1.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
2.
Public university
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A public university is a university that is predominantly funded by public means through a national or subnational government, as opposed to private universities. Whether a national university is considered public varies from one country to another, in Egypt, Al-Azhar University opened in 975 AD as the second oldest university in the world. In Nigeria Public Universities can be established by both the Federal Government and by State Governments, students are enrolled after completing the 8-4-4 system of education and attaining a mark of C+ or above. They are also eligible for a low interest loan from the Higher Education Loan Board and they are expected to pay back the loan after completing higher education. South Africa has 23 public tertiary institutions, either categorised as a traditional university or a comprehensive university. Almost entire national universities in Brunei are public universities and these are major universities in Brunei, University of Brunei Darussalam Brunei Technological University Sultan Sharif Ali Islamic University There are 40 public universities in Bangladesh. The University Grant Commission is the body for all the public universities in Bangladesh. The universities do not deal directly with the government, but with the University Grants Commission, recently many private universities are established under the Private University Act of 1992. In mainland China, nearly all universities and research institutions are public and currently, the public universities are usually run by the provincial governments, there are also circumstances where the municipal governments administer the universities. Some public universities are national, which are administered by the central government. Private undergraduate colleges do exist, which are vocational colleges sponsored by private enterprises. The majority of universities are not entitled to award bachelors degrees. Public universities usually enjoy higher reputation domestically, eight institutions are funded by the University Grants Committee. The Academy for Performing Arts also receives funding from the government, the Open University of Hong Kong is also a public university, but it is largely self-financed. The Shue Yan University is the private institution with the status of a university. There are public and private institutes in Indonesia. The government provide public universities, institutes, high schools and academies in each province, the private educational institution usually provided by religious organizations, public organizations, and some big companies. In India, most universities and nearly all research institutions are public, There are some private undergraduate colleges, mostly engineering schools, but a majority of these are affiliated to public universities
3.
Research university
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Such universities can be recognized by their strong focus on innovative research and the prestige of their brand names. From the late 20th century to the present, U. S. research universities have dominated most international college and university rankings
4.
Euro
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Outside of Europe, a number of overseas territories of EU members also use the euro as their currency. Additionally,210 million people worldwide as of 2013 use currencies pegged to the euro, the euro is the second largest reserve currency as well as the second most traded currency in the world after the United States dollar. The name euro was adopted on 16 December 1995 in Madrid. The euro was introduced to world markets as an accounting currency on 1 January 1999. While the euro dropped subsequently to US$0.8252 within two years, it has traded above the U. S. dollar since the end of 2002, peaking at US$1.6038 on 18 July 2008. In July 2012, the euro fell below US$1.21 for the first time in two years, following concerns raised over Greek debt and Spains troubled banking sector, as of 26 March 2017, the euro–dollar exchange rate stands at ~ US$1.07. The euro is managed and administered by the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank, as an independent central bank, the ECB has sole authority to set monetary policy. The Eurosystem participates in the printing, minting and distribution of notes and coins in all states. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty obliges most EU member states to adopt the euro upon meeting certain monetary and budgetary convergence criteria, all nations that have joined the EU since 1993 have pledged to adopt the euro in due course. Since 5 January 2002, the central banks and the ECB have issued euro banknotes on a joint basis. Euro banknotes do not show which central bank issued them, Eurosystem NCBs are required to accept euro banknotes put into circulation by other Eurosystem members and these banknotes are not repatriated. The ECB issues 8% of the value of banknotes issued by the Eurosystem. In practice, the ECBs banknotes are put into circulation by the NCBs and these liabilities carry interest at the main refinancing rate of the ECB. The euro is divided into 100 cents, in Community legislative acts the plural forms of euro and cent are spelled without the s, notwithstanding normal English usage. Otherwise, normal English plurals are used, with many local variations such as centime in France. All circulating coins have a side showing the denomination or value. Due to the plurality in the European Union, the Latin alphabet version of euro is used. For the denominations except the 1-, 2- and 5-cent coins, beginning in 2007 or 2008 the old map is being replaced by a map of Europe also showing countries outside the Union like Norway
5.
Rector (academia)
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A rector is a term used in non-English-speaking countries for a university chancellor. In the sphere of academia, it is the highest academic official of universities and in certain other institutions of higher education. The term and office of a rector are called a rectorate, the title is used widely in universities in Europe. And is very common in Latin American countries and it is also used in Brunei, Turkey, Russia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Israel and the Middle East. In some universities, the title is phrased in an even loftier manner and this term is generally not used in English-speaking countries. In England and elsewhere in Great Britain, the head of a university is referred to as a chancellor. This pattern has been followed in the Commonwealth, the United States, in Scotland, many universities are headed by a chancellor, with the Lord Rector designated as an elected representative of students at the head of the university court. The head of a university in Germany is called a president, rector magnificus or rectrix magnifica, in Dutch universities, the rector magnificus is the most publicly prominent member of the board, responsible for the scientific agenda of the university. In the Netherlands, the rector is, however, not the chair of the university board, the chair has, in practice, the most influence over the management of the University. In some countries, including Germany, the position of teacher in secondary schools is also designated as rector. In the Netherlands, the rector and conrector are used commonly for high school directors. This is also the case in some Maltese secondary schools, in the Scandinavian countries, the head of a university or a gymnasium is called a rektor. In Sweden and Norway, this term is used for the heads of primary schools. For example, in Portugal, the rector of the University of Coimbra, the heads of Czech universities are called the rektor. The rector acts in the name of the university and decides the universitys affairs unless prohibited by law, the rector is nominated by the University Academic Senate and appointed by the President of the Czech Republic. The nomination must be agreed by a majority of all senators. The vote to elect or repeal a rector is secret, the term of office is four years and a person may hold it for at most two consecutive terms. The rector appoints vice-rectors, who act as deputies to the extent the Rector determines, Rectors salaries are determined directly by the Minister of Education
6.
Carel Stolker
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Carel Jan Jozef Marie Stolker is the rector magnificus and president of Leiden University as of February 2013. He is the successor of Paul F. van der Heijden, Stolker is a professor of private law and former dean of the Leiden University Law School. Stolker finished high school at Bonaventura College in Leiden, after completing his military service, he studied law at Leiden University. Thesis was a dissertation about liability for unsuccessful sterilization. In his book Van arts naar advocaat Stolker looked at the medical liability crisis in the United States in comparison to the Dutch situation, in 1991 Stolker taught Comparative Tort Law at the University of California, Hastings School of Law. In 1996 he became director of the E. M. Meijers Institute of Legal Studies at Leiden University and in 2001 became a member of the board of the law school. He published regularly on issues relating to liability law, from 2005 to 2011 Stolker was dean of the Faculty of Law of Leiden University. In that capacity he straightened out a long lasting dispute between former criminologist Wouter Buikhuisen and Leiden University, in 1992 and 1993 he contributed, as a member of the Task Force Albania of the Council of Europe, to the development of a civil code for Albania. He was a member of the Air Freight Documentation Committee, that conducted an investigation into the cargo of the El-Al aircraft which crashed into the Amsterdam Bijlmer district and he is a deputy judge at the Court of Haarlem and a deputy justice at the Court of Appeal in s-Hertogenbosch. Carel Stolker, Rethinking the law school, Stolker, Legal Journals, In pursuit of a more scientific approach. In, European Journal of Legal Education,2, pp. 77-94 H. D, Stolker, In search of the importance of Article 1 Protocol No.1 ECHR to private law. The influence of Article 1 Protocol no.1 ECHR on several fields of domestic law, levine, Aviation products liability for manufacturing and design defects. In, Air & space law,1997, vol, the limits of liability and beyond. In, The International and Comparative Law Quarterly,1994, p.521 -536 Carel J. J. M, consciousness as a prerequisite for compensation for non-pecuniary loss. In, The international and comparative law quarterly, vol,39, nr 1, p.82 In Dutch, Carel Stolker, Aansprakelijkheid van de arts in het bijzonder voor mislukte sterilisaties. Carel Stolker -Leiden University Publications of Carel Stolker online Repository Leiden University
7.
Leiden
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Leiden is a city and municipality in the Dutch province of South Holland. Leiden is located on the Oude Rijn, at a distance of some 20 kilometres from The Hague to its south, the recreational area of the Kaag Lakes lies just to the northeast of Leiden. A university city since 1575, Leiden houses Leiden University, the oldest university of the Netherlands, Leiden is a city with a rich cultural heritage, not only in science, but also in the arts. One of the worlds most famous painters, Rembrandt, was born, other famous Leiden painters include Lucas van Leyden, Jan van Goyen and Jan van Steen. The city has one of Europes most prominent scientific centres for more than four centuries. Modern scientific medical research and teaching started in the early 18th century in Leiden with Boerhaave, many important scientific discoveries have been made here, giving rise to Leiden’s motto, ‘City of Discoveries’. It is twinned with Oxford, the location of the United Kingdoms oldest university, Leiden University and Leiden University of Applied Sciences together have around 35,000 students. Leiden is a university city, university buildings are scattered throughout the city. Leiden was formed on a hill at the confluence of the rivers Oude. In the oldest reference to this, from circa 860, the settlement was called Leithon, the name is said to be from Germanic *leitha- canal. Leiden has in the past erroneously been associated with the Roman outpost Lugdunum Batavorum and this particular castellum was thought to be located at the Burcht of Leiden, and the citys name was thought to be derived of the Latin name Lugdunum. However the castellum was in closer to the town of Katwijk. The landlord of Leiden, situated in a stronghold on the hill, was subject to the Bishop of Utrecht. This county got its name in 1101 from a domain near the stronghold, Leiden was sacked in 1047 by Emperor Henry III. Early 13th century, Ada, Countess of Holland took refuge here when she was fighting in a war against her uncle, William I. He besieged the stronghold and captured Ada, Leiden received city rights in 1266. In 1389, its population had grown to about 4,000 persons, burgrave Filips of Wassenaar and the other local noblemen of the Hook faction assumed that the duke would besiege Leiden first and send small units out to conquer the surrounding citadels. But John of Bavaria chose to attack the citadels first and he rolled the cannons with his army but one which was too heavy went by ship
8.
