# Canon of the Netherlands

The Canon of the Netherlands (Dutch: Canon van Nederland; also known as the Canon of Dutch History) is a list of fifty topics that aims to provide a chronological summary of Dutch history to be taught in primary schools and the first two years of secondary school in the Netherlands. The fifty topics are divided into fourteen sections.

## Canon

The Canon of Dutch History was prepared by a committee headed by Frits van Oostrom and presented to the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Maria van der Hoeven, on 16 October 2006.
A revised version was presented to the Dutch government on 3 October 2007 and in October 2008 it was agreed to include the canon in the school curriculum by 1 August 2009. An updated version was presented in June 2020, with ten topics replaced, parts rewritten and other modifications made to make the canon more diverse and accessible.
The canon was designed to provide an overview of "what everyone ought to know, at the very least, about the history and culture of the Netherlands", as well as providing a framework for the teaching of History in Dutch schools. Schools are not obliged to teach the canon, in accordance with the Freedom of education principle incorporated in the Dutch constitution (article 23) that guarantees the right of parents to have their children educated in accordance with their religious and other views.
The website entoen.nu is responsible for developing the canon for use in schools and in society in general.

## The 14 sections

* The Low Countries by the Sea
* On the outer edges of Europe
* Conversion to Christianity
* The Dutch language
* An urban center and trading centre at the confluence of the Rhine, the Meuse and the Scheldt rivers
* The Dutch Republic emerges from an uprising
* The flowering of the Golden Age
* A trading nation and colonial power
* A nation-state under a constitutional monarchy
* The rise of modern society
* The Netherlands during the time of the world wars from 1914 to 1945
* The welfare state, democratisation and secularisation
* The diversification of the Netherlands
* The Netherlands in Europe

## The 50 topics

| | Topic | Section | Date | Description |
| 1 | Dolmens | 3 | c. 3000 BCE | Early farmers |
| 2 | The Roman limes | 2, 3 | 47 - c. 400 | On the borders of the Roman empire |
| 3 | Willibrord | 3 | 658 - 739 | Spread of Christianity |
| 4 | Charlemagne | 2 | 742 - 814 | Emperor of the Western world |
| 5 | Hebban olla vogala ... | 4 | c. 1100 | Earliest fragment of Old Dutch script |
| 6 | Floris V, Count of Holland | 6 | 1254 - 1296 | A Dutch Graaf and a discontented nobility |
| 7 | The Hanseatic League | 5 | 1356 - c. 1450 | Trading cities in the Low Countries |
| | The 'Printing press' was originally at No. 8 in the first version. In the revised version it was replaced by 'Christiaan Huygens', now at No. 21 in the list. | 4 | c. 1450 | Printing Revolution |
| 8 | Erasmus | 3 | 1466? - 1536 | An international humanist |
| 9 | Charles V | 2, 6 | 1500 - 1558 | The Low Countries as an administrative unit |
| 10 | The Beeldenstorm | 3, 6 | 1566 | Religious conflict |
| 11 | William the Silent | 6 | 1533 - 1584 | From rebellious nobleman to 'Father of the Nation' |
| 12 | The Dutch Republic | 6 | 1588 - 1795 | An exceptional federal republic |
| 13 | The Dutch East India Company | 8 | 1602 - 1799 | Expansion overseas |
| 14 | The Beemster polder | 1, 6 | 1612 | The Netherlands and water |
| 15 | The Grachtengordel | 5, 6 | 1613 - 1662 | Urban expansion in the seventeenth century |
| 16 | Hugo Grotius | 6, 7 | 1583 - 1645 | A pioneer of modern international law |
| 17 | The Statenbijbel | 3, 4 | 1637 | The Book of Books |
| 18 | Rembrandt | 7 | 1606? - 1669 | The great painters |
| 19 | The Atlas Maior of Joan Blaeu | 7, 8 | 1662 | Mapping the world |
| 20 | Michiel de Ruyter | 7 | 1607 - 1676 | Naval heroes and Dutch naval power |
| 21 | Christiaan Huygens | 7 | 1629-1695 | Science in the Dutch Golden Age |
| 22 | Spinoza | 7 | 1632 - 1677 | Seeking the truth |
| 23 | Slavery | 8 | c. 1637 - 1863 | Trafficking and forced labour in the New World |
| 24 | Buitenplaatsen | 7, 9 | 17th and 18th century | Summer residences in the country |
| 25 | Eise Eisinga | 9 | 1744 - 1828 | The Enlightenment in the Netherlands |
| 26 | The Patriots | 9 | 1780 - 1795 | Crisis in the Republic |
| 27 | Napoleon Bonaparte | 9 | 1769 - 1821 | The Kingdom of Holland |
| 28 | William I | 9 | 1772 - 1843 | The United Kingdom of the Netherlands |
| 29 | The first railway | 10 | 1839 | The Industrial Revolution |
| 30 | The Dutch constitution | 9 | 1848 | A state's most important law |
| 31 | Max Havelaar | 4, 8 | 1860 | Protest against colonial abuse in the Dutch East Indies |
| 32 | Opposition to child labour | 10 | 19th century | Out of factories and into schools |
| 33 | Vincent van Gogh | 10 | 1853 - 1890 | Modern art |
| 34 | Aletta Jacobs | 10, 12 | 1854 - 1929 | Emancipation of women |
| 35 | The First World War | 10, 11 | 1914 - 1918 | War and neutrality |
| 36 | De Stijl | 11 | 1917 - 1931 | Revolution in Design |
| 37 | Crisis years | 11 | 1929 - 1940 | Society in the Great Depression |
| 38 | The Second World War | 11 | 1940 - 1945 | Occupation, resistance and liberation |
| 39 | Anne Frank | 11 | 1929 - 1945 | The Holocaust in the Netherlands |
| 40 | Indonesia | 11, 13 | 1945 - 1949 | A colony wrests itself free |
| 41 | Willem Drees | 12 | 1886 - 1988 | The welfare state |
| 42 | The watersnood | 1, 12 | 1 February 1953 | The perils of a low-lying country |
| 43 | Television | 12 | from 1948 | A breakthrough in media technologies |
| 44 | Port of Rotterdam | 12 | from c. 1880 | Gateway to the world |
| 45 | Annie M.G. Schmidt | 4, 12 | 1911 - 1995 | Going against the grain in a bourgeois society |
| 46 | Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles | 13 | from 1945 | The West decolonises |
| 47 | Srebrenica | 14 | 1995 | The dilemmas of peacekeeping |
| 48 | Veelkleurig Nederland | 13 | from 1945 | A multicultural society |
| 49 | Natural gas | 12 | 1959 - 2030? | A dwindling resource |
| 50 | Europe | 14 | from 1945 | Netherlands and the European Union |

## Members of the Committee

* Frits van Oostrom (professor of Humanities at the University of Utrecht, President of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Spinoza Prize 1995, AKO Literatuurprijs 1996), chairperson
* Paul van Meenen (leader of the Democrats 66 (D66) party in Leiden, vice chairperson of entoen.nu), vice chairperson
* Herman Beliën (senior lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam)
* Marjolijn Drenth (philosopher, novelist, columnist for de Volkskrant)
* Frans Groot (history teacher at the Amsterdam University of Applied Science)
* Els Kloek (history teacher and senior researcher in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Utrecht, project leader of the Online Women's Dictionary of the Netherlands)
* Susan Legêne (professor of political history at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam, formerly curator of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam)
* Rob van der Vaart (Professor in Human Geography at the University of Utrecht)
* Hubert Slings (director of entoen.nu, director of education at the Dutch National Museum of History), secretary