1.
Belgium
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
2.
Wallonia
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Wallonia is a region of Belgium. Wallonia is primarily French-speaking, and accounts for 55% of the territory of Belgium, unlike Flanders, the Walloon Region was not merged with the French Community of Belgium which is the political entity that is responsible for matters related mainly to culture and education. The German-speaking minority in the east forms the German-speaking Community of Belgium, during the industrial revolution, Wallonia was second only to the United Kingdom in industrialization, capitalizing on its extensive deposits of coal and iron. This brought the wealth, and, from the beginning of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century. Since World War II the importance of industry has greatly diminished. Wallonia now suffers high unemployment and has a significantly lower GDP per capita than Flanders. The economic inequalities and linguistic divide between the two are major sources of conflict in Belgium and is a major factor in Flemish separatism. The capital of Wallonia is Namur but the city with the greatest population is Charleroi, most of Wallonias major cities and two-thirds of its population lie along the Sambre and Meuse valley, the former industrial backbone of Belgium. To the north lies the Central Belgian Plateau, which, like Flanders, is relatively flat, in the south-east lie the Ardennes, hilly and sparsely populated. Wallonia borders Flanders and the Netherlands in the north, France to the south and west, Wallonia has been a member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie since 1980. The term Wallonia can mean different things in different contexts. One of the three regions of Belgium is still constitutionally defined as the Walloon Region, but the regions government has renamed it Wallonia. In practice, the difference between the two terms is small and what is meant is usually clear, based on context, the root of the word Wallonia, like the words Wales, Cornwall and Wallachia, is the Germanic word Walha, meaning the strangers. Wallonia is named after the Walloons, the population of the Burgundian Netherlands speaking Romance languages, in Middle Dutch, the term Walloons also included the French-speaking population of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège or the whole population of the Romanic sprachraum within the medieval Low Countries. Julius Caesar conquered Gaul in 57 BC, the Low Countries became part of the larger Gallia Belgica province which originally stretched from southwestern Germany to Normandy and the southern part of the Netherlands. The population of territory was Celtic with a Germanic influence which was stronger in the north than in the south of the province. The ancestors of the Walloons became Gallo-Romans and were called the Walha by their Germanic neighbours, the Walha abandoned their Celtic dialects and started to speak Vulgar Latin. The Merovingian Franks gradually gained control of the region during the 5th century, the language border began to crystallize between 700 under the reign of the Merovingians and Carolingians and around 1000 after the Ottonian Renaissance
3.
Waterloo, Belgium
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Waterloo is a municipality in the province of Walloon Brabant, Belgium, which in 2011 had a population of 29,706 and an area of 21.03 km2. It is north of Braine-lAlleud, which is the site of the Battle of Waterloo, Waterloo is a multilingual town, the commune offers services in French, Dutch, and English. The placename is of Dutch origin, the first element is most likely water, but it should be understood here as wet. The second element is lo, an ancient word for forest or clearing in a forest, coming from the Latin words lucus or lucum, the early settlement was located on a marshy clearing in the Sonian Forest. Waterloo was located at the crossing of the road with a path leading to a farm. The crossing still exists, chaussée de Bruxelles with Boulevard de la Cense, Waterloo was a place where travellers and carriers of goods could rest and escape the bandits at night. Waterloo was located in the Duchy of Brabant created in 1183 with Leuven as the capital city, the Duchy of Brabant extended from Luttre till s-Hertogenbosch in 1477. Brussels became the city of the Duchy of Brabant in 1267. Waterloo started to develop during the 17th century, a royal chapel was built in 1687 in Petit-Waterloo. This chapel still exists and was extended in 1826 at the back to form todays main church of Waterloo, because of the new ideas following the French Revolution in 1789, the Holy Roman Emperor wanted to impose reforms. This was followed by a period of unrest that ended with the French invasion in 1794, until 1796, Waterloo was divided into two parts depending, respectively, of the parishes of Braine-lAlleud and of Sint-Genesius-Rode. A new system based on municipalities was established in 1796, the municipality of Waterloo was created from Petit-Waterloo detached from Sint-Genesius-Rode and three former hamlets detached from Braine-l’Alleud. In 1813, half of the hamlet of Chenois was detached from Braine-l’Alleud, in 1824, Waterloo grew again as the areas Roussart and Sainte-Gertrude from the Sonian Forest became part of the municipality too. Waterloo had 1571 inhabitants in 1801 and 3202 in 1846, in 1795, the invaded territories were divided into nine departments. Some municipalities, including Waterloo, became part of the Dyle department and it changed name in 1830 when Belgium became independent and became the province of Brabant for 165 years. The strategic location of Waterloo on a road towards Brussels explains why the battle took place just south of Waterloo. It was important for the allies to stop Napoleon from reaching Brussels, just 17 kilometres away, in 1977, the second half of the hamlet of Chenois was detached from Braine-l’Alleud and became part of Waterloo together with a part of the hamlet next to the Lion. In 1995, the province of Brabant was divided to match the limits of the regions created in 1980, the part in which Waterloo is situated became the province of Walloon Brabant
4.