The Hague
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The Hague is a city on the western coast of the Netherlands, and the capital city of the province of South Holland. With a population of 520,704 inhabitants and more than one million including the suburbs, it is the third-largest city of the Netherlands. The Rotterdam The Hague Metropolitan Area, with a population of approximately 2.7 million, is the 12th-largest in the European Union and the most populous in the country. Located in the west of the Netherlands, The Hague is in the centre of the Haaglanden conurbation and lies at the southwest corner of the larger Randstad conurbation. The Hague is the seat of the Dutch government, parliament, the Supreme Court, and the Council of State, but the city is not the capital of the Netherlands, which constitutionally is Amsterdam. King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands plans to live at Huis ten Bosch and works at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague, the Hague is also home to the world headquarters of Royal Dutch Shell and numerous other major Dutch companies. The Hague originated around 1230, when Count Floris IV of Holland purchased land alongside a pond, in 1248, his son and successor William II, King of the Romans, decided to extend the residence to a palace, which would later be called the Binnenhof. He died in 1256 before this palace was completed but parts of it were finished by his son Floris V, of which the Ridderzaal and it is still used for political events, such as the annual speech from the throne by the Dutch monarch. From the 13th century onwards, the counts of Holland used The Hague as their administrative centre, the village that originated around the Binnenhof was first mentioned as Haga in a charter dating from 1242. In the 15th century, the smarter des Graven hage came into use, literally The Counts Wood, with connotations like The Counts Hedge, s-Gravenhage was officially used for the city from the 17th century onwards. Today, this name is used in some official documents like birth. The city itself uses Den Haag in all its communication and their seat was located in The Hague. At the beginning of the Eighty Years War, the absence of city walls proved disastrous, in 1575, the States of Holland even considered demolishing the city but this proposal was abandoned, after mediation by William of Orange. From 1588, The Hague also became the seat of the government of the Dutch Republic, in order for the administration to maintain control over city matters, The Hague never received official city status, although it did have many of the privileges normally granted only to cities. In modern administrative law, city rights have no place anymore, only in 1806, when the Kingdom of Holland was a puppet state of the First French Empire, was the settlement granted city rights by Louis Bonaparte. After the Napoleonic Wars, modern-day Belgium and the Netherlands were combined in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands to form a buffer against France, as a compromise, Brussels and Amsterdam alternated as capital every two years, with the government remaining in The Hague. After the separation of Belgium in 1830, Amsterdam remained the capital of the Netherlands, when the government started to play a more prominent role in Dutch society after 1850, The Hague quickly expanded. The growing city annexed the rural municipality of Loosduinen partly in 1903, the city sustained heavy damage during World War II
9.
South Holland
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South Holland is a province in the midwestern Netherlands. It has a population of just over 3.6 million, situated on the North Sea in the west of the Netherlands, South Holland covers an area of 3,403 km2, of which 585 km2 is water. It borders North Holland to the north, Utrecht and Gelderland to the east, the provincial capital is The Hague, while its largest city is Rotterdam. Archaeological discoveries in Hardinxveld-Giessendam indicate that the area of South Holland has been inhabited since at least ca.7,500 years before present, agriculture and permanent settlements probably originated around 2,000 years later, based on excavations near Vlaardingen. In the classical antiquity, South Holland was part of the Roman Province of Germania Inferior, the Romans built fortresses along the border, such as Praetorium Agrippinae near modern-day Valkenburg, Matilo near modern-day Leiden, and Albaniana near modern-day Alphen aan den Rijn. A city was founded near modern-day Voorburg, Forum Hadriani and it was built according to the grid plan, and facilitated a square, a court, a bathhouse and several temples. After the departure of the Romans, the area belonged to the Frisian Kingdom, in 690, the Anglo-Saxon monk Willibrord arrived near Katwijk and was granted permission to spread Roman Catholicism by the Frankish king Pepin II. He accordingly founded a church in Oegstgeest, after which the area was gradually Christianised. The area was appointed to East Francia in the Treaty of Verdun in 843, after which the king granted lands to Gerolf and this was the birth of the County of Holland. Gerolf was later succeeded by Dirk I, who continued to rule Holland under the Frankish king, in 1248, count William II ordered the construction of the Ridderzaal, which was later finished by his son and successor Floris V. The first city in South Holland to receive city rights was Dordrecht, the city retained a dominant position in the area until it was struck by a series of floods in the late 14th century. The same century saw a series of civil wars, the Hook and Cod wars. Both his daughter Jaqueline and his brother John, the supported by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. The conflict ended in 1490, with John victorious, overall, the area of South Holland remained largely agrarian throughout the late Middle Ages. This changed around 1500, when Holland became Europes most urbanised area, during the Eighty Years War, the area of South Holland was the scene of the Capture of Brielle, the Siege of Leiden and the assassination of William the Silent. The United Netherlands declared their independence in 1581, and Holland quickly emerged as the dominant province, with important trading cities such as Leiden, Delft, Gouda. In 1575, the Netherlands first university was founded in Leiden by William the Silent, the Hague, which had originated around the castle of the counts of Holland, became its new political centre. Both the States of Holland and the States General seated in the Binnenhof, the Dutch Golden Age blossomed in the 17th century
10.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
11.
Shades of blue
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Varieties of the color blue may differ in hue, chroma, or lightness, or in two or three of these qualities. Variations in value are also called tints and shades, a tint being a blue or other hue mixed with white, a large selection of these various colors is shown below. In this section, the term tint is used in its sense as used in color theory. Baby blue is known as one of the pastel colors, with a hue code of 199, this color is a tone of azure. The first recorded use of blue as a color name in English was in 1892. The web color blue is displayed in the color box at right. Variations of this color are known as sky blue, baby blue, within the X11 color system, with a hue code of 194, this color is closer to cyan than to blue. The first recorded use of blue as a color term in English is in the year 1915. Shown in the right is the color periwinkle, or periwinkle blue, another name for this color is lavender blue. The color is a mixture of white and blue and it is named after the Periwinkle flower and is also commonly referred to as a tone of light blue. The web color blue is shown on the right. The first recorded use of blue as a color name in English was in 1774. Displayed at right is the color morning blue and it is a representation of the color of the morning sky. The year the first recorded use of morning blue as a name in English is unknown. Source of color, ISCC-NBS Dictionary of Color Names --Color Sample of Morning Blue The color defined as blue in the RGB color model and this color is the brightest possible blue that can be reproduced on a computer screen, and is the color named blue in X11. It is one of the three colors used on the RGB color space, along with red and green. This color is called color wheel blue. It is at precisely 240 degrees on the HSV color wheel and it is a spectral color which lies at, or near, the short-wave end of the traditional blue and possibly was classified as indigo by Newton
12.
Dutch language
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It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after English and German. Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English and is said to be roughly in between them, Dutch vocabulary is mostly Germanic and incorporates more Romance loans than German but far fewer than English. In both Belgium and the Netherlands, the official name for Dutch is Nederlands, and its dialects have their own names, e. g. Hollands, West-Vlaams. The use of the word Vlaams to describe Standard Dutch for the variations prevalent in Flanders and used there, however, is common in the Netherlands, the Dutch language has been known under a variety of names. It derived from the Old Germanic word theudisk, one of the first names used for the non-Romance languages of Western Europe. It literarily means the language of the people, that is. The term was used as opposed to Latin, the language of writing. In the first text in which it is found, dating from 784, later, theudisca appeared also in the Oaths of Strasbourg to refer to the Germanic portion of the oath. This led inevitably to confusion since similar terms referred to different languages, owing to Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry in the 16th and 17th centuries, the English term came to refer exclusively to the Dutch. A notable exception is Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a West Central German variety called Deitsch by its speakers, Jersey Dutch, on the other hand, as spoken until the 1950s in New Jersey, is a Dutch-based creole. In Dutch itself, Diets went out of common use - although Platdiets is still used for the transitional Limburgish-Ripuarian Low Dietsch dialects in northeast Belgium, Nederlands, the official Dutch word for Dutch, did not become firmly established until the 19th century. This designation had been in use as far back as the end of the 15th century, one of them was it reflected a distinction with Hoogduits, High Dutch, meaning the language spoken in Germany. The Hoog was later dropped, and thus, Duits narrowed down in meaning to refer to the German language. g, in English, too, Netherlandic is regarded as a more accurate term for the Dutch language, but is hardly ever used. Old Dutch branched off more or less around the same time Old English, Old High German, Old Frisian and Old Saxon did. During that period, it forced Old Frisian back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, on the other hand, Dutch has been replaced in adjacent lands in nowadays France and Germany. The division in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch is mostly conventional, one of the few moments linguists can detect somewhat of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. This is assumed to have taken place in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in the pre-Roman Northern European Iron Age, the Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups, East, West, and North Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period, Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots, Frisian, Low German and High German
13.
William the Silent
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He was born in the House of Nassau as Count of Nassau-Dillenburg. He became Prince of Orange in 1544 and is thereby the founder of the branch House of Orange-Nassau, a wealthy nobleman, William originally served the Habsburgs as a member of the court of Margaret of Parma, governor of the Spanish Netherlands. The most influential and politically capable of the rebels, he led the Dutch to several successes in the fight against the Spanish, declared an outlaw by the Spanish king in 1580, he was assassinated by Balthasar Gérard in Delft in 1584. William was born on 24 April 1533 at Dillenburg castle then in the County of Nassau-Dillenburg and he was the eldest son of William, Count of Nassau by his second wife Juliana of Stolberg-Werningerode. Williams father had one surviving daughter by his previous marriage, and his parents had twelve children together, of whom William was the eldest, he had four younger brothers and seven younger sisters. The family was devout and William was raised a Lutheran. In 1544, Williams agnatic first cousin, René of Châlon, Prince of Orange, in his testament, René of Chalon named William the heir to all his estates and titles, including that of Prince of Orange, on the condition that he receive a Roman Catholic education. Williams father acquiesced to this condition on behalf of his 11-year-old son, besides the principality of Orange and significant lands in Germany, William also inherited vast estates in the Low Countries from his cousin. Because of his age, Emperor Charles V, who was the overlord of most of these estates. In Brussels, he was taught foreign languages and received a military and diplomatic education under the direction of Champagney, on 6 July 1551, William married Anna van Egmond en Buren, daughter and heiress of Maximiliaan van Egmond, an important Dutch nobleman. Annas father had died in 1548, and therefore William became Lord of Egmond, the marriage was a happy one and produced three children, one of whom died in infancy. Anna died on 24 March 1558, leaving William much grieved, being a ward of Charles V and having received his education under the tutelage of the Emperors sister, William came under the particular attention of the imperial family, and became a favorite. He was appointed captain in the cavalry in 1551 and received rapid promotion thereafter and this was in 1555, when Charles V sent him to Bayonne with an army to take the city in a siege from the French. William was also made a member of the Raad van State, in 1559, Phillip appointed William stadtholder of the provinces of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht, thereby greatly increasing his political power. A stadtholdership over Franche-Comté followed in 1561, William was also dissatisfied with the increasing persecution of Protestants in the Netherlands. Brought up as a Lutheran and later a Catholic, William was very religious but was still a proponent of freedom of religion for all people, lastly, the opposition wished to see an end to the presence of Spanish troops. On 25 August 1561, William of Orange married for the second time, in early 1565, a large group of lesser noblemen, including Williams younger brother Louis, formed the Confederacy of Noblemen. On 5 April, they offered a petition to Margaret of Parma, from August to October 1566, a wave of iconoclasm spread through the Low Countries
14.
