6/28/18)
2018 Jul 4, Police in Brazil searched the offices of Philips and executed arrest warrants for two people linked to the Dutch electronics company as part of an investigation into suspected fraud in the supply of medical equipment to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics and the Rio de Janeiro Health Department.
(AP, 7/4/18)
2018 Jul 5, Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a second arrest warrant for Mahmoud al-Werfalli, a Libyan National Army (LNA) commander accused of executing dozens of prisoners.
(Reuters, 7/5/18)
2018 Jul 6, The Dutch Intelligence service AIVD said two Iranian embassy staff have been expelled. No further information was provided.
(Reuters, 7/6/18)
2018 Jul 20, The Netherlands and Turkey said they were resuming full diplomatic ties for the first time since Dutch officials barred two Turkish ministers from attending an election rally in 2017.
(AFP, 7/20/18)
2018 Aug 3, Netherlands-based Heineken, the world's second-largest brewer, said it has struck a deal to expand in China, the world's biggest beer market.
(AP, 8/3/18)
2018 Aug 20, Dutch cyber security expert Arjen Kamphuis (47), a WikiLeaks associate, was last seen in Bodo, Norway. On Sept. 12 a fisherman found some of Kamphuis's personal belongings floating in the waters about 50 km (30 miles) east of Bodo.
(AFP, 9/13/18)
2018 Aug 24, Dutch PM Mark Rutte distanced his government from a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest being organized later this year by anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders.
(AP, 8/24/18)
2018 Aug 26, Spanish police arrested Joseph Brech (55) in a mountainous area near the town of Castelltercol some 50 km (30 miles) from Barcelona for the brutal 1998 rape and killing of Dutch boy Nicky Verstappen (11). The boy vanished two decades ago on August 9 at a summer camp in southern Limburg province.
(AFP, 8/27/18)
2018 Aug 30, Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders said he had canceled a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest following death threats and concerns other people could be put at risk.
(AP, 8/31/18)
2018 Aug 31, In the Netherlands two visiting American citizens were wounded in a knife attack at Amsterdam's busy main railway station. Police shot and wounded a 19-year-old Afghan man immediately after the attack and questioned him as a suspect.
(AP, 9/1/18)
2018 Sep 1, Dutch former defence minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (45) was appointed as the United Nation's envoy to Iraq, to head a mission which plays an essential role in the country's political and economic spheres.
(AFP, 9/1/18)
2018 Sep 4, Dutch prosecutors said bank ING has paid 775 million euros ($897 million) to settle a huge money laundering case in the Netherlands.
(AP, 9/4/18)
2018 Sep 5, Freddie Oversteegen (b.1925), Dutch communist resistance member, died in Driehuis. She, her sister, and friend Hannie Schaft had worked to sabotage the Nazi military presence in the Netherlands during WWII. They used dynamite to disable bridges and railroad tracks. Additionally, they aided Jewish children by smuggling them out of the country or helping them escape concentration camps. They also lured soldiers to the woods under the pretense of a romantic overture and then killed them.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Oversteegen)
2018 Sep 6, The Hague-based International Criminal Court said it had jurisdiction to probe the forced exodus of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar as a possible crime against humanity.
(AFP, 9/6/18)
2018 Sep 7, Turkey's foreign ministry said the country and the Netherlands have taken a further step in normalizing relations by re-appointing ambassadors to each other's capitals.
(AP, 9/7/18)
2018 Sep 8, Engineers set to sea from San Francisco to deploy a trash collection device to corral plastic litter floating between California and Hawaii in an attempt to clean up the world's largest garbage patch in the heart of the Pacific Ocean. The system was created by The Ocean Cleanup, an organization founded by Dutch innovator Boyan Slat (24).
(AP, 9/9/18)
2018 Sep 11, The Hague-based International Criminal Court said its work would continue "undeterred" after Washington threatened to prosecute its officials if Americans are charged with war crimes committed in Afghanistan.
(AFP, 9/11/18)
2018 Sep 11, The Hague-based International Criminal Court said its work would continue "undeterred" after Washington threatened to prosecute its officials if Americans are charged with war crimes committed in Afghanistan.
(AFP, 9/11/18)
2018 Sep 14, In the Netherlands four people who say Tibetan Buddhist teachers abused them physically or psychologically presented the Dalai Lama with written accounts from 12 alleged victims and appealed to him to address the problem.
(AP, 9/14/18)
2018 Sep 14, Swiss authorities said that the Netherlands arrested and expelled two suspected Russian spies earlier this year who allegedly tried to hack a Swiss laboratory that conducts tests for the UN-backed chemical weapons watchdog.
(AP, 9/14/18)
2018 Sep 16, A weekend report by respected Dutch daily NRC linked 20 of 39 bishops and cardinals to (sexual) abuse. The paper reported that four bishops committed abuse and a further 16 senior clergymen transferred priests who had been accused of abuse to new locations.
(AP, 9/17/18)
2018 Sep 18, A Dutch firm started building the country's first recycling plant to turn plastic from used nappies into household items like garden furniture or flower pots.
(AFP, 9/18/18)
2018 Sep 20, In the Netherlands a train slammed into an electric cargo bike in the southern town of Oss, killing four young children and leaving two other people critically injured.
(AP, 9/20/18)
2018 Sep 27, In the Netherlands anti-terror units found a large quantity of bomb-making materials including fertilizer likely to be used in a car bomb following the arrest of seven terror suspects in the cities of Arnhem and Weert.