Prehistory
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Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
5.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
6.
Napoleon
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Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, one of the greatest commanders in history, his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleons political and cultural legacy has ensured his status as one of the most celebrated and he was born Napoleone di Buonaparte in Corsica to a relatively modest family from the minor nobility. When the Revolution broke out in 1789, Napoleon was serving as an officer in the French army. Seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution, he rose through the ranks of the military. The Directory eventually gave him command of the Army of Italy after he suppressed a revolt against the government from royalist insurgents, in 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. He engineered a coup in November 1799 and became First Consul of the Republic and his ambition and public approval inspired him to go further, and in 1804 he became the first Emperor of the French. Intractable differences with the British meant that the French were facing a Third Coalition by 1805, in 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him because Prussia became worried about growing French influence on the continent. Napoleon quickly defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt, then marched the Grand Army deep into Eastern Europe, France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July 1807, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. Tilsit signified the high watermark of the French Empire, hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, Napoleon invaded Iberia and declared his brother Joseph the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support, the Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, and ended in victory for the Allies. The Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia, unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade, the Russians routinely violated the Continental System and enticed Napoleon into another war. The French launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse of the Grand Army, the destruction of Russian cities, in 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France. A lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, the Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power, however, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June, the British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later at the age of 51
7.
Manneken Pis
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Manneken Pis is a landmark small bronze sculpture in Brussels, depicting a naked little boy urinating into a fountains basin. It was designed by Hiëronymus Duquesnoy the Elder and put in place in 1618 or 1619, the famous statue is at the junction of Rue de lÉtuve/Stoofstraat and Rue du Chêne/Eikstraat. To find it, one takes the lane next to the Brussels Town Hall from the famous Grand Place. The figure has been stolen, the current statue dates from 1965. The original restored version is kept at the Maison du Roi/Broodhuis on the Grand Place, there are several legends behind this statue, but the most famous is the one about Duke Godfrey III of Leuven. In 1142, the troops of this two-year-old lord were battling against the troops of the Berthouts, the troops put the infant lord in a basket and hung the basket in a tree to encourage them. From there, the boy urinated on the troops of the Berthouts, another legend states that in the 14th century, Brussels was under siege by a foreign power. The city had held its ground for time, so the attackers conceived of a plan to place explosive charges at the city walls. A little boy named Julianske happened to be spying on them as they were preparing and he urinated on the burning fuse and thus saved the city. There was at the time a statue made of stone. The statue was several times. Another story tells of a merchant who, during a visit to the city with his family, had his beloved young son go missing. The merchant hastily formed a party that scoured all corners of the city until the boy was found happily urinating in a small garden. The merchant, as a gift of gratitude to the locals who helped out during the search, had the fountain built, another legend was that a small boy went missing from his mother when shopping in the centre of the city. The woman, panic-stricken by the loss of her child, called upon everyone she came across, a city-wide search began and when at last the child was found, he was urinating on the corner of a small street. The story was passed down over time and the statue erected as a tribute to the well-known legend. Another legend tells of the boy who was awoken by a fire and was able to put out the fire with his urine. The statue is dressed in several times each week, according to a published schedule which is posted on the railings around the fountain
8.