Dutch Revolt
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The southern provinces initially joined in the revolt, but later submitted to Spain. The religious clash of cultures built up gradually but inexorably into outbursts of violence against the repression of the Habsburg Crown. These tensions led to the formation of the independent Dutch Republic, the first leader was William of Orange, followed by several of his descendants and relations. This revolt was one of the first successful secessions in Europe, and led to one of the first European republics of the modern era, King Philip was initially successful in suppressing the rebellion. In 1572, however, the rebels captured Brielle and the rebellion resurged, the northern provinces became independent, first in 1581 de facto, and in 1648 de jure. The Southern Netherlands remained under Spanish rule, the continuous heavy-handed rule by the Habsburgs in the south caused many of its financial, intellectual, and cultural elite to flee north, contributing to the success of the Dutch Republic. The Dutch imposed a blockade on the southern provinces which prevented Baltic grain relieving famine in the southern towns. The first phase of the conflict can be considered to be the Dutch War of Independence, the focus of the latter phase was to gain official recognition of the already de facto independence of the United Provinces. This phase coincided with the rise of the Dutch Republic as a major power, in a series of marriages and conquests, a succession of Dukes of Burgundy expanded their original territory by adding to it a series of fiefdoms, including the Seventeen Provinces. Although Burgundy itself had been lost to France in 1477, the Burgundian Netherlands were still intact when Charles V was born in Ghent in 1500 and he was raised in the Netherlands and spoke fluent Dutch, French, Spanish, and some German. In 1506, he became lord of the Burgundian states, among which were the Netherlands, subsequently, in 1516, he inherited several titles, including the combined kingdoms of Aragon, and Castile and León which had become a worldwide empire with the Spanish colonization of the Americas. In 1519, he became ruler of the Habsburg empire, although Friesland and Guelders offered prolonged resistance, virtually all of the Netherlands had been incorporated into the Habsburg domains by the early 1540s. Flanders had long been a wealthy region, and had been coveted by the French kings for a long time. The other Netherlands had also grown into wealthy and entrepreneurial regions within the empire, Charles Vs empire became a worldwide empire with large American and European territories. The latter were, however, distributed throughout Europe, control and defense of these were hampered by the disparity of the territories and huge length of the empires borders. This large realm was almost continuously at war with its neighbors in its European heartlands, most notably against France in the Italian Wars, further wars were fought against Protestant princes in Germany. The Netherlands paid heavy taxes to fund these wars, but perceived them as unnecessary and sometimes downright harmful, during the 16th century, Protestantism rapidly gained ground in northern Europe. Dutch Protestants, after initial repression, were tolerated by local authorities, by the 1560s, the Protestant community had become a significant influence in the Netherlands, although it clearly formed a minority then
15.
Eighty Years' War
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The Eighty Years War or Dutch War of Independence was a revolt of the Seventeen Provinces against the political and religious hegemony of Philip II of Spain, the sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands. After the initial stages, Philip II deployed his armies and regained control over most of the rebelling provinces, under the leadership of the exiled William the Silent, the northern provinces continued their resistance. They eventually were able to oust the Habsburg armies, and in 1581 they established the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, after a 12-year truce, hostilities broke out again around 1619 which can be said to coincide with the Thirty Years War. An end was reached in 1648 with the Peace of Münster, in the decades preceding the war, the Dutch became increasingly discontented with Habsburg rule. A major cause of discontent was heavy taxation imposed on the population, while support. At that time, the Seventeen Provinces were known in the empire as De landen van herwaarts over, the presence of Spanish troops, under the command of the Duke of Alba, brought in to oversee order, further amplified this unrest. Spain also attempted a policy of religious uniformity for the Catholic Church within its domains. The Reformation meanwhile produced a number of Protestant denominations, which gained followers in the Seventeen Provinces and these included the Lutheran movement of Martin Luther, the Anabaptist movement of the Dutch reformer Menno Simons, and the Reformed teachings of John Calvin. This growth lead to the 1566 Beeldenstorm, the Iconoclastic Fury which saw many churches in northern Europe stripped of their Catholic statuary, in October 1555, Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire began the gradual abdication of his several crowns. The balance of power was heavily weighted toward the local and regional governments, Philip did not govern in person but appointed Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy as governor-general to lead the central government. When Philip left for Spain in 1559 political tension was increased by religious policies, not having the liberal-mindedness of his father Charles V, Philip was a fervent enemy of the Protestant movements of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the Anabaptists. Towards the end of Charles reign enforcement had become lax. Philip, however, insisted on rigorous enforcement, which caused widespread unrest, the new hierarchy was to be headed by Granvelle as archbishop of the new archdiocese of Mechelen. The reform was unpopular with the old church hierarchy, as the new dioceses were to be financed by the transfer of a number of rich abbeys. Granvelle became the focus of the opposition against the new governmental structures, after the recall of Granvelle, Orange persuaded Margaret and the Council to ask for a moderation of the placards against heresy. Philip delayed his response, and in this interval the opposition to his religious policies gained more widespread support, Philip finally rejected the request for moderation in his Letters from the Segovia Woods of October 1565. This Compromise of Nobles was supported by about 400 nobles, both Catholic and Protestant, and was presented to Margaret on 5 April 1566, impressed by the massive support for the compromise, she suspended the placards, awaiting Philips final ruling. The first half of the Eighty Years War between the Spanish Empire and the Dutch Republic was fought between 1566 and 1609, when the Twelve Years Truce was signed in 1609, ending this first phase of war, the northern Netherlands had achieved de facto independence
16.
House of Orange-Nassau
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Several members of the house served during this war and after as governor or stadtholder during the Dutch Republic. However, in 1815, after a period as a republic. The dynasty was established as a result of the marriage of Henry III of Nassau-Breda from Germany and their son René inherited in 1530 the independent and sovereign Principality of Orange from his mothers brother, Philibert of Châlon. As the first Nassau to be the Prince of Orange, René could have used Orange-Nassau as his new family name, however, his uncle, in his will, had stipulated that René should continue the use of the name Châlon-Orange. History knows him therefore as René of Châlon, after the death of René in 1544 his cousin William of Nassau-Dillenburg inherited all his lands. This William I of Orange, in English better known as William the Silent, the Castle of Nassau was founded around 1100 by Count Dudo-Henry of Laurenburg, the founder of the House of Nassau. In 1120, Dudo-Henrys sons and successors, Counts Robert I and Arnold I of Laurenburg and they renovated and extended the castle complex in 1124. The first man to be called the count of Nassau was Robert I of Nassau, the Nassau family married into the family of the neighboring Counts of Arnstein. His sons Walram and Otto split the Nassau possessions, the descendants of Walram became known as the Walram Line, which became Dukes of Nassau, and in 1890, the Grand Dukes of Luxembourg. This line also included Adolph of Nassau, who was elected King of the Romans in 1292, the descendants of Otto became known as the Ottonian Line, which inherited parts of Nassau County, and properties in France and the Netherlands. The House of Orange-Nassau stems from the younger Ottonian Line, the first of this line to establish himself in the Netherlands was John I, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg, who married Margareta of the Marck. The real founder of the Nassau fortunes in the Netherlands was Johns son and he became counsellor to the Burgundian Dukes of Brabant, first to Anton of Burgundy, and later to his son Jan IV of Brabant. He also would later serve Philip the Good, in 1403 he married the Dutch noblewoman Johanna van Polanen, and so inherited lands in the Netherlands, with the Barony of Breda as the core of the Dutch possessions and the family fortune. A nobles power was based on his ownership of vast tracts of land. It also helped that much of the lands that the House of Orange and Nassau controlled sat under one of the commercial and mercantile centers of the world (see below under Lands and Titles. The importance of the Nassaus grew throughout the 15th and 16th centuries as they became councilors, generals, Engelbert II of Nassau served Charles the Bold and Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, who had married Charless daughter Mary of Burgundy. In 1496 he was appointed stadtholder of Flanders and by 1498 he had been named President of the Grand Conseil, in 1501, Maximilian named him Lieutenant-General of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands. From that point forward, Engelbert was the representative of the Habsburg Empire to the region
17.
Juliana of the Netherlands
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Juliana was Queen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1948 until her abdication in 1980. Juliana was the child of Queen Wilhelmina and Prince Henry. From birth she was heir presumptive to the Dutch throne, in 1937, she married Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld with whom she had four children, Beatrix, Irene, Margriet, and Christina. She reigned for nearly 32 years and her reign saw the decolonization of Dutch East Indies and Suriname and their independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Upon her death at the age of 94, she was the former reigning monarch in the world. Juliana was born in The Hague on 30 April 1909, the daughter of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and Prince Henry. She was the first Dutch royal baby since Wilhelmina herself was born in 1880, Wilhelmina had suffered two miscarriages and one stillbirth, raising the prospect that the House of Orange-Nassau would die with her. In all likelihood, this would have meant that the Dutch throne would have passed to Prince Heinrich XXXII Reuss of Köstritz, Julianas birth thus assured the royal familys survival. Her mother suffered two miscarriages after her birth, leaving Juliana as the royal couples only child. Juliana spent her childhood at Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn, and at Noordeinde Palace and these children were Baroness Elise Bentinck, Baroness Elisabeth van Hardenbroek and Jonkvrouwe Miek de Jonge. As the Dutch constitution specified that Princess Juliana should be ready to succeed to the throne by the age of eighteen, after five years of primary education, the Princess received her secondary education from private tutors. On 30 April 1927, Princess Juliana celebrated her eighteenth birthday, under the constitution, she had officially come of age and was entitled to assume the royal prerogative, if necessary. Two days later her mother installed her in the Raad van State, in the same year, the Princess enrolled as a student at the University of Leiden. In her first years at university, she attended lectures in sociology, jurisprudence, economics, history of religion, parliamentary history, and constitutional law. In the course of her studies she attended lectures on the cultures of Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles, international affairs, international law, history. She graduated from the university in 1930 with a degree in international law. In the 1930s, Queen Wilhelmina began a search for a husband for her daughter. At the time, the House of Orange was one of the most strictly religious royal families in the world, princes from the United Kingdom and Sweden were vetted but either declined or were rejected by the princess
18.
Beatrix of the Netherlands
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Beatrix reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013, after a reign of exactly 33 years. Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her husband, upon her mothers accession in 1948, she became heir presumptive. Beatrix attended a primary school in Canada during World War II. In 1961, she received her law degree from Leiden University, in 1966, Beatrix married Claus von Amsberg, a German diplomat, with whom she had three children. When her mother abdicated on 30 April 1980, Beatrix succeeded her as queen, on Koninginnedag,30 April 2013, Beatrix abdicated in favour of her eldest son, Willem-Alexander, and resumed the title of princess. At the time of her abdication, Beatrix was the oldest reigning monarch of the Netherlands, Beatrix was born Princess Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau, Princess of Lippe-Biesterfeld, on 31 January 1938 at the Soestdijk Palace in Baarn, Netherlands. She is the first child of Princess Juliana of the Netherlands, Beatrix was baptized on 12 May 1938 in the Great Church in The Hague. Beatrixs middle names are the first names of her grandmother, the then reigning Queen Wilhelmina. When Beatrix was one old, in 1939, her younger sister Princess Irene was born. World War II broke out in the Netherlands on 10 May 1940, on 13 May, the Dutch Royal Family evacuated to London, United Kingdom. One month later, Beatrix went to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, with her mother Juliana and her sister Irene, while her father Bernhard, the family lived at the Stornoway residence. With bodyguards and ladies in waiting, the family summered at Bigwin Inn on Lake of Bays, while on Bigwin Island, the constitution of the Netherlands was stored in the cast iron safe of Bigwin Inns Rotunda building. In order to them with a greater sense of security, culinary chefs. Upon their departure, the musicians of the Bigwin Inn Orchestra assembled dockside, and at every public performance afterward through to the end of World War II. In the years following the shuttering and neglect of the island resort, the second sister of Beatrix, Princess Margriet, was born in Ottawa in 1943. During their exile in Canada, Beatrix attended nursery and Rockcliffe Park Public School, on 5 May 1945, the German troops in the Netherlands surrendered. The family returned to the Netherlands on 2 August 1945, Beatrix went to the progressive primary school De Werkplaats in Bilthoven. Her third sister Princess Christina was born in 1947, in April 1950, Princess Beatrix entered the Incrementum, a part of Baarnsch Lyceum, where, in 1956, she passed her school-graduation examinations in the subjects of arts and classics
19.
Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands
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Willem-Alexander is the King of the Netherlands. Willem-Alexander was born in Utrecht and is the oldest child of Beatrix of the Netherlands and he became Prince of Orange as heir apparent upon his mothers accession on 30 April 1980, and succeeded her following her abdication on 30 April 2013. He went to primary and secondary schools, served in the Royal Netherlands Navy. He married Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti in 2002 and they have three daughters, Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange, Princess Alexia, and Princess Ariane, Willem-Alexander is interested in sports and international water management issues. At the age of 49, he is currently the second youngest monarch in Europe after Felipe VI of Spain, Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand was born on 27 April 1967 in the University Hospital Utrecht, Now is University Medical Center Utrecht in Utrecht, Netherlands. He is the first child of Princess Beatrix and Prince Claus, and he was the first male Dutch royal baby since the birth of Prince Alexander in 1851, and the first immediate male heir since Alexanders death in 1884. From birth, Willem-Alexander has held the titles Prince of the Netherlands, Prince of Orange-Nassau and he was baptised as a member of the Dutch Reformed Church on 2 September 1967 in Saint Jacobs Church in The Hague. He had two brothers, Prince Friso and Prince Constantijn. He lived with his family at the castle Drakensteyn in the hamlet Lage Vuursche near Baarn from his birth until 1981 and his mother Beatrix became Queen of the Netherlands in 1980, after his grandmother Juliana abdicated. He then received the title of Prince of Orange as heir apparent to the throne of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander attended Nieuwe Baarnse Elementary School in Baarn from 1973 to 1979. After his military service from 1985 to 1987, Willem-Alexander studied History at Leiden University from 1987 onwards and his final thesis was on the Dutch response to Frances decision under President Charles de Gaulle to leave the NATOs integrated command structure. Willem-Alexander speaks English, Spanish and German in addition to his native Dutch, between secondary school and his university education, Willem-Alexander performed military service in the Royal Netherlands Navy from August 1985 until January 1987. He received his training at the Royal Netherlands Naval College and the frigates HNLMS Tromp and HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen, in 1988 he received additional training at the ship HNLMS Van Kinsbergen and became a lieutenant. As a reservist for the Royal Netherlands Navy, Willem-Alexander was promoted to Lieutenant Commander in 1995, Commander in 1997, Captain at Sea in 2001, and Commodore in 2005. As a reservist for the Royal Netherlands Army, he was made a Major in 1995, and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1997, Colonel in 2001, and Brigadier General in 2005. As a reservist for the Royal Netherlands Air Force, he was made Squadron Leader in 1995, as a reservist for the Royal Marechaussee, he was made Brigadier General in 2005. Before his investiture as king in 2013, Willem-Alexander was honorably discharged from the armed forces, the government declared that the head of state cannot be a serving member of the armed forces, since the government itself holds supreme command over the armed forces. As king, Willem-Alexander may choose to wear a uniform with royal insignia
20.
Dutch Golden Age
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The Dutch Golden Age was a period in Dutch history, roughly spanning the 17th century, in which Dutch trade, science, military, and art were among the most acclaimed in the world. The first half is characterized by the Eighty Years War which ended in 1648, the Golden Age continued in peacetime during the Dutch Republic until the end of the century. The Netherlandss transition from a possession of the Holy Roman Empire in the 1590s to the foremost maritime, in 1568, the Seven Provinces that later signed the Union of Utrecht started a rebellion against Philip II of Spain that led to the Eighty Years War. Antwerp fell on August 17,1585 after a siege, the United Provinces fought on until the Twelve Years Truce, which did not end the hostilities. Under the terms of the surrender of Antwerp in 1585, the Protestant population were given four years to settle their affairs before leaving the city, similar arrangements were made in other places. Protestants were especially well-represented among the craftsmen and rich merchants of the port cities of Bruges, Ghent. More moved to the north between 1585 and 1630 than Catholics moved in the direction, although there were also many of these. Many of those moving north settled in Amsterdam, transforming what was a port into one of the most important ports. The Pilgrim Fathers also spent time there before their voyage to the New World, Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke contribute part of the Dutch ascendancy to its Calvinistic ethic, which promoted thrift and education. This contributed to the lowest interest rates and the highest literacy rates in Europe, several other factors also contributed to the flowering of trade, industry, the arts and the sciences in the Netherlands during this time. A necessary condition was a supply of energy from windmills and from peat. The invention of the sawmill enabled the construction of a massive fleet of ships for worldwide trading. In 1602 the Dutch East India Company was founded and it was the first-ever multinational corporation, financed by shares that established the first modern stock exchange. This company received a Dutch monopoly on Asian trade and would keep this for two centuries and it became the worlds largest commercial enterprise of the 17th century. Spices were imported in bulk and brought huge profits, due to the efforts and risks involved and this is remembered to this day in the Dutch word peperduur, meaning something is very expensive, reflecting the prices of spices at the time. To finance the trade within the region, the Bank of Amsterdam was established in 1609. According to Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke, geography favored the Dutch Republic and they write, The foundations were laid by taking advantage of location, midway between the Bay of Biscay and the Baltic. The Dutch share of European shipping tonnage was enormous, well over half during most of the period of their ascendancy, from here the Dutch traded between China and Japan and paid tribute to the Shogun
21.
Dutch Republic
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It preceded the Batavian Republic, the Kingdom of Holland, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and ultimately the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands. Alternative names include the United Provinces, Seven Provinces, Federated Dutch Provinces, most of the Low Countries had come under the rule of the House of Burgundy and subsequently the House of Habsburg. In 1549 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V issued the Pragmatic Sanction, Charles was succeeded by his son, King Philip II of Spain. This was the start of the Eighty Years War, in 1579 a number of the northern provinces of the Low Countries signed the Union of Utrecht, in which they promised to support each other in their defence against the Spanish army. This was followed in 1581 by the Act of Abjuration, the declaration of independence of the provinces from Philip II. In 1582 the United Provinces invited Francis, Duke of Anjou to lead them, but after an attempt to take Antwerp in 1583. After the assassination of William of Orange, both Henry III of France and Elizabeth I of England declined the offer of sovereignty, however, the latter agreed to turn the United Provinces into a protectorate of England, and sent the Earl of Leicester as governor-general. This was unsuccessful and in 1588 the provinces became a confederacy, the Union of Utrecht is regarded as the foundation of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, which was not recognized by the Spanish Empire until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. During the Anglo-French war, the territory was divided into groups, the Patriots, who were pro-French and pro-American and the Orangists. The Republic of the United Provinces faced a series of revolutions in 1783–1787. During this period, republican forces occupied several major Dutch cities, initially on the defence, the Orangist forces received aid from Prussian troops and retook the Netherlands in 1787. After the French Republic became the French Empire under Napoleon, the Batavian Republic was replaced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland, the Netherlands regained independence from France in 1813. In the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 the names United Provinces of the Netherlands, on 16 March 1815, the son of stadtholder William V crowned himself King William I of the Netherlands. Between 1815 and 1890 the King of the Netherlands was also in a union the Grand Duke of the sovereign Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. After Belgium gained its independence in 1830, the state became known as the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The County of Holland was the wealthiest and most urbanized region in the world, the free trade spirit of the time received a strong augmentation through the development of a modern, effective stock market in the Low Countries. The Netherlands has the oldest stock exchange in the world, founded in 1602 by the Dutch East India Company, while Rotterdam has the oldest bourse in the Netherlands, the worlds first stock exchange, that of the Dutch East-India Company, went public in six different cities. Later, a court ruled that the company had to reside legally in a city so Amsterdam is recognized as the oldest such institution based on modern trading principles
22.
Rembrandt
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Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was a Dutch draughtsman, painter, and printmaker. A prolific and versatile master across three media, he is considered one of the greatest visual artists in the history of art. Having achieved youthful success as a painter, Rembrandts later years were marked by personal tragedy. Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high, Rembrandts portraits of his contemporaries, self-portraits and illustrations of scenes from the Bible are regarded as his greatest creative triumphs. His self-portraits form a unique and intimate biography, in which the artist surveyed himself without vanity and his reputation as the greatest etcher in the history of the medium was established in his lifetime, and never questioned since. Few of his paintings left the Dutch Republic whilst he lived, but his prints were circulated throughout Europe, because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called one of the great prophets of civilization. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on 15 July 1606 in Leiden, in the Dutch Republic and he was the ninth child born to Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuijtbrouck. His family was quite well-to-do, his father was a miller, religion is a central theme in Rembrandts paintings and the religiously fraught period in which he lived makes his faith a matter of interest. His mother was Roman Catholic, and his father belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, unlike many of his contemporaries who traveled to Italy as part of their artistic training, Rembrandt never left the Dutch Republic during his lifetime. He opened a studio in Leiden in 1624 or 1625, which he shared with friend, in 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students, among them Gerrit Dou in 1628. In 1629, Rembrandt was discovered by the statesman Constantijn Huygens, as a result of this connection, Prince Frederik Hendrik continued to purchase paintings from Rembrandt until 1646. He initially stayed with an art dealer, Hendrick van Uylenburgh, Saskia came from a good family, her father had been a lawyer and the burgemeester of Leeuwarden. When Saskia, as the youngest daughter, became an orphan, Rembrandt and Saskia were married in the local church of St. Annaparochie without the presence of Rembrandts relatives. In the same year, Rembrandt became a burgess of Amsterdam and he also acquired a number of students, among them Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck. In 1635 Rembrandt and Saskia moved into their own house, renting in fashionable Nieuwe Doelenstraat, in 1639 they moved to a prominent newly built house in the upscale Breestraat, today known as Jodenbreestraat in what was becoming the Jewish quarter, then a young upcoming neighborhood. The mortgage to finance the 13,000 guilder purchase would be a cause for later financial difficulties. Rembrandt should easily have been able to pay the house off with his income, but it appears his spending always kept pace with his income. It was there that Rembrandt frequently sought his Jewish neighbors to model for his Old Testament scenes, in 1640, they had a second daughter, also named Cornelia, who died after living barely over a month
23.