(AFP, 9/28/18)
2018 Oct 4, The US Justice Department charged seven Russian military intelligence officers with hacking anti-doping agencies and other organizations. Britain and the Netherlands condemned the Russian GRU military intelligence for a series of alleged global cybercrimes. Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of Russian parliament, denounced the accusations as fake.
(AP, 10/4/18)
2018 Oct 5, Anglo-Dutch consumer goods multinational Unilever, whose brands include Knorr and Dove, said it has scrapped a plan to consolidate its headquarters in the Netherlands following opposition from British shareholders.
(AP, 10/5/18)
2018 Oct 8, Russia's foreign ministry said four Russians, accused by the Netherlands last week of hacking, were traveling with technical equipment intended to test their embassy's IT systems in the Hague.
(Reuters, 10/8/18)
2018 Oct 9, The Dutch government lost a legal appeal against a landmark 2015 court ruling which ordered it to slash greenhouse gases by at least 25 percent by 2020.
(AFP, 10/9/18)
2018 Oct 15, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang reaffirmed pledges to open up his country to foreign investment as a way of promoting commerce between his country and the Netherlands.
(AP, 10/15/18)
2018 Oct 16, In the Netherlands former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appealed for a sense of urgency as he launched the Global Commission on Adaptation that aims to accelerate and expand ways the world can prepare for climate change.
(AP, 10/16/18)
2018 Oct, At The Hague four alleged members of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency were caught red-handed with a car full of electronic gear in a carpark next to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
(AFP, 10/6/18)
2018 Nov 1, A court in the Netherlands banned Ryanair from transferring 16 pilots overseas following the closure of its Dutch base in Eindhoven, saying that the move appeared to be a reprisal by the budget carrier for strikes by Dutch employees.
(AP, 11/1/18)
2018 Nov 5, In Poland a North Korean worker who claims he is a victim of modern slavery in a Polish shipyard filed a criminal complaint against a Dutch shipbuilder that bought products from the Polish firm. Dutch lawyer Barbara van Straaten filed the case on the worker's behalf.
(AP, 11/8/18)
2018 Nov 9, Dutch officials said they will prosecute a nursing home doctor for euthanizing an elderly woman with dementia, the first time a doctor has been charged since the Netherlands legalized euthanasia in 2002.
(AP, 11/9/18)
2018 Nov 9, A court in the Netherlands convicted 34 people for blocking a highway last year to prevent anti-racism demonstrators from protesting at a festive parade featuring the Dutch version of Santa Claus and his helpers, called Black Petes.
(AP, 11/9/18)
2018 Nov 12, The Netherlands resumed visa and passport services in Pakistan following a brief suspension, denying that its embassy had closed over security concerns after the country gave shelter to the lawyer of a Christian woman in a blasphemy case.
(Reuters, 11/12/18)
2018 Nov 17, In the Netherlands scattered confrontations broke out between supporters and opponents of the divisive helper of the Dutch version of Santa Claus, amid a fierce and increasingly polarized debate about the helper known as Black Pete.
(AP, 11/17/18)
2018 Nov 27, Britain's Information Commissioner's Office said it fined Uber 385,000 pounds ($491,000) and Dutch officials imposed a 600,000-euro ($679,000) fine for failing to protect customers' data during a cyberattack in 2016.
(AP, 11/27/18)
2018 Nov 30, In the Netherlands a rotating roster of preachers continued to lead a non-stop, round-the-clock service at a small Protestant chapel in The Hague in an attempt to shield a family of Armenian asylum-seekers from deportation. The Tamrazyan family has been living in the Netherlands for nearly nine years, as their asylum application and various appeals proceeded slowly through the courts. The Council of State, the country's highest administrative court, has ruled they must return to their home country, which is considered safe by the Dutch government.
(AP, 11/30/18)
2018 Dec 5, Police arrested dozens of suspected mobsters in Europe and South America in dubbed "Operation Pollina," a huge international swoop targeting Italy's notorious 'Ndrangheta mafia clan. Police seized four tons of cocaine, 120 kilos of ecstasy and two million euros (dollars) in cash across Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Suriname.
(AFP, 12/5/18)
2018 Dec 6, A Dutch court gave the go-ahead for a cull of hundreds of red deer in a nature reserve north of Amsterdam, in a wildlife management case that has sparked fierce opposition from animal rights activists.
(AP, 12/6/18)
2018 Dec 12, In the Netherlands Sarah Papenheim (21), a native of Minnesota, was fatally stabbed at her home in an apartment building near Erasmus University, where she had been studying since 2016. A suspect (23) was arrested the same day.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 12, Eight European Union nations (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom) underlined their commitment to the Iran nuclear deal while urging Tehran to stop its "destabilizing regional activities" especially the launch of ballistic missiles.
(AP, 12/12/18)
2018 Dec 14, The Amsterdam Appeals Court confirmed the maximum 10 years and eight months sentence imposed in March last year on the man identified by Dutch authorities as Aydin C., who was convicted of fraud and blackmail via the internet for the online abuse.
(AP, 12/14/18)
2018 Dec 18, In the Netherlands an appeals court has upheld a ban on a Dutch arm of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club, agreeing with a lower court's conclusion that the biker gang forms a threat to public order.
(AP, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 18, The Dutch Supreme Court upheld the war crimes conviction of timber dealer Guus Kouwenhoven, who was found guilty last year of selling arms to former Liberian leader Charles Taylor, and of complicity in war crimes committed by Taylor's forces in Liberia and Guinea from 2000 to 2003.
