Since today will be the last Queen's Day in the Netherlands for a long time, I thought about giving my opinion and interests surrounding the Dutch history, which has flourished plenty since several centuries.
Our history has seen plenty of interesting events, some of them are pretty long too, such as the Eighty Years' War. I won't be talking about this chronologically, so I will just jump right into wherever I want to be.
The Golden Age was a prosperous period where Dutch trade, science, military and art were among the most acclaimed in the world during the 17th century. The Dutch East Company was an important corporation that had a lot of power and consequences during the age of colonies and the trade industry.
Famous figures such as William of Orange, Rembrandt van Rijn, Christiaan Huygens and Baruch Spinoza all made up for their different impacts and the legacies they left behind. And as for the Dutch Republic, it was a successful government run by the people that made Holland very powerful next to the VOC and WIC companies.
But we have dealt with enough wars as well, such as the Anglo-Dutch wars and of course World War II. Anne Frank is an important witness towards what was happening during those cruel times, and the Hunger Winter was another scary consequence.
After liberation, The Netherlands had a baby boom like other countries and the constitutional monarchy established in the 19th century became more popular. Decolonisation around the world happened and ended and we welcomed our hands to multiculturalism and liberalisation.
Recent politics sees many parties attempting to gain control over The Netherlands with their arguments and opinions, and we've had quite a few controversial ones so far, such as the pedophile party, the party for animals and of course the party for freedom led by Geert Wilders.
Dutch culture is tolerant, and this is reflected back through the allowance of immigrants consisting of all kinds of people including intellectuals. Euthanasia, same-sex marriage and being permitted to use soft drugs legally are more examples of liberalism.
Iconic objects include cheese, windmills and the color orange. Not only does Holland accept multiculturalism greatly, the same goes for religion and foreign relations are particulary strong. We have important cities including The Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam.
Our cinema history is seriously lacking if you ask me. There is room for improvement and growth to be found here. But as for our game industry, at least Guerilla Games delivers with their Killzone series, however growth should happen too.
Dutch inventions include the micro and telescope, the stock exchange, the artificial hart, Wi-Fi, the submarine and more. We have also discovered quite a lot of the world, such as Australia, Easter Island and various more locations.
And the delta works were constructed in the 50's in order to defend against the water floods that keep rising. We happen to have a history with water earlier on as well, as we have used it to fend off foreign attacks.
It looks like I went from Dutch history towards Holland in general, praising my country. And that's okay, having pride for your nationality. I am certainly glad to have been born in this part of the world that has done plenty of interesting things so far.
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