Christiaan Huygens
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Christiaan Huygens, FRS was a prominent Dutch mathematician and scientist. He is known particularly as an astronomer, physicist, probabilist and horologist, Huygens was a leading scientist of his time. His work included early telescopic studies of the rings of Saturn and the discovery of its moon Titan and he published major studies of mechanics and optics, and pioneered work on games of chance. Christiaan Huygens was born on 14 April 1629 in The Hague, into a rich and influential Dutch family, Christiaan was named after his paternal grandfather. His mother was Suzanna van Baerle and she died in 1637, shortly after the birth of Huygens sister. The couple had five children, Constantijn, Christiaan, Lodewijk, Philips, Constantijn Huygens was a diplomat and advisor to the House of Orange, and also a poet and musician. His friends included Galileo Galilei, Marin Mersenne and René Descartes, Huygens was educated at home until turning sixteen years old. He liked to play with miniatures of mills and other machines and his father gave him a liberal education, he studied languages and music, history and geography, mathematics, logic and rhetoric, but also dancing, fencing and horse riding. In 1644 Huygens had as his mathematical tutor Jan Jansz de Jonge Stampioen, Descartes was impressed by his skills in geometry. His father sent Huygens to study law and mathematics at the University of Leiden, Frans van Schooten was an academic at Leiden from 1646, and also a private tutor to Huygens and his elder brother, replacing Stampioen on the advice of Descartes. Van Schooten brought his mathematical education up to date, in introducing him to the work of Fermat on differential geometry. Constantijn Huygens was closely involved in the new College, which lasted only to 1669, Christiaan Huygens lived at the home of the jurist Johann Henryk Dauber, and had mathematics classes with the English lecturer John Pell. He completed his studies in August 1649 and he then had a stint as a diplomat on a mission with Henry, Duke of Nassau. It took him to Bentheim, then Flensburg and he took off for Denmark, visited Copenhagen and Helsingør, and hoped to cross the Øresund to visit Descartes in Stockholm. While his father Constantijn had wished his son Christiaan to be a diplomat, in political terms, the First Stadtholderless Period that began in 1650 meant that the House of Orange was not in power, removing Constantijns influence. Further, he realised that his son had no interest in such a career, Huygens generally wrote in French or Latin. While still a student at Leiden he began a correspondence with the intelligencer Mersenne. Mersenne wrote to Constantijn on his sons talent for mathematics, the letters show the early interests of Huygens in mathematics
24.
Hugo Grotius
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Hugo Grotius, also known as Huig de Groot or Hugo de Groot, was a Dutch jurist. Along with the works of Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili, Grotius laid the foundations for international law. A teenage intellectual prodigy, he was imprisoned for his involvement in the intra-Calvinist disputes of the Dutch Republic and he wrote most of his major works in exile in France. Because of his theological underpinning of free trade, he is considered an economic theologist. Born in Delft during the Dutch Revolt, Hugo was the first child of Jan de Groot, a prodigious learner, Hugo entered the University of Leiden when he was just eleven years old. There he studied some of the most acclaimed intellectuals in northern Europe, including Franciscus Junius, Joseph Justus Scaliger. Omnes, & emendati, & Notis, siue Februis Hug, in Holland, Grotius earned an appointment as advocate to The Hague in 1599 and then as official historiographer for the States of Holland in 1601. The Dutch were at war with Spain and Portugal when the merchant ship Santa Catarina. The scandal led to a judicial hearing and a wider campaign to sway public opinion. It was in this context that representatives of the Company called upon Grotius to draft a polemical defence of the seizure. The result of Grotius efforts in 1604/05 was a long, theory-laden treatise that he provisionally entitled De Indis, Grotius sought to ground his defense of the seizure in terms of the natural principles of justice. In this, he had cast a net much wider than the case at hand, his interest was in the source, the treatise was never published in full during Grotius lifetime, perhaps because the court ruling in favor of the Company preempted the need to garner public support. In The Free Sea Grotius formulated the new principle that the sea was international territory, Grotius, by claiming free seas, provided suitable ideological justification for the Dutch breaking up of various trade monopolies through its formidable naval power. In 1608 he married Maria van Reigersbergen, with whom he would have eight children and who would be invaluable in helping him and the family to weather the storm to come. The domestic dissension resulting over Arminius professorship was overshadowed by the war with Spain. The new peace would move the focus to the controversy. The controversy expanded when the Remonstrant theologian Conrad Vorstius was appointed to replace Jacobus Arminius as the chair at Leiden. Vorstius was soon seen by Counter-Remonstrants as moving beyond the teachings of Arminius into Socinianism, leading the call for Vorstius removal was theology professor Sibrandus Lubbertus
25.
Baruch Spinoza
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Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Sephardi/Portuguese origin. Spinozas magnum opus, Ethics, was published posthumously in 1677, the work opposed René Descartes philosophy on mind–body dualism, and earned Spinoza recognition as one of Western philosophys most important thinkers. In the Ethics, Spinoza wrote the last indisputable Latin masterpiece, hegel said, You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all. His philosophical accomplishments and moral character prompted 20th-century philosopher Gilles Deleuze to name him the prince of philosophers, Spinozas given name, which means Blessed, varies among different languages. In Hebrew, it is written ברוך שפינוזה, in Portuguese, hes called Benedito Bento de Espinosa and in Latin, Benedictus de Spinoza. Spinoza was raised in a Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam and he developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the Divine. Jewish religious authorities issued a herem against him, causing him to be shunned by Jewish society at age 23. His books were later put on the Catholic Churchs Index of Forbidden Books. Spinoza lived a simple life as a lens grinder, turning down rewards and honours throughout his life. He died at the age of 44 allegedly of a lung illness and he is buried in the churchyard of the Christian Nieuwe Kerk in The Hague. The Spinoza family probably had its origins in Espinosa de los Monteros, near Burgos, or in Espinosa de Cerrato, near Palencia, the family was expelled from Spain in 1492 and fled to Portugal. Portugal compelled them to convert to Catholicism in 1498, attracted by the Decree of Toleration issued in 1579 by the Union of Utrecht, Portuguese conversos first sailed to Amsterdam in 1593 and promptly reconverted to Judaism. In 1598 permission was granted to build a synagogue, and in 1615 an ordinance for the admission, as a community of exiles, the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam were highly proud of their identity. Spinozas father was born roughly a century after this conversion in the small Portuguese city of Vidigueira. When Spinozas father was still a child, Spinozas grandfather, Isaac de Spinoza and they were expelled in 1615 and moved to Rotterdam, where Isaac died in 1627. Spinozas father, Miguel, and his uncle, Manuel, then moved to Amsterdam where they resumed the practice of Judaism, Miguel was a successful merchant and became a warden of the synagogue and of the Amsterdam Jewish school. He buried three wives and three of his six children died before reaching adulthood, Amsterdam and Rotterdam operated as important cosmopolitan centres where merchant ships from many parts of the world brought people of various customs and beliefs. This flourishing commercial activity encouraged a relatively tolerant of the play of new ideas
26.
Baron d'Holbach
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Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron dHolbach, was a French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist and prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in Edesheim, near Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate, but lived and worked mainly in Paris and he was well known for his atheism and for his voluminous writings against religion, the most famous of them being The System of Nature. Sources differ regarding dHolbachs dates of birth and death and his exact birthday is unknown, although records show that he was baptised on 8 December 1723. Some authorities incorrectly give June 1789 as the month of his death, d’Holbachs mother Catherine Jacobina née Holbach was the daughter of Johannes Jacobus Holbach the Prince-Bishops tax collector for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Speyer. His father, Johann Jakob Dietrich, was a wine-grower, d’Holbach wrote nothing of his childhood though it is known he was raised in Paris by his uncle Franz Adam Holbach, who had become a millionaire by speculating on the Paris stock-exchange. With his financial support, d’Holbach attended the Leiden University from 1744 to 1748, here he became friends with John Wilkes. Later he went on to marry his cousin, Basile-Geneviève dAine. In 1753, a son was born, Francois Nicholas who left France before his father passed, Francois moved through Germany, Holland, and England before arriving in USA. In 1753 both his uncle and his father died, leaving dHolbach with an inheritance, such as Heeze Castle. D’Holbach would remain throughout his life. In 1754, his wife died from an unknown disease and they had a son, Charles-Marius and two daughters Amélie-Suzanne and Louise-Pauline. There he would invite friends to stay for a few days or weeks, DHolbach was known for his generosity, often providing financial support discreetly or anonymously to his friends, amongst them Diderot. It is thought that the virtuous atheist Wolmar in Jean-Jacques Rousseaus Julie, Holbach died in Paris on 21 January 1789, a few months before the French Revolution. The authorship of his various anti-religious works did not become known until the early 19th century. Ironically, he was buried in the Church of Saint-Roch, Paris, the exact location of the grave is unknown. 1780, Baron dHolbach used his wealth to maintain one of the notable and lavish Parisian salons. Meetings were held twice a week, on Sundays and Thursdays. Visitors to the salon were exclusively males, and the tone of discussion highbrow and this, along with the excellent food, expensive wine, and a library of over 3000 volumes, attracted many notable visitors
27.
Coimbra Group
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The Coimbra Group is an association of European universities founded in 1985. Its member universities are older multi-disciplinary research institutions, the group takes its name from the city of Coimbra, Portugal, and its University of Coimbra, one of the oldest in Europe. The Coimbra Group was founded in 1985 and formally constituted in 1987 by a charter signed between its members, then numbering 19, in 1994 it published Charters of Foundation and Early Documents of the Universities of the Coimbra Group. A second edition was published in 2005, by which time Caen had left the group while Åbo, Bergen, Geneva, Graz, Lyon, Padua, Tartu, since then, the Group has added Vilnius University in June 2015 and Durham University in June 2016. This brought the membership of the group to 39, but it fell to 38 in October 2016. As of October 2016, the Coimbra Group includes 38 universities in 23 countries, Charter members are marked *, University of Caen* University of Cambridge University of Lyon University of Oxford* Aristotle University of Thessaloniki* Official website
28.
League of European Research Universities
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The League of European Research Universities is a consortium of European research universities. The League of European Research Universities is an association of research-intensive universities, founded in 2002, as a partnership among twelve multi-faculty research universities, in 2016 it expanded its membership to twenty-three. The purpose of the League is to influence policy in Europe, LERU is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium. Kurt Deketelaere is the current Secretary-General, trinity College Dublin and the University of Copenhagen will join the alliance on 1 January 2017. A b c These universities also belong to Europaeum, another European university network, a b c d e f These universities joined the League as new members on January 17,2006. A b c These universities also belong to the Utrecht Network, a b These universities join the League as new members on January 1,2010. Official website e-LERU Virtual Campus Bright Students’ Conference
29.
Mark Rutte
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Mark Rutte is a Dutch politician who has been the Prime Minister of the Netherlands since 14 October 2010, and the Leader of the Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy since 31 May 2006. At the 2006 general election, the Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy, already under Rutte, lost six seats, and he became the opposition leader. At the following election in 2010, the VVD won the highest number of votes cast. After a long period, Rutte became Prime Minister and formed a Cabinet. When Rutte was sworn in on 14 October 2010, he became the first liberal Prime Minister of the Netherlands in 92 years, on 5 November 2012, the Second Rutte cabinet was installed by Queen Beatrix. Izaäk Rutte worked for a company, first as an importer in the Dutch East Indies. Rutte attended a high school from 1979 until 1985, specialising in the arts. Although Ruttes original ambition was to attend a conservatory and become a concert pianist, he went to study history at Leiden University instead, where he obtained a MA degree in 1992. Rutte combined his studies with a position on the board of the Youth Organisation Freedom and Democracy, after his studies, Rutte entered the business world, working as a manager for Unilever and Calvé. Until 1997, Rutte was part of the human resource department of Unilever, between 1997 and 2000, Rutte was staff manager for Van den Bergh Nederland, a subsidiary of Unilevers. In 2000, Rutte became a member of the Corporate Human Resources Group, between 1993 and 1997, Rutte was a member of the national board of the VVD. Rutte also served as a member of the VVD candidate committee for the election of 2002. Rutte was elected as Member of Parliament in 2003, Rutte served as Undersecretary in the Social Affairs and Employment ministry from 22 July 2002 to 17 June 2004 in the first and second Balkenende cabinets. Rutte was responsible for fields including bijstand and arbeidsomstandigheden, after the 2003 elections Rutte was briefly also a member of the House of Representatives, from 30 January to 27 May 2003. In office, Rutte showed particular interest in making the Dutch higher education system more competitive internationally, Rutte would have been succeeded by former The Hague alderman Bruno Bruins. Before Bruins could be sworn into office, the second Balkenende cabinet fell, in the subsequently formed third Balkenende cabinet Bruins succeeded Rutte as Undersecretary. Rutte resigned as Undersecretary in June 2006 to return to the House of Representatives, Rutte became an important figure within the VVD leadership. Rutte was campaign manager for the 2006 municipal elections, on 31 May 2006, it was announced that Mark Rutte would be the next front-runner of the VVD
30.