(AP, 12/18/18)
2018 Dec 18, In the Netherlands Humeyra Ergincanli (16) was shot dead in front of fellow students in her high school's bicycle shed. Suspect Bekir E. (31) was arrested shortly after the shooting at the Rotterdam Design College.
(AP, 12/18/18)(AP, 12/21/18)
2018 Dec 29, Dutch police on horseback broke up a "Yellow Vest" protest in The Hague and arrested eight people after the demonstration turned violent.
(AP, 12/29/18)
2019 Jan 2, The Dutch Coast Guard said up to 270 containers had fallen off the Panamanian-flagged MSC ZOE, one of the world's biggest container ships, in rough weather near the German island of Borkum and floated southwest toward Dutch waters. Three missing containers contained an organic peroxide, a flammable and highly toxic compound. In Feb. the estimate of fallen containers was raised to 345.
(Reuters, 1/2/19)(AP, 1/3/19)(AP, 2/6/19)
2019 Jan 4, Dutch authorities said they will hold Swiss shipping line MSC liable for the cost of cleaning up debris from more than 270 cargo containers that fell off one of its vessels and washed up on shore. Roughly 35 containers have been located and the remainder were lost at sea.
(Reuters, 1/4/19)
2019 Jan 15, The Int'l. Criminal Court at The Hague acquitted former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo over post-electoral violence that killed 3,000 people, the latest in a series of blows for beleaguered ICC prosecutors.
(AFP, 1/15/19)
2019 Jan 16, International Criminal Court judges at the Hague said that former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and Mr. Ble Goude, a former government minister, should be released immediately following their acquittal on charges of involvement in deadly post-election violence in 2010.
(AP, 1/16/19)
2019 Jan 17, Turkey deported Dutch journalist Ans Boersma (31) after Turkish officials said Ankara received a tip-off from police in the Netherlands that she had suspected links to a jihadist group in Syria. Boersma was a person of interest in an ongoing investigation into militant activity.
(AFP, 1/17/19)(Reuters, 1/17/19)
2019 Jan 18, At The Hague ICC judges said former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo must spend at least another two weeks in detention at the International Criminal Court, despite being acquitted this week of involvement in deadly post-election violence.
(AP, 1/18/19)
2019 Jan 28, The Netherlands refused an Italian request to take in 47 migrants on a humanitarian ship that is being blocked from Italian ports, saying there was a need to distinguish between genuine refugees and economic migrants.
(Reuters, 1/28/19)
2019 Jan 30, In the Netherlands a round-the-clock prayer service to stop an Armenian family being deported was ended after 96 days, after the government agreed to make an exception to immigration rules. Hundreds of supporters of the Tamrazyan family have held rites non-stop at the Bethel church in The Hague since Oct. 26 to block their deportation.
(Reuters, 1/30/19)
2019 Feb 6, The Dutch water authority said that at least 345 containers fell off the MSC Zoe freighter on Jan. 2. The previous estimate was 291. The ship's owner raised the estimate after unloading the final containers at the port of Gdansk in Poland.
(AP, 2/6/19)
2019 Feb 6, In the Netherlands a man (31) was fatally shot by police near the central bank in Amsterdam. Detectives the next day said he was carrying a fake weapon and may have been attempting to incite officers into killing him.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In the Netherlands thousands of students skipped classes to march for action on climate change, following the example of young demonstrators in Belgium and other countries for the first time.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 12, Dutch fisherman protested outside parliament in a last-ditch attempt to avert a European Union ban on the practice of using electric shocks to stun fish before scooping them up in nets.
(AP, 2/12/19)
2019 Feb 14, Chinese tech company SenseNets closed an open database that stored the records of individuals "fully accessible to anyone," after Dutch security researcher Victor Gevers reported leaks of personal information on 2.6 million people in Xinjiang to SenseNets. The database had been exposed since last July.
(AFP, 2/19/19)
2019 Feb 27, Dutch officials said that an estimated 90,000 small bottles of Russian vodka, found last week on a Chinese freighter in the port of Rotterdam, will likely be sold at auction or destroyed.
(AP, 2/27/19)
2019 Mar 8, Dutch prosecutors said Uber has agreed to an out-of-court settlement of more than 2 million euros ($2.24 million) linked to an illegal service the ride hailing company offered in the Netherlands.
(AP, 3/8/19)
2019 Mar 10, In the Netherlands thousands of people, many warding off rain under umbrellas, packed a central square in Amsterdam to march for more progressive climate policies.
(AP, 3/10/19)
2019 Mar 12, Dutch police arrested two men in Amsterdam for their suspected involvement in the coordinated Islamic State attacks on Paris in November 2015 that killed 130 people. One suspect (29) will be held in restrictive custody for at least two weeks, while the other suspect (31) had to be released for health reasons.
(Reuters, 3/15/19)
2019 Mar 18, Dutch police launched a huge manhunt for a gunman who killed three people and wounded nine others in a suspected terror attack inside a tram in Utrecht. Turkish-born suspect Gokmen Tanis (37) was arrested after a seven-hour manhunt by security forces. Two other suspects were also in custody, but were soon released. Another suspect was arrested the next day. On March 20, 2020, Tanis was sentenced to life in prison for killing four people.