Eden Hazard
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Eden Michael Hazard is a Belgian professional footballer who plays for English club Chelsea and the Belgium national team. He primarily plays as a midfielder and as a wide midfielder. Hazards creativity, speed, and technical ability are widely acknowledged, Hazard is often ranked by coaches, colleagues, and commentators as one of the best players in the world. Hazard is the son of former Belgian footballers and began his career in Belgium playing for local clubs Royal Stade Brainois. In 2005, he moved to France joining first division club Lille, Hazard spent two years in the clubs academy and, at the age of 16, made his professional debut in November 2007. He went on to become an part of Lille under manager Rudi Garcia. In his first full season as a starter, he won the National Union of Professional Footballers Young Player of the Year award, in the 2009–10 season, Hazard captured the award again, becoming the first player to win the award twice. He was also named to the leagues Team of the Year, Hazard was also given the Bravo Award by Italian magazine Guerin Sportivo for his performances during the 2010–11 season. In the 2014–15 season, he helped Chelsea win the League Cup and Premier League, earning him the FWA Footballer of the Year, Hazard is a Belgium international, having represented his nation at under-17 and under-19 level. Hazard made his international debut in November 2008, aged 17. Nearly three years after his debut, Hazard scored his first international goal against Kazakhstan in October 2011 and he has since earned 76 caps, and was a member of the Belgian squad which reached the quarter-finals of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the UEFA Euro 2016. Hazard was born in La Louvière and grew up in Braine-le-Comte and his mother, Carine, and father, Thierry, were both footballers. His father spent most of his playing at semi-professional level with La Louvière in the Belgian Second Division. He played mainly as a defensive midfielder and his mother played as a striker in the Belgian Womens First Division and stopped playing when she was three months pregnant with Eden. After playing football, both parents became sports teachers, Thierry retired from his position in 2009 in order to devote more time to his children. Hazard is the eldest of four children and he has three brothers, all of whom play football, including Thorgan, who joined him at Chelsea in 2012 but then moved permanently to Borussia Mönchengladbach in 2015. Thorgan had previously progressed through the ranks of Lilles biggest rivals Lens. Hazards other younger brothers are Kylian and Ethan, on 15 July 2013, Kylian joined White Star Bruxelles, but now plays for Hungarian side Újpest, while Ethan remains playing in the youth academy of Edens former club Tubize
9.
Disc golf
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Disc Golf is a flying disc game, as well as a precision and accuracy sport, in which individual players throw a flying disc at a target. According to the Professional Disc Golf Association, the object of the game is to traverse a course from beginning to end in the fewest number of throws of the disc, in just eight years, the number of disc golf courses doubled. The game is played in about 40 countries around the world, the history of disc golf is closely tied to the history of the recreational flying disc. The first known instance of anyone playing golf with a flying disc occurred in Bladworth, Saskatchewan and they called the game Tin Lid Golf and played on a fairly regular basis. However, after they grew older and went their separate ways and it wasnt until the 1970s that disc golf would be reintroduced to Canadians at the Canadian Open Frisbee Championships in Toronto. Modern disc golf started in the early 1960s, when it seems to have invented in many places. In 1968 Frisbee Golf was also played in Alameda Park in Santa Barbara, Ca. by teenagers in the Anacapa, gazebos, water fountains, lamp posts and trees were all part of the course. This took place for years and an Alameda Park collectors edition disc still exists. Clifford Towne from this went on to hold a National Time Aloft record. A true pioneer of the sport of Frisbee Golf is Kevin Donnelly, Kevin began playing a form of Frisbee golf in 1959 called Street Frisbee Golf. This culminated in 1965 with a fully documented, Wham-O sponsored, dave was one of the founders of Innova, a well-known disc manufacturer. In 1976, Headrick formed the DGA, then later the PDGA, ted Smethers took over the PDGA in 1982 to be run independently and to officiate the standard rules of play for the sport. The sport has grown at a rate of 12-15 percent annually for more than the past decade, with nearly 4000 courses in the US and about 5000 globally. The game is now played in more than 40 countries worldwide, primarily in the United States, Canada, Central and Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia. In 1965, George Sappenfield, from Fresno California, was a recreation counselor during summer break from college, while playing golf one afternoon he realized that it might be fun for the children on his playground if they played golf with frisbees. He set up a course for his children to play on. Other early courses were also of type, using anything from lamp poles to fire hydrants as targets. When he finished college in 1968, Sappenfield became the Parks and Recreation Supervisor for Conejo Recreation and Park District in Thousand Oaks, George introduced the game to many adults by planning a disc golf tournament as part of a recreation project
10.