President of the United States
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The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president also directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole. However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation
31.
John Quincy Adams
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John Quincy Adams was an American statesman who served as a diplomat, United States Senator, member of the House of Representatives, and was the sixth President of the United States from 1825 to 1829. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican and he was the son of President John Adams and Abigail Adams and thus contributed to the formation of the Adams political family. Adams shaped U. S. foreign policy using his ardently nationalist commitment to U. S. republican values, as a diplomat, Adams played an important role in negotiating key treaties, most notably the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. As Secretary of State, he negotiated with Britain over the United States northern border with Canada, negotiated with Spain the annexation of Florida, historians generally concur that he was one of the greatest diplomats and secretaries of state in American history. Adams was elected president in a close and controversial four-way contest in 1824, as president he sought to modernize the American economy and promote education. Adams enacted a part of his agenda and paid off much of the national debt, however he was stymied time and again by a Congress controlled by opponents, and his lack of patronage networks helped politicians sabotage him. He lost his 1828 bid for re-election to Andrew Jackson, after leaving office, he was elected as U. S. Representative from Massachusetts in 1830, serving for the last 17 years of his life with greater acclaim than he had achieved as president, animated by his growing revulsion against slavery, Adams became a leading opponent of the Slave Power. Adams predicted the Unions dissolution over slavery, and in such a case, historians have in the aggregate ranked Adams as the 21st most successful president. John Quincy Adams was born on July 11,1767, to John Adams and he was named for his mothers maternal grandfather, Colonel John Quincy, after whom Quincy, Massachusetts, is named. Young Adams was educated by private tutors – his cousin James Thaxter and his fathers law clerk and he soon began to exhibit his literary skills in 1779, when he initiated a diary which he kept until just before he died in 1848. The diary comprised an unprecedented fifty volumes, representing one of the most extensive, much of Adams youth was spent accompanying his father overseas. He accompanied his father on diplomatic missions to France from 1778 until 1779, Adams acquired an education at institutions such as Leiden University. He matriculated in Leiden on January 10,1781, for nearly three years, beginning at the age of 14, he accompanied Francis Dana as a secretary on a mission to Saint Petersburg, Russia, to obtain recognition of the new United States. He spent time in Finland, Sweden, and Denmark and, in 1804, during these years overseas, Adams became fluent in French and Dutch and became familiar with German and other European languages. Though Adams enjoyed Europe, he and his family decided he needed to return to the United States to complete his education and he entered Harvard College, graduated in 1787 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, and was elected by Phi Beta Kappa. Adams, mainly with the influence of his father, had excelled in studies and reached fluency in Latin. Upon entering Harvard he had already translated Virgil, Horace, Plutarch, after graduating from Harvard, he studied law with Theophilus Parsons in Newburyport, Massachusetts from 1787 to 1789
32.
NATO
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states. NATOs headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons. NATO is an Alliance that consists of 28 independent member countries across North America and Europe, an additional 22 countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total, Members defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. N. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Unions Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. He got a hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. In 1948 European leaders met with U. S. defense, military and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, marshalls orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty and it included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in. Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, the creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The members agreed that an attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor, although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily, the treaty was later clarified to include both the members territory and their vessels, forces or aircraft above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France. The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology, the roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved
33.
International Court of Justice
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The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial branch of the United Nations. Established in 1945 by the UN Charter, the Court began work in 1946 as the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice, the Statute of the International Court of Justice, similar to that of its predecessor, is the main constitutional document constituting and regulating the Court. The Courts workload covers a range of judicial activity. Chapter XIV of the United Nations Charter authorizes the UN Security Council to enforce Court rulings, however, such enforcement is subject to the veto power of the five permanent members of the Council, which the United States used in the Nicaragua case. The election process is set out in Articles 4–19 of the ICJ statute, elections are staggered, with five judges elected every three years to ensure continuity within the court. Should a judge die in office, the practice has generally been to elect a judge in an election to complete the term. No two judges may be nationals of the same country, according to Article 9, the membership of the Court is supposed to represent the main forms of civilization and of the principal legal systems of the world. Essentially, that has meant common law, civil law and socialist law, the exception was China, which did not have a judge on the Court from 1967 to 1985 because it did not put forward a candidate. Judicial independence is dealt with specifically in Articles 16–18, judges of the ICJ are not able to hold any other post or act as counsel. A judge can be dismissed only by a vote of the other members of the Court. Despite these provisions, the independence of ICJ judges has been questioned, judges may deliver joint judgments or give their own separate opinions. Judges may also deliver separate dissenting opinions, Article 31 of the statute sets out a procedure whereby ad hoc judges sit on contentious cases before the Court. The system allows any party to a case if it otherwise does not have one of that partys nationals sitting on the Court to select one additional person to sit as a judge on that case only. It is thus possible that as many as seventeen judges may sit on one case, the system may seem strange when compared with domestic court processes, but its purpose is to encourage states to submit cases. Although this system does not sit well with the nature of the body. Ad hoc judges usually vote in favor of the state that appointed them, generally, the Court sits as full bench, but in the last fifteen years, it has on occasion sat as a chamber. Articles 26–29 of the statute allow the Court to form smaller chambers, usually 3 or 5 judges, Two types of chambers are contemplated by Article 26, firstly, chambers for special categories of cases, and second, the formation of ad hoc chambers to hear particular disputes. In 1993, a chamber was established, under Article 26 of the ICJ statute
34.
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
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The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is the head of Her Majestys Government in the United Kingdom. The prime minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Monarch, to Parliament, to their political party, the office is one of the Great Offices of State. The current prime minister, Theresa May, leader of the Conservative Party, was appointed by the Queen on 13 July 2016. The position of Prime Minister was not created, it evolved slowly and erratically over three hundred years due to acts of Parliament, political developments, and accidents of history. The office is therefore best understood from a historical perspective, the origins of the position are found in constitutional changes that occurred during the Revolutionary Settlement and the resulting shift of political power from the Sovereign to Parliament. The political position of Prime Minister was enhanced by the development of political parties, the introduction of mass communication. By the start of the 20th century the modern premiership had emerged, prior to 1902, the prime minister sometimes came from the House of Lords, provided that his government could form a majority in the Commons. However as the power of the aristocracy waned during the 19th century the convention developed that the Prime Minister should always sit in the lower house. As leader of the House of Commons, the Prime Ministers authority was further enhanced by the Parliament Act of 1911 which marginalised the influence of the House of Lords in the law-making process. The Prime Minister is ex officio also First Lord of the Treasury, certain privileges, such as residency of 10 Downing Street, are accorded to Prime Ministers by virtue of their position as First Lord of the Treasury. As the Head of Her Majestys Government the modern Prime Minister leads the Cabinet, in addition the Prime Minister leads a major political party and generally commands a majority in the House of Commons. As such the incumbent wields both legislative and executive powers, under the British system there is a unity of powers rather than separation. In the House of Commons, the Prime Minister guides the process with the goal of enacting the legislative agenda of their political party. The Prime Minister also acts as the face and voice of Her Majestys Government. The British system of government is based on an uncodified constitution, in 1928, Prime Minister H. H. Asquith described this characteristic of the British constitution in his memoirs, In this country we live. Our constitutional practices do not derive their validity and sanction from any Bill which has received the assent of the King, Lords. They rest on usage, custom, convention, often of slow growth in their early stages, not always uniform, the relationships between the Prime Minister and the Sovereign, Parliament and Cabinet are defined largely by these unwritten conventions of the constitution. Many of the Prime Ministers executive and legislative powers are actually royal prerogatives which are still vested in the Sovereign
35.
Albert Einstein
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Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist. He developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics, Einsteins work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. Einstein is best known in popular culture for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, near the beginning of his career, Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led him to develop his theory of relativity during his time at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. Briefly before, he aquired the Swiss citizenship in 1901, which he kept for his whole life and he continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the properties of light which laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the theory of relativity to model the large-scale structure of the universe. He was visiting the United States when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933 and, being Jewish, did not go back to Germany and he settled in the United States, becoming an American citizen in 1940. This eventually led to what would become the Manhattan Project, Einstein supported defending the Allied forces, but generally denounced the idea of using the newly discovered nuclear fission as a weapon. Later, with the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, Einstein signed the Russell–Einstein Manifesto, Einstein was affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, until his death in 1955. Einstein published more than 300 scientific papers along with over 150 non-scientific works, on 5 December 2014, universities and archives announced the release of Einsteins papers, comprising more than 30,000 unique documents. Einsteins intellectual achievements and originality have made the word Einstein synonymous with genius, Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire, on 14 March 1879. His parents were Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer, the Einsteins were non-observant Ashkenazi Jews, and Albert attended a Catholic elementary school in Munich from the age of 5 for three years. At the age of 8, he was transferred to the Luitpold Gymnasium, the loss forced the sale of the Munich factory. In search of business, the Einstein family moved to Italy, first to Milan, when the family moved to Pavia, Einstein stayed in Munich to finish his studies at the Luitpold Gymnasium. His father intended for him to electrical engineering, but Einstein clashed with authorities and resented the schools regimen. He later wrote that the spirit of learning and creative thought was lost in strict rote learning, at the end of December 1894, he travelled to Italy to join his family in Pavia, convincing the school to let him go by using a doctors note. During his time in Italy he wrote an essay with the title On the Investigation of the State of the Ether in a Magnetic Field
36.