(AFP, 3/18/19)(Reuters, 3/19/19)(SFC, 3/20/19, p.A2)(SFC, 3/21/20, p.A3)
2019 Mar 20, In the Netherlands right wing populist Thierry Baudet's Forum for Democracy emerged from the sidelines into the Dutch political mainstream as the biggest winner in provincial elections that determine the makeup of the parliament's upper house and also impact the coalition government of PM Mark Rutte.
(AP, 3/21/19)
2019 Apr 7, In Australia Dutchman Wiebe Wakker completed an epic 95,000 km (59,000 mile) journey by electric car in Sydney in a bid to prove the viability of such vehicles in tackling climate change.
(AFP, 4/7/19)
2019 Apr 15, Ties van der Meer of the Dutch Donor Child Foundation said that three more people contacted him over the weekend because they suspect they may also have been conceived using the sperm of Dr. Jan Karbaat (d.2017), who had used his own sperm to father 49 children, without telling their mothers.
(AP, 4/15/19)
2019 May 18, In Israel singer Duncan Laurence (25) brought the Netherlands victory with a doleful piano ballad, "Arcade," its first win in the Eurovision song contest since the 1970s. His victory means the Netherlands will host next year's edition.
(AP, 5/19/19)
2019 May 23, Britain and the Netherlands kicked off four days of phased voting for the 28 members states of the European Parliament.
(AP, 5/24/19)
2019 May 27, Nasdaq Nordic, which owns most stock exchanges in the Nordic-Baltic region, withdrew its offer to acquire Norway's main exchange, saying " under the current circumstances the minimum acceptance condition for completion" cannot be satisfied. This paved the way for rival Netherlands-based Euronext to proceed with its buyout.
(AP, 5/27/19)
2019 May 28, In the Netherlands around 80 flights to and from Amsterdam Schiphol were canceled as a 24-hr nationwide public transport strike made it hard for passengers and staff to get to Europe's third largest airport.
(Reuters, 5/28/19)
2019 May 29, Dutch judges banned biker club Hells Angels and ordered all its chapters to close in the Netherlands as authorities pursue a clampdown on so-called outlaw motorcycle gangs.
(AFP, 5/29/19)
2019 May, In the Netherlands around 18,000 building projects, worth billions of euros, risked being shelved after the country's highest court ruled that the way Dutch builders and farmers dealt with nitrogen emissions breached European law.
(Reuters, 10/4/19)
2019 Jun 7, A Dutch court outlawed the No Surrender motorcycle gang in another victory for prosecutors in their fight against what they consider to be violent groups.
(SFC, 6/8/19, p.A2)
2019 Jun 10, Twelve orphaned children of French jihadists were flown home from camps in Syria, along with two Dutch orphans who were handed over to the Netherlands.
(AFP, 6/10/19)
2019 Jun 19, Dutch-led int'l. team charged three Russians (Igor Girkin, Sergei Dubinsky and Oleg Pulatov) and one Ukrainian (Leonid Kharchenko) with murder over the 2014 shooting down of flight MH17 above rebel-held eastern Ukraine in which 298 people were killed.
(AFP, 6/19/19)
2019 Jun 26, Dutch national railway company NS said that it will pay reparations to Jews, Roma and Sinti whom it transported to camps in the Netherlands during WWII, from where they were sent to Nazi concentration camps.
(SFC, 6/27/19, p.A2)
2019 Jun 26, Dutch police said they had seized 2.5 tons of methamphetamine last week, in what they said was the largest haul of the drug to date in Europe, with a street value estimated in the "hundreds of millions of euros".
(Reuters, 6/26/19)
2019 Jun 27, The Dutch intelligence agency (AIVD) warned of the escalating threat of state-backed cyber espionage, saying the Netherlands was particularly vulnerable as a hub for international business, telecoms and human rights groups.
(Reuters, 6/27/19)
2019 Jul 7, The US women's soccer team claimed a fourth World Cup in a 2-0 win over Netherlands.
(SFC, 7/8/19, p.C1)
2019 Jul 8, The Int'l. Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands convicted Bosco Ntaganda, a former rebel commander known as "The Terminator," of 18 counts of crimes against humanity for his role in a bloody ethnic conflict in the Congo DRC in 2002-2003.
(SFC, 7/9/19, p.A4)
2019 Jul 9, Director-General Fernando Arias of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), based in the Netherlands, said traces of what could be a byproduct of a nerve agent or poison gas were found late last year at Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Center in Barzah.
(AP, 7/9/19)
2019 Jul 18, An Amsterdam court convicted a 38-year-old career criminal of organizing the murder of an Iranian who lived in the Netherlands, but said the motive for the killing remains unclear. The victim, Iranian-born Ali Motamed, was gunned down outside his home by two hit men on Dec. 15, 2015.
(AP, 7/18/19)
2019 Jul 19, The Dutch government accepted that the state was partially liable for the deaths in 1995 of 350 Muslim males who were expelled from a UN base and killed by Bosnian Serb forces at Srebrenica.
(Reuters, 7/19/19)
2019 Jul 19, Dutch film actor Rutger Hauer (75) died at his home in the Netherlands. His films included "Turkish Delight" (1973), "Nighthawks" (1981) "Blade Runner" (1982), "Ladyhawke" (1985), "Escape from Sobibor" (1987), "Sin City" (2005), "Batman Begins" (2005) and "The Hitchhiker" (2006).
(SFC, 7/26/19, p.A9)
2019 Jul 25, Soaring temperatures broke records in Germany, France, Britain and the Netherlands as a heatwave gripped Europe for the second time in a month.
