Topic: Netherlands

You are looking at all articles with the topic "Netherlands". We found 11 matches.

Hint: To view all topics, click here. Too see the most popular topics, click here instead.

πŸ”— Stolperstein

πŸ”— Death πŸ”— Italy πŸ”— Hungary πŸ”— Austria πŸ”— Netherlands πŸ”— Jewish history

A Stolperstein (pronounced [ΛˆΚƒtΙ”lpΙΛŒΚƒtaΙͺn] (listen); plural Stolpersteine; literally "stumbling stone", metaphorically a "stumbling block") is a sett-size, ten-centimetre (3.9Β in) concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution.

The Stolpersteine project, initiated by the German artist Gunter Demnig in 1992, aims to commemorate individuals at exactly the last place of residencyβ€”or, sometimes, workβ€”which was freely chosen by the person before he or she fell victim to Nazi terror, euthanasia, eugenics, deportation to a concentration or extermination camp, or escaped persecution by emigration or suicide. As of December 2019, 75,000 Stolpersteine have been laid, making the Stolpersteine project the world's largest decentralized memorial.

The majority of Stolpersteine commemorate Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Others have been placed for Sinti and Romani people (then also called "gypsies"), homosexuals, the physically or mentally disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, black people, members of the Communist Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the anti-Nazi Resistance, the Christian opposition (both Protestants and Catholics), and Freemasons, along with International Brigade soldiers in the Spanish Civil War, military deserters, conscientious objectors, escape helpers, capitulators, "habitual criminals", looters, and others charged with treason, military disobedience, or undermining the Nazi military, as well as Allied soldiers.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Elfstedentocht

πŸ”— Netherlands πŸ”— Speed Skating πŸ”— Frisia

The Elfstedentocht (Dutch pronunciation: [Ι›lf'steːdΙ™(n)tΙ”xt]; West Frisian: AlvestΓͺdetocht [Ι”lvΙ™ΛˆstɛːdΙ™tΙ”Ο‡t], English: Eleven cities tour) is a long-distance tour skating event on natural ice, almost 200 kilometres (120Β mi) long, which is held both as a speed skating competition (with 300 contestants) and a leisure tour (with 16,000 skaters). It is held in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands, leading past all eleven historical cities of the province. The tour is held at most once a year, only when the natural ice along the entire course is at least 15 centimetres (6Β in) thick; sometimes on consecutive years, other times with gaps that may exceed 20 years. When the ice is suitable, the tour is announced and starts within 48 hours.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Postzegelcode

πŸ”— Philately πŸ”— Netherlands

A postzegelcode is a hand-written method of franking in the Netherlands. It consists of a code containing nine numbers and letters that customers can purchase online from PostNL and write directly on their piece of mail within five days as proof-of-payment in place of a postage stamp.

For mail within the Netherlands the nine letters and numbers are written as a grid of 3x3. For international mail there is fourth additional row that contains P, N, L.

The system was started in 2013. Initially the postzegelcode was more expensive than a stamp because additional handling systems were required. Then for a while the postzegelcode was cheaper. Eventually the tariffs were set to the same price.

In December 2020, 590,000 people sent cards with postzegelcodes.

Discussed on

πŸ”— EncroChat

πŸ”— International relations πŸ”— France πŸ”— Italy πŸ”— Telecommunications πŸ”— United Kingdom πŸ”— Law Enforcement πŸ”— Netherlands πŸ”— Crime and Criminal Biography πŸ”— Crime and Criminal Biography/Organized crime

EncroChat was a Europe-based communications network and service provider that offered modified smartphones allowing encrypted communication among subscribers. It was used primarily by organized crime members to plan criminal activities. Police infiltrated the network between at least March and June 2020 during a Europe-wide investigation. An unidentified source associated with EncroChat announced on the night of 12–13 June 2020 that the company would cease operations because of the police operation.

The service had around 60,000 subscribers at the time of its closure. As a result of police being able to read unencrypted EncroChat messages, at least 1,000 arrests had been made across Europe as of 22 December 2020.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Hague Invasion Act

πŸ”— United States πŸ”— Netherlands

The American Service-Members' Protection Act (ASPA, Title 2 of Pub.L.Β 107–206 (text) (pdf), H.R. 4775, 116Β Stat.Β 820, enacted August 2, 2002) is a United States federal law that aims "to protect United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international criminal court to which the United States is not party." Introduced by U.S. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) and U.S. Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX) it was an amendment to the 2002 Supplemental Appropriations Act for Further Recovery From and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States (H.R. 4775). The amendment passed 75-19 (S.Amdt 3597.) The bill was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on August 2, 2002.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Rotterdam harbor storm barrier closes for the first time in its history

πŸ”— Civil engineering πŸ”— Netherlands

The Maeslantkering ("Maeslant barrier" in Dutch) is a storm surge barrier on the Nieuwe Waterweg, in South Holland, Netherlands. It was constructed from 1991 to 1997. As part of the Delta Works the barrier responds to water level predictions calculated by a centralized computer system called BOS. It automatically closes when Rotterdam (especially the Port of Rotterdam) is threatened by floods.

Maeslantkering has two 210-metre long barrier gates, with two 237-metre long steel trusses holding each. When closed, the barrier will protect the entire width (360 metres) of the Nieuwe Waterweg, the main waterway of Port of Rotterdam. It is one of the largest moving structures on Earth, rivalling the Green Bank Telescope in the United States and the Bagger 288 excavator in Germany.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Malaysia Airlines Flight 17

πŸ”— Aviation πŸ”— Russia πŸ”— Military history πŸ”— Disaster management πŸ”— Aviation/Aviation accident πŸ”— Death πŸ”— Ukraine πŸ”— Netherlands πŸ”— Military history/Russian, Soviet and CIS military history πŸ”— Malaysia

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down on 17 July 2014 while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed. Contact with the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was lost when it was about 50Β km (31Β mi) from the Ukraine–Russia border, and wreckage of the aircraft fell near Hrabove in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, 40Β km (25Β mi) from the border. The shoot-down occurred in the War in Donbas in an area controlled by pro-Russian rebels.