Enrico Fermi
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Enrico Fermi was an Italian physicist, who created the worlds first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the architect of the age and the architect of the atomic bomb. He was one of the few physicists to excel both theoretically and experimentally and he made significant contributions to the development of quantum theory, nuclear and particle physics, and statistical mechanics. Fermis first major contribution was to statistical mechanics, today, particles that obey the exclusion principle are called fermions. Later Pauli postulated the existence of an invisible particle emitted along with an electron during beta decay. Fermi took up this idea, developing a model that incorporated the postulated particle and his theory, later referred to as Fermis interaction and still later as weak interaction, described one of the four fundamental forces of nature. Fermi left Italy in 1938 to escape new Italian Racial Laws that affected his Jewish wife Laura Capon and he emigrated to the United States where he worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Fermi led the team designed and built Chicago Pile-1, which went critical on 2 December 1942. He was on hand when the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, went critical in 1943, at Los Alamos he headed F Division, part of which worked on Edward Tellers thermonuclear Super bomb. He was present at the Trinity test on 16 July 1945, after the war, Fermi served under J. Robert Oppenheimer on the General Advisory Committee, which advised the Atomic Energy Commission on nuclear matters and policy. Following the detonation of the first Soviet fission bomb in August 1949 and he was among the scientists who testified on Oppenheimers behalf at the 1954 hearing that resulted in the denial of the latters security clearance. Enrico Fermi was born in Rome, Italy, on 29 September 1901 and he was the third child of Alberto Fermi, a division head in the Ministry of Railways, and Ida de Gattis, an elementary school teacher. His only sister, Maria, was two years older than he was, and his brother Giulio was a year older, after the two boys were sent to a rural community to be wet nursed, Enrico rejoined his family in Rome when he was two and a half. Although he was baptised a Roman Catholic in accordance with his grandparents wishes, his family was not particularly religious, as a young boy he shared the same interests as his brother Giulio, building electric motors and playing with electrical and mechanical toys. Giulio died during the administration of an anesthetic for an operation on a throat abscess in 1915, one of Fermis first sources for his study of physics was a book he found at the local market at Campo de Fiori in Rome. Published in 1840, the 900-page Elementorum physicae mathematicae, was written in Latin by Jesuit Father Andrea Caraffa and it covered mathematics, classical mechanics, astronomy, optics, and acoustics, insofar as these disciplines were understood when the book was written. Fermis interest in physics was encouraged by his fathers colleague Adolfo Amidei, who gave him several books on physics and mathematics. Fermi graduated from school in July 1918 and, at Amideis urging
37.
William, Prince of Orange
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William, Prince of Orange, was heir apparent to the Dutch throne as the eldest son of King William III from 17 March 1849 until his death. Prince William was the eldest son of King William III of the Netherlands and his first wife, at his birth, he held the third position in the line of succession to the Dutch throne and the seventeenth position in the line of succession to the British throne. In 1849, after the death of his grandfather King William II of the Netherlands and his Victorian upbringing turned out to be a disaster. The relationship between the prince and his parents became very problematic, as his parents refused Williams wish to accept Mathilde as his bride in 1874. By the standards of the Dutch royal family, a marriage between a member of the family and a member of the nobility was considered unequal. Also a rumour circulated that Mathilda was a daughter of king William III. The 33-year-old William wanted to marry, if necessary, without the consent of his parents, however, Mathilda was not yet twenty and so permission was needed from her parents too. Since they denied permission, the attempt to marry Mathilda failed. Heavily disillusioned with his situation in the Netherlands, Prince William then went into exile in Paris and he shared life with Henriette Hauser, his Parisian mistress, a boulevard theatre actress. Prince William died at the age of 38 in his apartment in the Rue Auber, near the Paris Opera from a combination of typhus, liver complaints, on 26 June 1879 his body was entombed in the royal crypt at the New Church of Delft. On his coffin there was a wreath from French empress Eugénie de Montijo and one from the future King Edward VII, after his death, his brother Alexander became heir-apparent and Prince of Orange. However he also died before their father, who was now without sons, the States-General adopted cognatic primogeniture in 1888. His Royal Highness Prince Willem of the Netherlands, Prince of Orange-Nassau His Royal Highness The Prince of Orange
38.
Habsburg Netherlands
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Habsburg Netherlands is the collective name of Holy Roman Empire fiefs in the Low Countries held by the House of Habsburg and later by the Spanish Empire, also known as the Spanish Netherlands. Then known as Seventeen Provinces, they were held by the Spanish Empire from 1556, in 1581, the Seven United Provinces seceded to form the Dutch Republic, the remaining Spanish Southern Netherlands eventually passed on to Habsburg Austria. Finally the Austrian Netherlands were annexed by the French First Republic in 1795, the Habsburg Netherlands was a geo-political entity covering the whole of the Low Countries from 1482 to 1581. The centre of the Burgundian possessions was the Duchy of Brabant, deeply disappointed, he entered into the disastrous Burgundian Wars and was killed in the Battle of Nancy. Upon the death of Mary of Burgundy in 1482, her possessions including the Burgundian Netherlands passed to her son. Through his father Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor from 1493, Philip was a Habsburg scion, the period 1481–1492 saw the Flemish cities revolt and Utrecht embroiled in civil war, but by the turn of the century both areas had been pacified by the Spanish rulers. Philips son Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, born in Ghent, succeeded his father in 1506 and his grandfather Emperor Maximilian I incorporated the Burgundian heritage into the Burgundian Circle, whereafter the territories in the far west of the Empire developed a certain grade of autonomy. Attaining full age in 1515, Charles went on to rule his Burgundian heritage as a native Netherlander and he acquired the lands of Overijssel and the Bishopric of Utrecht, purchased Friesland from Duke George of Saxony and regained Groningen and Gelderland. His Seventeen Provinces were re-organised in the 1548 Burgundian Treaty, whereby the Imperial estates represented in the Imperial Diet at Augsburg acknowledged a certain autonomy of the Netherlands. It was followed by a sanction by the Emperor the next year. By a 1522 inheritance treaty with his younger brother Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria, Emperor Charles V had established the Austrian, upon his abdication in 1556, the Seventeen Provinces fell to the Spanish Crown. Charless son and successor King Philip II of Spain by his despotism and Catholic persecutions sparked the Dutch Revolt, the Spanish hold on the northern provinces was more and more tenuous. In 1579 the northern provinces established the Protestant Union of Utrecht, after the secession of 1581, the southern provinces, called t Hof van Brabant remained with the House of Habsburg until the French Revolutionary Wars. After the extinction of the Spanish Habsburgs and the War of the Spanish Succession, the southern provinces were also known as the Austrian Netherlands from 1715 onwards
39.
Old University of Leuven
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The Old University of Leuven is the name historians give to the university, or studium generale, founded in Leuven, Brabant, in 1425. The university was closed in 1797, a week after the cession to the French Republic of the Austrian Netherlands and it is commonly referred to as the University of Leuven or University of Louvain, sometimes with the qualification old to distinguish it from the Catholic University of Leuven. This might also refer to a short-lived but historically important State University of Leuven, the immediate official and legal successor and inheritor of the old University, under the laws in force in 1797, was the École centrale de Bruxelles, which itself closed down in 1802. To shake off this reputation, the faculty of theology thrice declared its adherence to the condemnation of Jansenist beliefs in the papal bull Unigenitus. Pope Martin V issued a bull dated 9 December 1425 founding the University in Leuven as a Studium Generale. This university was institutionally independent of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. From the founding of the university to its abolition in 1797, in its early years, this university was modelled on those of Paris, Cologne and Vienna. After the French Revolutionary Wars, by the Treaty of Campo Formio, once formally integrated into the French Republic, a law dating to 1793 mandating that all universities in France be closed came into effect. The University of Leuven was abolished by decree of the Département of the Dyle on October 25,1797, what remained of the universitys movables and books were requisitioned for the École centrale in Brussels. This was the official and legal successor and inheritor of the old University. It was in turn closed down in 1802, the first attempt to found a successor university in the nineteenth-century was the State University of Leuven, 1817–1835, where a dozen professors of the old University taught. This was followed by a private Catholic university, the Catholic University of Leuven and this institution was founded with the intention of restoring the confessionally Catholic pre-Revolutionary traditions of learning in Leuven. In 1968 this split to form the two current institutions, the Dutch language Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the French language Université catholique de Louvain, from the founding of the University in 1425 up until 1636, there was no official library of the university. Very likely the students had access to manuscripts and printed books preserved in the homes of their professors or colleges, in 1636, however, a university library was founded in the Cloth hall and was enlarged in 1725 in a baroque style. The library of the Central School of Brussels came to number about 80,000 volumes, which became part of the Library of Brussels. Also the rich archives of the old University of Leuven are always existing, indeed, the library burned in 1914 by the Germans was not the original library of the old University of Louvain, but the new library of the new Catholic University of Leuven. John of St. Ejus origo, incrementum, viri illustres, res gestae,1635, Valerius Andreas, Fasti academici Lovanienses, Louvain, edited by Jean Olivier et Corneille Coenesteyn,1635. 1829, Baron Frédéric de Reiffenberg, Mémoires sur les deux premiers siècles de lUniversité de Louvain, Brussels,1838, P. De Ram, Laforêt et Namêche, Analectes pour servir à lhistoire de lUniversité de Louvain, in, Annuaire de lUniversité de Louvain, 1838-65
40.
Leuven
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Leuven or Louvain is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in Belgium. It is located about 25 kilometres east of Brussels, the municipality itself comprises the historic city and the former neighboring municipalities of Heverlee, Kessel-Lo, a part of Korbeek-Lo, Wilsele and Wijgmaal. It is the 10th largest municipality in Belgium and the fourth in Flanders with more than 100,244 inhabitants, Leuven is home to the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, the largest and oldest university of the Low Countries and the oldest Catholic university still in existence. The related university hospital of UZ Leuven, is one of the largest hospitals in Europe, the city is also known for being the headquarters of Anheuser-Busch InBev, the worlds largest brewer and one of the five largest consumer-goods companies in the world. The earliest mention of Leuven is from 891, when a Viking army was defeated by the Frankish king Arnulf of Carinthia, according to a legend the citys red and white arms depict the blood-stained shores of the river Dyle after this battle. Situated beside this river, and near to the stronghold of the Dukes of Brabant, a token of its former importance as a centre of cloth manufacture is shown in that ordinary linen cloth is known in late-14th-century and 15th-century texts as lewyn. In the 15th century a new era began with the founding of what is now the largest and oldest university in the Low Countries. In the 18th century the brewery Den Horen flourished, Leuven has several times been besieged or occupied by foreign armies, these include the Battle of Leuven, Siege of Leuven and Battle of Leuven. Both world wars in the 20th century inflicted major damage upon the city, upon Germanys entry into World War I, the town was heavily damaged by rampaging soldiers. In all, about 300 civilians lost their lives, the university library was also destroyed on 25 August 1914, using petrol and incendiary pastilles. 230,000 volumes were lost in the destruction, including Gothic and Renaissance manuscripts, a collection of 750 medieval manuscripts, and more than 1,000 incunabula. The destruction of the library shocked the world, with the Daily Chronicle describing it as war not only against civilians and it was rebuilt after the war, and much of the collection was replaced. Great Britain and the United States were major providers of material for the replenishment of the collection. In World War II, after the start of the German offensive, Leuven formed part of the British Expeditionary Forces front line and was defended by units of the 3rd Division and Belgian troops. From 14 to 16 May 1940, the German Army Group B assaulted the city with heavy air, the British withdrew their forces to the River Senne on the night of 16 May and the town was occupied the next day. The new university building was set on fire by shelling on 16 May. Given the presence of the KULeuven, an important European institution for research and education. There are several biotech and ICT companies, Gasthuisberg, the hospital and research centre
41.