(Reuters, 7/25/19)
2019 Jul 25, Soaring temperatures broke records in Germany, France, Britain and the Netherlands as a heatwave gripped Europe for the second time in a month. The Paris area recorded 108.7 degrees F; 105.3 F in the Netherlands; 105.3 F in Belgium; 108.7 F in Germany and 98.4 F at Heathrow Airport.
(Reuters, 7/25/19)(SFC, 7/26/19, p.A2)
2019 Aug 1, In the Netherlands a partial ban on face-covering clothing took effect. It covered public transportation, government buildings and health and education institutions.
(SFC, 8/2/19, p.A4)
2019 Aug 3, In the Netherlands one of Europe's biggest annual Gay Pride parades kicked off on the canals of Amsterdam, with over 500,000 visitors from around the world expected to cheer on 80 boats representing a wide variety of organizations from the LGBTI+ community.
(Reuters, 8/3/19)
2019 Aug 27, The Dutch Data Protection Agency (DPA) said Microsoft is remotely collecting data from users of Windows Home and Windows Pro, in a potential breach of privacy rules.
(Reuters, 8/27/19)
2019 Sep 12, Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant Unilever released a list of its global tea suppliers, bolstering a drive to stamp out worker exploitation and modern-day slavery on plantations.
(Reuters, 9/12/19)
2019 Sep 17, The Dutch government said it plans to reform a business tax rule that allows wealthy multinationals to reduce the amount of tax they pay on their profits.
(AP, 9/17/19)
2019 Sep 17, Dutch-Palestinian Ismail Zeyada went to court in the Netherlands seeking damages from two former Israeli military commanders, Benny Gantz and Amir Eshel, for their roles in a 2014 airstrike on a Gaza house that killed six members of his family.
(AP, 9/17/19)
2019 Sep 18, Derk Wiersum, a Dutch lawyer in a high-profile case against a group of men charged with drug-related killings, was gunned down in front of his Amsterdam home.
(AP, 9/18/19)
2019 Sep 25, An advisory commission urged the Dutch government to adopt a broad package of measures including lowering the speed limit on some roads and buying up old, inefficient cattle farms to reduce the country's nitrogen emissions.
(AP, 9/25/19)
2019 Sep 27, Thousands of Dutch children skipped school to join a global climate strike, blocking traffic and asking their leaders "how dare you?" in a reference to Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg's speech at the United Nations.
(Reuters, 9/27/19)
2019 Oct 1, In the Netherlands an appeals court ruled that the statute of limitations does not apply to allegations of colonial era crimes committed by Dutch forces in Indonesia.
(SFC, 10/2/19, p.A2)
2019 Oct 1, Dutch police arrested a man on suspicion of involvement in lawyer Derk Wiersum’s Sept. 18 slaying in Amsterdam.
(AP, 10/3/19)
2019 Oct 4, The Dutch government said it would spend hundreds of millions of euros to mitigate nitrogen emissions, in a move it hopes will pave the way for thousands of building projects to be restarted.
(AP, 10/4/19)
2019 Oct 4, Dutch health authorities ordered a major recall of processed meats from grocery stores after saying they had linked a spate of food poisonings over the past two years to a likely single source. Experts had been testing the DNA of listeria bacteria involved in cases that affected 20 people in all, killing three of them and causing one woman to miscarry.
(Reuters, 10/4/19)
2019 Oct 12, Dutch police said they had detained 130 protesters with environmental group Extinction Rebellion who blocked locations in downtown Amsterdam to draw attention to climate change.
(Reuters, 10/12/19)
2019 Oct 14, Greenpeace activists boarded two Royal Dutch Shell oil platforms in the British North Sea in protest against plans to leave parts of the giant structures in place after production shuts down.
(Reuters, 10/14/19)
2019 Oct 15, In the Netherlands six young adults and their father were receiving medical treatment after Dutch police acting on a tip-off discovered them locked away in a secret room at an isolated farm. The family, according to local news reports, had been waiting for the end of time.
(Reuters, 10/15/19)
2019 Oct 15, Signify, a Dutch-based lighting company, said it has agreed to buy US firm Cooper Lighting Solutions from Eaton Corp. for $1.4 billion in cash to boost its presence in North America.
(Reuters, 10/16/19)
2019 Oct 16, Police in the Dutch city of The Hague closed its central parliament square to keep out farmers protesting over what they see as attempts to blame them for nitrogen pollution.
(Reuters, 10/16/19)
2019 Nov 1, Netherlands' Environmental Assessment Agency said the country is unlikely to reach its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 49% by 2030 despite a tough package of measures agreed in June.
(AP, 11/1/19)
2019 Nov 5, Air France-KLM outlined plans to expand its budget Transavia business and push the core French carrier upmarket, while overhauling its fleet in pursuit of improved sales and profitability.
(Reuters, 11/5/19)
2019 Nov 7, The International Criminal Court at The Hague passed its highest ever sentence, sending Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda, known as "The Terminator," to prison for 30 years for crimes including murder, rape and sexual slavery.
(AP, 11/7/19)
2019 Nov 11, A Dutch court said the government must attempt to bring home children whose mothers traveled to Syria to join Islamic extremist groups. The case was filed by lawyers on behalf of 23 women and their 56 children who were being housed in camps in northern Syria.
(AP, 11/11/19)
2019 Nov 14, The International Criminal Court at The Hague said that it had approved a prosecution request to investigate crimes against humanity against Myanmar's Rohingya minority who were systematically driven across the border to Bangladesh.
