Netherlands Difficult Knowledge

Before 2010, the Dutch Kingdom consisted of three nations: the Netherlands, Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles. In 2010, the Netherlands Antilles was broken up into seperate countries and a few islands joined the Dutch state.

It lasted exactly 80 years, just like is says.

The Dutch football team does hold the record for coming close to winning the world cup, but screwing it up last minute.

Thorbecke was an important Dutch politician in the nineteenth century. Van Leeuwenhoek was a famous scientist. Eduard Douwes Dekker, better known under his pseudonym; Multatuli, wrote the very important book 'Max Havelaar'. Cornelis Lely's involvement in the Zuiderzee works can be seen in the name of the capital of the province of Flevoland: Lelystad.

An American Pan Am 747 and a KLM 747 collided on the runway in dense fog, killing over 500 people, where of more than 200 were Dutch. MH17 comes close, killing 193 Dutch, out of a total of 283 killed. In the Martin Air disaster 56 people were killed. In the Bijlmerramp, which involved an Israeli cargoplane, 43 people were killed.

Pieter Gerbrandy was prime-minister during WW2, four months after the capitulation of the Dutch. Joop den Uyl was PM in the seventies and Colijn in the thirties untill 1939.

The hijackers wanted the Dutch government to pursue independence for the South Moluccas and lobby with the Indonesian government for that purpose.

Concordia res parvae crescunt was on the coat of arms of the Dutch Republic. L'union fait la force is the Belgian motto. Luctor et emergo is the coat of arms of the province of Zeeland.

Abraham Kuyper was PM around 1900. Antonie Fokker was a Dutch aviation pioneer and Arthur Seyss-Inquart was the Reichscommisaris of the Netherlands from 1940 untill 1945.