1.
Alkmaar
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Alkmaar is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Alkmaar is well known for its cheese market. For tourists, it is a cultural destination. The earliest mention of the name Alkmaar is in a 10th-century document, as the village grew into a town, it was granted city rights in 1254. The oldest part of Alkmaar lies on an ancient sand bank that afforded protection from inundation during medieval times. Even so, it is only a couple of metres above the surrounding region, in 1573 the city underwent a siege by Spanish forces under the leadership of Don Fadrique, son of the Duke of Alva. Some of his dispatches fell into the hands of Don Fadrique, and, with the beginning to rise. It was a point in the Eighty Years War and gave rise to the expression Bij Alkmaar begint de victorie. The event is celebrated every year in Alkmaar on 8 October. In 1799, during the French revolutionary wars, an Anglo-Russian expeditionary force captured the city but was defeated in the Battle of Castricum. The French victory was commemorated on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris as Alkmaer, the North Holland Canal, opened in 1824, was dug through Alkmaar. In 1865 and 1867 the railways between Alkmaar and Den Helder and between Alkmaar and Haarlem were built respectively, in the second half of the 20th century, Alkmaar expanded quickly with development of new neighbourhoods. On 1 October 1972, the town of Oudorp and the portions of Koedijk. The municipality of Alkmaar consists of the cities, towns, villages and/or districts, Alkmaar, Koedijk, Overdie, Oudorp. These once separate villages are now all linked together by the suburban sprawl of buildings that arose between the late 1970s and early 1990s, during this time, the population of Alkmaar almost doubled. On 1 January 2015 the municipalities of Graft-De Rijp and Schermer were merged into Alkmaar, there are direct trains to Den Helder, Hoorn, Zaandam, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Ede, Arnhem, Nijmegen, s-Hertogenbosch, Eindhoven, Maastricht and Haarlem. For exact details see Alkmaar railway station, Alkmaar has two railway stations, Alkmaar Alkmaar Noord The waterway Noordhollandsch Kanaal, which opened in 1824, runs through Alkmaar. Alkmaar has many buildings that are still intact, most notably the tall tower of the Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk
2.
North Holland
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North Holland is a province in the northwest of the Netherlands. It is situated on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht, in 2015, it had a population of 2,762,163 and a total area of 2,670 km2. From the 9th to the 16th century, the area was a part of the County of Holland. During this period West Friesland was incorporated, in the 17th and 18th century, the area was part of the province of Holland. At that time, the distinction between the Noorderkwartier and the Zuiderkwartier became common, in 1840, the province of Holland was split into the two provinces of North Holland and South Holland. In 1855, the Haarlemmermeer was drained and turned into land, the capital and seat of the provincial government is Haarlem, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands capital city, is the provinces largest city. The Kings Commissioner of North Holland is Johan Remkes, there are 51 municipalities and three water boards in the province. For most of its history, the province of North Holland was an integral part of Holland. From the 9th century to the 16th century, Holland was a county ruled by the counts of Holland, during this period an area known as West Friesland was conquered and integrated into Holland. For centuries afterwards Holland would be officially called Holland and West Friesland, the people of West Friesland had a strong sense of identity as a region within Holland. From the 16th century to 1795, Holland was the wealthiest and most important province in the United Provinces in the Dutch Republic, as the richest and most powerful province, Holland dominated the union. During this period a distinction was made between the North Quarter and the South Quarter, areas that roughly correspond to the two modern provinces. The province of North Holland as it is today has its origins in the period of French rule from 1795 to 1813 and this was a time of bewildering changes to the Dutch system of provinces. In 1795 the old order was swept away and the Batavian Republic was established, in the Constitution enacted on 23 April 1798, the old borders were radically changed. The republic was reorganised into eight departments with roughly equal populations, Holland was split up into five departments named Texel, Amstel, Delf, Schelde en Maas, and Rijn. The first three of these lay within the borders of the old Holland, the two were made up of parts of different provinces. In 1801 the old borders were restored when the department of Holland was created and this reorganisation had been short-lived, but it gave birth to the concept of breaking up Holland and making it a less powerful province. This time the two departments were called Amstelland and Maasland and this also did not last long
3.
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
4.