(Reuters, 11/14/19)
2019 Nov 15, The Netherlands showed off the spoils of Brexit as it officially handed over the European Medicines Agency's new building in Amsterdam after the regulator was forced to move from London.
(AFP, 11/15/19)
2019 Nov 16, In the Netherlands anti-racism campaigners held protests in cities across the country as Dutch children hailed the annual arrival of St. Nicholas and a blackface character who traditionally accompanies him.
(Reuters, 11/16/19)
2019 Nov 22, A Dutch appeals court overturned a lower court’s order that the government must attempt to bring home children whose mothers traveled to Syria to join Islamic extremist groups.
(AP, 11/22/19)
2019 Nov 29, In the Netherlands three teens were stabbed on a street in The Hague that was crowded with Black Friday shoppers. Two girls (15) and a boy (13), were treated in a hospital and released.
(AP, 11/30/19)
2019 Nov 30, Dutch police arrested a 35-year-old homeless man on suspicion of stabbing three teens on a street in The Hague that was crowded with Black Friday shoppers.
(AP, 11/30/19)
2019 Dec 3, The Dutch parliament voted to require companies listed in the Netherlands to have at least 30% of supervisory board seats held by women. The motion also requires around 5,000 other large companies to draw up detailed plans to increase the number of women on their supervisory and executive boards.
(Reuters, 12/3/19)
2019 Dec 9, Canada and the Netherlands put out a joint statement in support of Gambia, the tiny, mainly Muslim West African country that filed the suit in which the Buddhist-majority Myanmar is accused of genocide against its Rohingya Muslim minority a day before genocide hearings begin at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
(Reuters, 12/9/19)
2019 Dec 11, At The Hague Nobel Peace Prize winner and former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi denied that Myanmar's armed forces committed genocide, telling the United Nation's top court that the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she leads was the unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.
(AP, 12/11/19)
2019 Dec 11, The International Criminal Court said it has confirmed the charges brought by prosecutors against two men suspected of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Central African Republic. The court said Alfred Yekatom and alleged co-conspirator and Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona, who have said they are innocent, will face trial.
(Reuters, 12/11/19)
2019 Dec 12, At The Hague lawyers seeking to halt what they allege is ongoing genocide in Myanmar slammed leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s defense of her country’s armed forces, saying that the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former pro-democracy icon chose to ignore “unspeakable" crimes targeting Muslim civilians.
(AP, 12/12/19)
2019 Dec 19, In the Netherlands an appeals court overturned a local ordinance banning catcalls in the port city of Rotterdam. The court ruled that only Parliament has the power to criminalize such behavior because doing so amounts to a possible infringement of the freedom of expression.
(SFC, 12/20/19, p.A2)
2019 Dec 20, At The Hague the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court took a major step toward opening an investigation into alleged war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories, asking judges exactly what territory a future investigation could cover.
(AP, 12/20/19)
2020 Jan 19, Dutch police detained four suspects following a suspected failed attempt to break one or more prisoners out of a prison.
(AP, 1/19/20)
2020 Jan 23, At The Hague the International Court of Justice ordered Myanmar take all measures in its power to prevent genocide against the Rohingya.
(AP, 1/23/20)
2020 Jan 26, Dutch PM Mark Rutte apologized for the failure of officials in the Nazi-occupied country during World War II to do more to prevent the deportation and murder of just over 100,000 Jews.
(AP, 1/26/20)
2020 Feb 5, In the Netherlands the University of Maastricht disclosed that it had paid hackers a ransom of 30 bitcoin -- at the time worth 200,000 euros ($220,000) -- to unblock its computer systems, including email and computers, after an attack that unfolded on Dec. 24.
(Reuters, 2/5/20)
2020 Feb 18, It was reported that thousands of people in the Netherlands have signed a petition objecting to the construction of an airport in Portugal that could threaten the black-tailed godwit, the Dutch national bird.
(Reuters, 2/18/20)
2020 Feb 18, A Dutch appeals court reinstated an international arbitration panel's order that Russia should pay $50 billion compensation to shareholders in former oil company Yukos. The Hague court of Appeals had ruled in 2016 that the decision was not correct. Russia said it would appeal the verdict.
(SFC, 2/19/20, p.A3)
2020 Feb 28, The list of countries hit by the COVID-19 illness edged toward 60 as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Nigeria reported their first cases.
(AP, 2/28/20)
2020 Mar 6, The Netherlands reported its first coronavirus death.
(AP, 3/6/20)
2020 Mar 8, In the Netherlands the families of people killed when a missile shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014 set out 298 white chairs outside the Russian Embassy in a silent protest against Moscow’s lack of cooperation in the investigation into the downing of the passenger jet.
(AP, 3/8/20)
2020 Mar 9, In the Netherlands the number of people infected with the new coronavirus increased to 321, up from 264 a day earlier.
(Reuters, 3/9/20)
2020 Mar 10, Dutch health authorities took action to contain an outbreak of the coronavirus in a southern province, where a large group of employees at hospitals tested positive for the illness. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases had risen by 61 to 382. One more person had died, taking the number of deaths so far to four.
(AP, 3/10/20)
2020 Mar 10, In Indonesia visiting Dutch King Willem-Alexander apologized for his country's agression during its colonial rule and formally recognized the country's independence date in his first formal visit to the former Dutch colony.