The responsibility for investigation was delegated to the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Dutch-led joint investigation team (JIT), who concluded that the airliner was downed by a Buk surface-to-air missile launched from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine. According to the JIT, the Buk that was used originated from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade of the Russian Federation and had been transported from Russia on the day of the crash, fired from a field in a rebel-controlled area and the launch system returned to Russia afterwards. The findings by the DSB and JIT are consistent with the earlier claims by American and German intelligence sources and claims by the Ukrainian government. On the basis of the JIT's conclusions, the governments of the Netherlands and Australia held Russia responsible for the deployment of the Buk installation and were pursuing legal routes as of MayΒ 2018. The Russian government denied involvement in the shooting down of the airplane, and its account of how the aircraft was shot down has varied over time. Coverage in Russian media has also differed from that in other countries.

This was Malaysia Airlines' second aircraft loss during 2014, after the disappearance of Flight 370 on 8 March, and is the deadliest airliner shoot-down incident to date.

πŸ”— The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved 220 years ago today

πŸ”— History πŸ”— Germany πŸ”— Greece πŸ”— Austria πŸ”— Netherlands πŸ”— Christianity πŸ”— European history πŸ”— Greece/Byzantine world πŸ”— Christianity/Catholicism πŸ”— Former countries πŸ”— Czech Republic πŸ”— Frisia πŸ”— Former countries/Holy Roman Empire πŸ”— Silesia πŸ”— Christianity/Lutheranism πŸ”— Christianity/Reformed Christianity

The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved on 6 August 1806, when the last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, abdicated his title and released all Imperial states and officials from their oaths and obligations to the empire. Since the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire had been recognized by Western Europeans as the legitimate continuation of the ancient Roman Empire due to its emperors having been proclaimed as Roman emperors by the papacy. Through this Roman legacy, the Holy Roman Emperors claimed to be universal monarchs whose jurisdiction extended beyond their empire's formal borders to all of Christian Europe and beyond. The decline of the Holy Roman Empire was a long and drawn-out process lasting centuries. The formation of the first modern sovereign territorial states in the 16th and 17th centuries, which brought with it the idea that jurisdiction corresponded to actual territory governed, threatened the ostensibly universal nature of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Holy Roman Empire by the time of the 18th century was widely regarded by contemporaries, both inside and outside the empire, as a highly "irregular" monarchy and "sick," having an "unusual" form of government. The empire lacked both a central standing army and a central treasury and its monarchs, formally elective rather than hereditary, could not exercise effective central control. Even then, most contemporaries believed that the empire could be revived and modernized. For example, the Reichstag passed the Imperial Recess as late as 1803.

The Holy Roman Empire finally began its true terminal decline during and after its involvement in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. Although the empire defended itself quite well initially, war with France and Napoleon proved catastrophic. In 1804, Napoleon proclaimed himself as the Emperor of the French, which Francis II responded to by proclaiming himself the Emperor of Austria, in addition to already being the Holy Roman Emperor, an attempt at maintaining parity between France and Austria while also illustrating that the Holy Roman title outranked them both. Austria's defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz in December 1805 and the secession of a large number of Francis II's German vassals in July 1806 to form the Confederation of the Rhine, a French satellite state, effectively meant the end of the Holy Roman Empire. The abdication in August 1806, combined with a dissolution of the entire Imperial hierarchy and its institutions, was seen as necessary to prevent the possibility of Napoleon proclaiming himself Holy Roman Emperor, something which would have reduced Francis II to Napoleon's vassal.

Reactions to the empire's dissolution ranged from indifference to despair. The populace of Vienna, capital of the Habsburg monarchy, were horrified at the loss of the empire. Many of Francis II's former subjects questioned the legality of his actions; though his abdication was agreed to be perfectly legal, the dissolution of the empire and the release of all its vassals were seen as beyond the emperor's authority. As such, many of the empire's princes and subjects refused to accept that the empire was gone, with some commoners going so far as to believe that news of its dissolution was a plot by their local authorities. In Germany, the dissolution was widely compared to the ancient and legendary Fall of Troy and some associated the end of the Holy Roman Empire with the end times and the apocalypse.

Discussed on

πŸ”— Hebban Olla Vogala

πŸ”— Middle Ages πŸ”— Middle Ages/History πŸ”— Netherlands

"Hebban olla vogala", sometimes spelled "hebban olla uogala", are the first three words of an 11th-century text fragment written in Old Dutch. The fragment was discovered in 1932 on the flyleaf of a manuscript that was probably made in the abbey of Rochester, Kent and is kept in Oxford. It is usually considered to represent a West Flemish variant of Old Low Franconian.

An often cited poem, it was long believed by many Dutch people to be the only text remaining of Old Dutch. However, experts were already aware of other sources that were then not yet easily accessible. Today, more than 42,000 Old Dutch words and phrases from sources such as the Wachtendonck Psalms and the Leiden Willeram have been discovered, with the oldest definitive source being the Salian Law.

πŸ”— Velotype Keyboard

πŸ”— Technology πŸ”— Occupational Safety and Health πŸ”— Brands πŸ”— Typography πŸ”— Netherlands

Velotype is the trademark for a type of keyboard for typing text known as a syllabic chord keyboard, an invention of the Dutchmen Nico Berkelmans and Marius den Outer.

Discussed on