Dutch people
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The Dutch, occasionally referred to as Netherlanders—a term that is cognate to the Dutch word for Dutch people, Nederlanders—are a Germanic ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a culture and speak the Dutch language. The high degree of urbanization characteristic of Dutch society was attained at an early date. During the Republic the first series of large scale Dutch migrations outside of Europe took place, despite the small size of the Netherlands, the Dutch left behind a legacy in excess of their mere numbers. The traditional art and culture of the Dutch encompasses various forms of music, dances, architectural styles and clothing. Internationally, Dutch painters such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Van Gogh are held in high regard, the dominant religion of the Dutch is Christianity, although in modern times the majority is no longer religious. Significant percentages of the Dutch are adherents of humanism, agnosticism, atheism or individual spirituality, as with all ethnic groups the ethnogenesis of the Dutch has been a lengthy and complex process. The text below hence focuses on the history of the Dutch ethnic group, for Dutch national history, for Dutch colonial history, see the article on the Dutch Empire. Following the end of the period in the West around 500, with large federations settling the decaying Roman Empire. In the Low Countries, this began when the Franks, themselves a union of multiple smaller tribes. Eventually, in 358, the Salian Franks, one of the three main subdivisions among the Frankish alliance settled the areas Southern lands as foederati, Roman allies in charge of border defense. On a political level, the Frankish warlords abandoned tribalism and founded a number of kingdoms, however, the population make-up of the Frankish Empire, or even early Frankish kingdoms such as Neustria and Austrasia, was not dominated by Franks. Though the Frankish leaders controlled most of Western Europe, the Franks themselves were confined to the Northwestern part of the Empire, the current Dutch-French language border has remained virtually identical ever since, and could be seen as marking the furthest pale of gallicization among the Franks. The medieval cities of the Low Countries, which experienced major growth during the 11th and 12th century, were instrumental in breaking down the already relatively loose local form of feudalism, as they became increasingly powerful, they used their economical strength to influence the politics of their nobility. While the cities were of political importance, they also formed catalysts for medieval Dutch culture. The various city guilds as well as the necessity of water boards in the Dutch delta and it is also around this time, that ethnonyms such as Diets and Nederlands emerge. This process marked a new episode in the development of the Dutch ethnic group, as now political unity started to emerge, consolidating the strengthened cultural, despite their linguistic and cultural unity, and economic similarities, there was still little sense of political unity among the Dutch people. However, the centralist policies of Burgundy in the 14th and 15th centuries, at first violently opposed by the cities of the Low Countries, had a profound impact and changed this
5.
The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
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The Human Centipede is a 2009 Dutch horror film written, directed, and co-produced by Tom Six. The film tells the story of a German surgeon who kidnaps three tourists and joins them surgically, mouth to anus, forming a human centipede, a conjoined triplet and it stars Dieter Laser as the creator of the centipede, Dr. Josef Heiter, with Ashley C. Williams, Ashlynn Yennie, and Akihiro Kitamura as his victims, according to Six, the concept of the film arose from a joke he made with friends about punishing a child molester by stitching his mouth to the anus of a fat truck driver. Inspiration for the film came from Nazi medical experiments carried out during World War II. When approaching investors prior to filming, Six did not mention the mouth-to-anus aspect of the plot, the financiers of The Human Centipede did not discover the full nature of the film until it was complete. The film received mixed reviews from mainstream film critics. The film was released in the United States on a theatrical release on 30 April 2010. A sequel, entitled Full Sequence, also written and directed by Six, was released in 2011. Lindsay and Jenny, two American tourists in Germany, are drugged and involuntarily detained by crazed surgeon Dr. Josef Heiter when they help at his house after they get a flat tire. The women awake in a medical ward. They witness Heiter kill a kidnapped truck driver after Heiter informs him he is not a match, Heiter secures a new male captive, Japanese tourist Katsuro. The doctor explains that he is an expert at separating Siamese twins. He describes in detail how he will surgically connect his three victims mouth-to-anus, so that they share a single digestive system, after Lindsay tries to escape and fails, Heiter explains that he had previously experimented with creating what he called a three-dog, also joined mouth-to-anus. However, the three-dog died shortly after surgery, Heiter performs the surgery, placing Katsuro at the lead, Lindsay in the middle and Jenny at the rear. During his procedure, he severs the ligaments within his victims knees to prevent leg extension and he then connects his victims together in a straight line with their mouths surgically attached to the anus of the victim in front of them. Once the operation is complete, Heiter attempts to train his centipede as a pet, often belittling Katsuro with racist insults, when Katsuro defecates, Lindsay is forced to swallow his excrement while the doctor watches in delight. However, he becomes irritated after being kept awake by the constant screaming of Katsuro. He offers the two detectives water spiked with sedatives in hopes of knocking the two unconscious, after being given the water, the detectives become suspicious and obtain a search warrant for his home
6.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