(SFC, 3/11/20, p.A4)
2020 Mar 12, The government of Netherlands announced a ban on gatherings of more than 100 people, told companies to encourage employees to work from home and said anyone with flu-like symptoms should stay home.
(AP, 3/13/20)
2020 Mar 13, In the Netherlands new coronavirus infections reached 804, with 10 deaths. Dutch shoppers stockpiled toilet paper, pasta and canned goods as worries about the coronavirus outbreak spread.
(Reuters, 3/13/20)
2020 Mar 14, Dutch health authorities said the number of confirmed coronavirus infections in the Netherlands has risen by 155 to 959. The number of deaths rose by 2 to a total of 12.
(Reuters, 3/14/20)
2020 Mar 15, In the Netherlands the number of deaths rose by eight to 20, while confirmed cases increased by 176 to 1,135.
(AP, 3/15/20)
2020 Mar 18, In the Netherlands organizers of the Eurovision song contest said it will not take place this year due to the global coronavirus outbreak. The Netherlands was to host the 2020 contest after Dutch singer-songwriter Duncan Laurence won in 2019 with a song called "Arcade".
(AP, 3/18/20)
2020 Mar 19, Dutch health authorities said the number of local confirmed cases of coronavirus has risen by 409 to a total of 2,460, with 18 new deaths raising the total death toll to 76.
(Reuters, 3/19/20)
2020 Mar 21, In the Netherlands, coronavirus fatalities increased by 30 to 136. The total number of cases is 3,631.
(Bloomberg, 3/21/20)
2020 Mar 22, The Netherlands reported 573 more coronavirus virus cases for a total of 4,203 with 179 deaths.
(AP, 3/22/20)
2020 Mar 23, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus infections increased by 13% from a day earlier and 34 more people died. There were 545 new infections, taking the total to 4,749 with 213 deaths.
(Reuters, 3/23/20)
2020 Mar 24, Netherlands saw the number of deaths rise by 63 to 276. The national tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases increased by 17% to 5,560.
(Good Morning America, 3/25/20)
2020 Mar 25, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 852 to 6,412. Deaths rose by 80 to 356.
(Reuters, 3/25/20)
2020 Mar 27, The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the Netherlands rose by 1,172, or 16%, to 8,603, with 112 new deaths. The country's death total is now 546.
(Reuters, 3/27/20)
2020 Mar 28, The Netherlands reported 93 deaths from the new coronavirus to take its total to 639 while another 1,159 cases of the virus were confirmed, both smaller rises than a day earlier. The country has confirmed a total of 9,762 cases of the virus.
(Reuters, 3/28/20)
2020 Mar 29, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus cases passed 10,000. Confirmed cases rose by 1,104 to 10,866, an 11% increase. There were 132 new deaths, bringing the number of fatalities to 771.
(Reuters, 3/29/20)
2020 Mar 30, The Singer Laren museum in the Netherlands announced that the painting "Spring Garden" (1884) by Vincent Van Gogh vanished after thieves broke into the building early in the morning.
(The Week, 3/31/20)
2020 Mar, Dutch government officials earmarked $550 million to compensate more than 20,000 parents who had their child care benefit payments stopped or were ordered to repay money amid fraud investigations into fraudulent claims.
(SFC, 5/20/20, p.A2)
2020 Apr 3, Dutch brewer Heineken said that it will suspend production and distribution from its seven plants in Mexico, in response to the government's decision to halt non-essential economic activity to contain the new coronavirus.
(Reuters, 4/3/20)
2020 Apr 4, In the Netherlands the number of deaths rose by 164, or 11%, to 1,651. The tally of confirmed virus cases increased by 6% to 16,627, slightly below the growth rate seen in the beginning of the week. The amount of people hospitalized with the virus rose by 336 to 6,622.
(Bloomberg, 4/4/20)
2020 Apr 5, In the Netherlands the number of deaths caused by the new coronavirus increased by 115 to 1,766. Confirmed infections increased by 1,224 to 17,851.
(Reuters, 4/5/20)
2020 Apr 6, The Netherlands reported 101 new fatalities, the smallest increase since March 30. Total reported cases rose 5% to 18,803.
(Bloomberg, 4/6/20)
2020 Apr 8, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 969 to 20,549, with 147 new deaths. The country's total death toll from the disease is now 2,248.
(Reuters, 4/8/20)
2020 Apr 10, The Netherlands statistics office said there were around 2,000 more deaths in the Netherlands in the first week of April than would normally be expected, likely the result of the coronavirus outbreak.
(AP, 4/10/20)
2020 Apr 11, Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported several cellular broadcasting towers have been damaged by arson or sabotage in the past week by opponents of a rollout of a new 5G telecommunications network. Major telecommunications providers in the Netherlands are in a testing phase and have not yet begun any nationwide rollout of 5G pending a spectrum auction due to conclude in June.
(Reuters, 4/11/20)
2020 Apr 12, The Netherlands' National Institute for Health (RIVM) reported 1,188 new coronavirus infections over the past 24 hours, taking the total to 25,587. The number of deaths rose by 94 to 2,737.
(Reuters, 4/12/20)
2020 Apr 14, In the Netherlands, confirmed cases rose 3% to 27,419, the slowest rate since the country reported its first case in late February. Deaths from the virus increased 4% to 2,945, but the figure may reflect an administrative processing backlog over the Easter weekend.
(Bloomberg, 4/14/20)
2020 Apr 15, New coronavirus cases in the Netherlands dropped for the fifth consecutive day. Cases rose by 734, or 3%, to 28,153. Fatalities climbed 6%, a steeper rate than the previous days because of a reporting backlog over the Easter weekend.