Siege of Leiden
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In the end the siege failed when the city was successfully relieved in October 1574. In the war that had broken out, Dutch rebels took up arms against the king of Spain, whose family had inherited the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands. Most of the counties of Holland and Zeeland were occupied by rebels in 1572, who sought to end the harsh rule of the Spanish Duke of Alba, governor-general of the Netherlands. This territory had a high density of cities, which were protected by huge defense works and by the low-lying boglands. The Duke of Alba tried to break resistance using brute force and he used Amsterdam as a base, as this was the only city in the country of Holland that had remained loyal to the Spanish government. Albas cruel treatment of the populations of Naarden and Haarlem was notorious, the rebels learned that no mercy was shown there and were determined to hold out as long as possible. The county of Holland was split in two when Haarlem was conquered by the Spanish after a costly seven-month siege, thereafter, Alba attempted to conquer Alkmaar in the north, but the city withstood the Spanish attack. Alba then sent his officer Francisco de Valdez to attack the rebel territory. In the meantime, due to his failure to quell the rebellion as quickly as he had intended, Alba submitted his resignation, the less harsh and more politic Luis de Zúñiga y Requesens replaced him as governor-general. The city of Leiden had plenty of food stored for the siege when it started in October 1573, the siege was very difficult for the Spanish, because the soil was too loose to dig holes, and the city defense works were hard to break. Defending Leiden was a Dutch States rebel army which consisted of English, Scottish, the leader of the Dutch rebels, William the Silent, Prince of Orange, tried to relieve Leiden by sending an army into the Netherlands under the command of his brother, Louis of Nassau. Valdez halted the siege in April 1574 to face the invading troops, but Sancho dAvila reached them first and defeated the army of Orange in the Battle of Mookerheyde. During the brief respite from the siege, Orange had counselled the citizens of Leiden to restock their city with supplies, and take in a larger rebel garrison to help defend the town. They disregarded his advice however, with the result that when Valdez army returned to continue the siege on May 26,1574, the city considered surrendering, because there was almost no chance of relief and supplies were dwindling. The rebel army was defeated and the territory was very small compared to the huge Spanish empire. The Prince of Orange, however, was determined to relieve the city, therefore, he sent a carrier pigeon into the city pleading for it to hold out for three months. But the damage to the countryside would be enormous. However, in the end, the Prince prevailed and the dikes were broken on August 3
42.
Philip II of Spain
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Philip II of Spain, called the Prudent, was King of Spain, King of Portugal, King of Naples and Sicily, and jure uxoris King of England and Ireland. He was also Duke of Milan, from 1555, he was lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands. Known in Spain as Felipe el Prudente, his empire included territories on every continent then known to Europeans, during his reign, Spain reached the height of its influence and power. This is sometimes called the Golden Age, the expression, the empire on which the sun never sets, was coined during Philips time to reflect the extent of his dominion. During Philips reign there were separate state bankruptcies in 1557,1560,1569,1575 and this was partly the cause of the declaration of independence that created the Dutch Republic in 1581. The Ambassador went on to say He dresses very tastefully, the culture and courtly life of Spain were an important influence in his early life. He was tutored by Juan Martínez Siliceo, the future Archbishop of Toledo, Philip displayed reasonable aptitude in arms and letters alike. Later he would study with more illustrious tutors, including the humanist Juan Cristóbal Calvete de Estrella, though Philip had good command over Latin, Spanish, and Portuguese, he never managed to equal his father, Charles V, as a polyglot. While Philip was also a German archduke of the House of Habsburg, Philip felt himself to be culturally Spanish, he had been born in Spain and raised in the Castilian court, his native tongue was Spanish, and he preferred to live in Spain. This would ultimately impede his succession to the imperial throne, in April 1528, when Philip was eleven months old, he received the oath of allegiance as heir to the crown from the Cortes of Castile. Philip was also close to his two sisters, María and Juana, and to his two pages, the Portuguese nobleman Rui Gomes da Silva and Luis de Requesens, the son of his governor Juan de Zúñiga. These men would serve Philip throughout their lives, as would Antonio Pérez, Philips martial training was undertaken by his governor, Juan de Zúñiga, a Castilian nobleman who served as the commendador mayor of Castile. The practical lessons in warfare were overseen by the Duke of Alba during the Italian Wars, Philip was present at the Siege of Perpignan in 1542 but did not see action as the Spanish army under Alba decisively defeated the besieging French forces under the Dauphin of France. On his way back to Castile, Philip received the oath of allegiance of the Aragonese Cortes at Monzón. The king-emperors interactions with his son during his stay in Spain convinced him of Philips precocity in statesmanship, Philip, who had previously been made the Duke of Milan in 1540, began governing the most extensive empire in the world at the young age of sixteen. Charles left Philip with experienced advisors—notably the secretary Francisco de los Cobos, Philip was also left with extensive written instructions that emphasised piety, patience, modesty, and distrust. These principles of Charles were gradually assimilated by his son, who would grow up to become grave, self-possessed, personally, Philip spoke softly and had an icy self-mastery, in the words of one of his ministers, he had a smile that cut like a sword. After living in the Netherlands in the years of his reign
43.
Count of Holland
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The Counts of Holland ruled over the County of Holland in the Low Countries between the 10th and the 16th century. The first count of Holland, Dirk I, was the son or foster-son of Gerolf and he received land around Egmond from Charles the Fat at a place called Bladella in 922. This is seen as the beginning of the county of Holland, however, until about 1100, the usual names for the county were West-Friesland, Frisia or Kennemerland, in spite of this the counts from Dirk I onwards are named of Holland. Note that the chronology of the first few counts is uncertain and this third Count Dirk is placed between Dirk I and II and numbered as Dirk I bis to avoid confusion with the already established numbering referring to the other counts of Holland named Dirk. John of Avesnes was a son of Adelaide of Holland, sister of William II of Holland, during the rule of Margaret, her son William V had the real power in the county. He became ruler in his own right as a result of the Hook and he was also Duke of Bavaria-Straubing as William I. This war was won by Philip of Burgundy in 1432. Philip was a nephew of William VI, who had married a daughter of Philip the Bold of Burgundy, in 1432 he forced Jacqueline to abdicate from Hainaut and Holland on his behalf. In 1581, the Estates General of the United Provinces declared themselves independent from the Spanish rule of Philip II. Until the Treaty of Münster in 1648, the kings of Spain still used the title Count of Holland, but they had lost the actual power over the county to the States of Holland. Philip IV, King Philip III of Spain Philip V, King Philip IV of Spain The County remained in existence as a constituent member state of the Dutch Republic until 1795. There were no more Counts however since the Estates of Holland, the Stadtholders, who were servants of the Estates were the de facto Chief-Executives during this period. Counts of Holland family tree A book of 32 plates of the counts of Holland published in Amsterdam in 1663, engraved by Adriaen Matham B. K. S. Dijkstra, Een stamboom in been, Amsterdam 1991
44.
Justus Lipsius
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Justus Lipsius was a Flemish/Dutch/Netherlandish philologist, philosopher and humanist. Lipsius wrote a series of works designed to revive ancient Stoicism in a form that would be compatible with Christianity, the most famous of these is De Constantia. His form of Stoicism influenced a number of thinkers, creating the intellectual movement of Neostoicism. He taught at the universities in Jena, Leiden and Leuven, Lipsius was born in Overijse, Brabant. The publication of his Variarum Lectionum Libri Tres, which he dedicated to Cardinal Granvelle, earned him an appointment as a Latin secretary, and a visit to Rome in the retinue of the cardinal. Here Lipsius remained for two years, devoting his time to the study of the Latin classics, collecting inscriptions. On his way back to Leuven, he stopped some time in Cologne and he held the position of rector of the university for four terms and was a driving force behind the growth and innovation in the early years. The eleven years that Lipsius spent in Leiden were the period of his greatest productivity and it was during this time that he prepared his Seneca, and perfected, in successive editions, his Tacitus, and brought out a series of other works. Some were pure scholarship, some were collections from classical authors and he wrote that a government should recognize only one religion, and extirpate dissent by fire and sword. In the spring of 1590, leaving Leiden under pretext of taking the waters in Spa, he went to Mainz and this event deeply interested the Catholic world, and invitations from the courts and universities of Italy, Austria and Spain poured in on Lipsius. But he preferred to remain in his own country, and he settled in Leuven. He was not expected to teach, and appointments as privy councillor and he continued to publish dissertations as before, the chief being his De militia romana and his Lovanium, intended as an introduction to a general history of Brabant. For years, a street off the Wetstraat in the Schumann quarter of Brussels, in the 1990s, construction for the new home of the Council of the European Union built over the road. The Justus-Lipsius name was attributed to a new nearby street, the honorific remains, the EU headquarters now resides in the Justus Lipsius building. The name of Justus Lipsius drew new attention in 1995 when it was chosen for the new Brussels headquarters building of the Council of the European Union. This was because the new complex was constructed where the Justus Lipsius street had been and he was also recently selected to appear on the 10 euro Justus Lipsius Silver commemorative Coin, minted by Belgium in 2006. The reverse side of the coin shows his portrait together with the years of his life, the principles would have laid the foundation for military revolution that transformed first European warfare and then the internal organisation of the European states themselves. Variarum Lectionum Libri Tres De Constantia Libri Duo, Qui alloquium praecipue continent in Publicis malis On Constancy / De Constantia, edited by John Sellars and translated by John Stradling
45.
Joseph Justus Scaliger
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He spent the end of his life in the Netherlands. He was born at Agen, the child and third son of Italian scholar Julius Caesar Scaliger. When he was years old, he was sent with two younger brothers to the College of Guienne in Bordeaux, which was then under the direction of Jean Gelida. An outbreak of the plague in 1555 caused the boys to return home, the composition of Latin verse was the chief amusement of his father Julius in his later years, and he would daily dictate to his son between eighty and a hundred lines, and sometimes even more. Joseph was also required each day to write a Latin theme or declamation and he learned from his father to be not only a scholar, but also an acute observer, aiming at historical criticism more than at correcting texts. After his fathers death he spent four years at the University of Paris, but after two months he found he was not in a position to profit from the lectures of the greatest Greek scholar of the time. He read Homer in twenty-one days, and then went through all the other Greek poets, orators and historians, from Greek, at the suggestion of Guillaume Postel, he proceeded to attack Hebrew, and then Arabic, of both he acquired a respectable knowledge. His most important teacher was Jean Dorat and he was able not only to impart knowledge, but also to kindle enthusiasm in Scaliger. A close friendship sprang up between the two men, which remained unbroken till the death of Louis in 1595. The travellers first went to Rome, here they found Marc Antoine Muret, who, when at Bordeaux and Toulouse, had been a great favourite and occasional visitor of Julius Caesar Scaliger at Agen. Muret soon recognized the young Scaligers merits, and introduced him to many contacts well worth knowing, after visiting a large part of Italy, the travellers moved on to England and Scotland, passing as it would seem La Roche-Posay on their way. Scaliger formed an opinion of the English. Their inhuman disposition and inhospitable treatment of foreigners especially made an impression on him. He was also disappointed in finding only a few Greek manuscripts and it was not until a much later period that he became intimate with Richard Thomson and other Englishmen. In the course of his travels he had become a Protestant, on his return to France he spent three years with the Chastaigners, accompanying them to their different châteaux in Poitou, as the calls of the civil war required. In 1570 he accepted the invitation of Jacques Cujas and proceeded to Valence to study jurisprudence under the greatest living jurist. Here he remained three years, profiting not only by the lectures but even more by the library of Cujas and he lectured on the Organon of Aristotle and the De Finibus of Cicero to much satisfaction for the students, but not appreciating it himself. He hated lecturing, and was bored with the importunities of the fanatical preachers, of his life during this period we have interesting details and notices in the Lettres françaises inédites de Joseph Scaliger, edited by Tamizey de Larroque
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