Carnival
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Carnival is a Western Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide. Carnival typically involves a public celebration and/or parade combining some elements of a circus, masks, people wear masks and costumes during many such celebrations, allowing them to lose their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity. Excessive consumption of alcohol, meat, and other foods proscribed during Lent is extremely common, the term Carnival is traditionally used in areas with a large Catholic presence. However, the Philippines, a predominantly Roman Catholic country, does not celebrate Carnival anymore since the dissolution of the Manila Carnival after 1939, in Slavic Eastern Orthodox nations, Maslenitsa is celebrated during the last week before Great Lent. In German-speaking Europe and the Netherlands, the Carnival season traditionally opens on 11/11 and this dates back to celebrations before the Advent season or with harvest celebrations of St. Martins Day. Rio de Janeiro in Brazil is the biggest in the world, followed jointly by Barranquilla, Colombia, alternative names are used for regional and local celebrations. The origin may be from the Italian word carne or carrus, the former suggests an origin within Christianity, while the alternative links to earlier religions. Folk etymologies state that the word comes from the Late Latin expression carne vale, the word carne may also be translated as flesh, producing a farewell to the flesh, a phrase embraced by certain carnival celebrants to embolden the festivals carefree spirit. However, this interpretation is not supported by philological evidence, the Italian carne levare is one possible origin, meaning to remove meat, since meat is prohibited during Lent. Other scholars argue for the origin from the Roman name for the festival of the Navigium Isidis, the festival consisted of a parade of masks following an adorned wooden boat, possibly source of the floats. From the anthropological point of view, carnival is a ritual, in which social roles are reversed. Winter was thought of as the reign of the winter spirits, Carnival can thus be regarded as a rite of passage from darkness to light, from winter to summer, a fertility celebration, the first spring festival of the new year. Traditionally, a carnival feast was the last opportunity for people to eat well. Until spring produce was available, people were limited to the necessary meals during this period. On what nowadays is called vastenavond, all the winter stores of lard, butter. The selected livestock had already been slaughtered in November and the meat would be no longer preservable, all the food that had survived the winter had to be eaten to assure that everyone was fed enough to survive until the coming spring would provide new food sources. Several Germanic tribes celebrated the returning of the daylight, the winter would be driven out, to make sure that fertility could return in spring
11.
Paul-Henri Spaak
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Paul Henri Charles Spaak was an influential Belgian politician and statesman also considered as one of the founding fathers of the European Union. A convinced socialist, Spaak entered politics in 1932 for the Belgian Workers Party and he became Prime Minister of Belgium in 1938 and held the position until 1939. After the war, he regained the position of Prime Minister, first for under a month in March 1946. He held various further Belgian ministerial portfolios until 1966 and he was Belgiums Foreign Minister for 18 years between 1939 and 1966. Spaak, a supporter of multilateralism, became internationally famous for his support of international cooperation. In 1945, he was chosen to chair the first session of the General Assembly of the new United Nations, a long-running supporter of European integration, Spaak had been an early advocate of customs union and had negotiated the Benelux agreement in 1944. He received the Charlemagne Prize the same year, between 1957 and 1961, he served as the second Secretary-General of NATO. Retiring from Belgian politics in 1966, Spaak died in 1972, Paul-Henri Spaak was born on 25 January 1899 in Schaerbeek, Belgium, to a distinguished Belgian family. The Spaak family originated from Bohuslän in Sweden and his maternal grandfather, Paul Janson was an important member of the Liberal Party. His mother, Marie Janson was a socialist, and the first woman to enter the Belgian Senate, after death of Marguerite in August 1964, he married Simone Dear in April 1965. His brother was the screenwriter Charles Spaak and his niece was the actress Catherine Spaak, and one of his grandsons is the artist Anthony Palliser. During the 1940s, during his time in New York with the United Nations, during World War I, Spaak attempted to join the Belgian Army but was captured by the Germans and spent the next two years in a German prison camp. At the end of the war, Spaak was released from captivity and entered the Université Libre de Bruxelles, during the same period, Spaak was also a tennis star, and played for the Belgian team in the 1922 Davis Cup. He became a member of the Socialist Belgian Labour Party in 1920 and he was elected deputy in 1932. In 1935 he entered the cabinet of Paul Van Zeeland as Minister of Transport, in February 1936 he became Minister of Foreign Affairs, serving first under Zeeland and then under his uncle, Paul-Émile Janson. From May 1938 to February 1939 he was Prime Minister for the first time, in 1938, he allowed Herman Van Breda to smuggle the legacy of Edmund Husserl out of Nazi Germany to Belgium through the Belgian Embassy in Berlin. In social policy, a number of reforms were realised during Spaaks first premiership. The Act also removed a previous requirement in which a wage earner had to work for at least a year with the employer in order to earn an annual holiday
Braine-l'Alleud