(Bloomberg, 4/15/20)
2020 Apr 16, A study of Dutch blood donors found that around 3% have developed antibodies against the coronavirus, an indication of what percentage of the population may have already had the disease.
(Reuters, 4/16/20)
2020 Apr 17, In the Netherlands confirmed coronavirus infections rose by 1,235 to 30,449. The death toll among people known to have been infected increased by 144 to 3,459.
(Reuters, 4/17/20)
2020 Apr 18, The Netherlands reported 129 new hospital admissions, up just 1%, marking a record low since the daily statistic has been reported since late March. Total confirmed cases grew 4% to 31,589, in line with recent trends. Fatalities rose to 3,601, also in line.
(Bloomberg, 4/18/20)
2020 Apr 19, The Netherlands reported 83 coronavirus deaths. 110 patients were admitted to hospitals, the smallest increase since the daily reporting of the statistic started at the end of last month. Overall confirmed cases grew by 3% to 32,655.
(Bloomberg, 4/19/20)
2020 Apr 21, The Netherlands's Supreme Court ruled that doctors can carry out ehthanasia in patients with advanced dementia if the patient had earlier made a written directive. The ruling solidified a law already in practice.
(SFC, 4/22/20, p.A2)
2020 Apr 22, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 708 to 34,842 with 138 new deaths. The country's death toll now stands at 4,054.
(Reuters, 4/22/20)
2020 Apr 26, The Netherlands' number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 655 to 37,845 with 66 new deaths. The country's death toll stands at 4,475.
(Reuters, 4/26/20)
2020 Apr 27, The Netherlands' number of confirmed coronavirus cases has risen by 400 to 38,245 with 43 new deaths. The country's death toll stands at 4,518.
(Reuters, 4/27/20)
2020 May 1, The Netherlands' number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 475 to 39,791, with 98 new deaths. The country's death toll stands at 4,893.
(Reuters, 5/1/20)
2020 May 2, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus infections increased by 445 to 40,236. 94 new deaths took the total COVID-19 fatalities to 4,987.
(Reuters, 5/2/20)
2020 May 3, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus infections increased by 335 to 40,471. The National Institute for Public Health reported 69 new deaths taking the total COVID-19 fatalities to 5,056.
(Reuters, 5/3/20)
2020 May 4, In the Netherlands the number of confirmed coronavirus cases rose by 199 to 40,770, with 26 new deaths. Total deaths in the country rose to 5,082.
(Reuters, 5/4/20)
2020 May 11, In the Netherlands five experienced surfers drowned when they went out for a session in stormy weather off the coast of The Hague.
(AP, 5/12/20)
2020 May 25, A court in the Netherlands rejected a suit brought by a group seeking to halt the country's 5G telecommunications network rollout over possible health concerns.
(Reuters, 5/25/20)
2020 Jun 3, Dutch broadcaster RTL reported that the government intends to cull the mink at farms where animals have been infected with the coronavirus. Coronavirus has so far been detected on eight farms in the Netherlands. A law banning mink farming in the Netherlands was passed in 2013, and the remaining 120 farms are due to cease operations in 2023.
(Reuters, 6/3/20)
2020 Jun 16, Netherlands-based Signify, the world's largest lighting manufacturer, said researchers at Boston University had confirmed an ultraviolet light made by the company works to degrade most coronavirus in a laboratory setting in a matter of seconds.
(Reuters, 6/16/20)
2020 Jun 22, Dutch police arrested six men after discovering sea containers that had been converted into a makeshift prison and sound-proofed “torture chamber" complete with a dentist's chair, tools including pliers and scalpels and handcuffs. The arrests followed investigations code-named 26Lemont.
(AP, 7/7/20)
2020 Jun 24, A Hague-based tribunal said Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has been charged with 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the country's conflict in the 1990s. Prosecutors at the Kosovo Specialist Court (KSC) laid the charges on April 24, but decided to unveil them publicly two months later.
(AP, 6/24/20)
2020 Jun 25, Unilever, a British-Dutch consumer products giant, said it is aiming for a “more inclusive vision of beauty" in its skin care products and will remove words such as “fair," “whitening" and “lightening" from its products, a move that comes amid intense global debate about race sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement.
(AP, 6/25/20)
2020 Jun, Anglo-Dutch firm Eat Takeaway.com bought Grubhub, an American firm, for $7.3 billion.
(Econ., 7/4/20, p.56)
2020 Jul 6, Netherlands-based Mylan NV said it would launch a generic version of Gilead Sciences Inc's COVID-19 antiviral remdesivir in India at 4,800 rupees ($64.31), about 80% below the price tag on the drug for wealthy nations.
(Reuters, 7/6/20)
2020 Jul 16, The Rijksmuseum Boerhaave museum in the Dutch city of Leiden finally opened an exhibition on contagious diseases through the ages after a long delay caused by the disease currently sweeping the world — COVID-19.
(AP, 7/16/20)
2020 Jul 19, A Dutch military helicopter crashed near the island of Aruba, killing two of the crew members.
(SFC, 7/21/20, p.A2)
2020 Jul 20, Dutch electrical equipment maker Philips said a recent surge in orders for scanners and other medical equipment should enable group sales and margins to rebound over the next six months from a slump in the second quarter.
(Reuters, 7/20/20)
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Subject = Netherlands
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