Prussian districts were administrative units in the former Kingdom of Prussia. They were part of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918, and its successor state, the Free State of Prussia. They were similar to a county or a shire. They were made from 1815 to 1818 to be between the higher provinces and the lower municipal governments. They served as a model for the present-day districts of Germany
Eupen-Malmedy
Eupen-Malmedy, or the East Cantons is a group of cantons in Belgium. They are the former Prussian districts of Malmedy and Eupen, together with the Neutral Moresnet. French-speaking Belgians also once called them the "Redeemed Cantons". These territories were added to Belgium in 1920 by the Versailles Treaty.
Battle of Belgium
The Battle of Belgium or Belgian Campaign was part of the greater Battle of France. This was an offensive campaign by Germany during the Second World War. It took place over 18 days in May 1940. It ended with the German occupation of Belgium following the surrender of the Belgian Army.
The Allied Armies tried to stop the German Army in Belgium. They thought it was the main German attack. After the French had fully committed the best of the Allied Armies to Belgium between 10 and 12 May, the Germans went towards the English Channel. The German Army reached the Channel after five days. They encircling the Allied Armies. The Germans forced the Allies back to the sea. The Belgian Army surrendered on 28 May 1940, ending the battle.
The Battle of Belgium included the first tank battle of the war. It was the largest tank battle in history up to that date. The battle also included the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael, the first strategic airborne operation using paratroopers.
Belgium was occupied by the Germans until the winter of 1944–1945. It was freed by the Western Alliance.
Leopold III of Belgium
Leopold III (born as "Léopold Philippe Charles Albert Meinrad Hubertus Marie Miguel"; 3 November 1901 25 September 1983) was King of the Belgians from 1934 until 1951. He left the throne and his son Baudouin became King.
Leopold III went to the throne of Belgium on 23 February 1934 following the death of his father, King Albert I.
Crown Prince Leopold fought as a private during World War I while still a teenager. He was sent by his father to Eton College in the United Kingdom, in 1915. After the war, in 1919, he went to St. Anthony Seminary in Santa Barbara, California. He married Princess Astrid of Sweden in Stockholm on 4 November 1926.
On 29 August 1935, the King and Queen were driving along the winding, narrow roads near their villa at Küssnacht am Rigi, Schwyz, Switzerland on the shores of Lake Lucerne. Leopold lost control of the car which plunged into the lake, killing Queen Astrid and her unborn fourth child.
Leopold married Lilian Baels on 11 September 1941 in a secret, religious ceremony. It was not valid under Belgian law.
In 1944, Heinrich Himmler ordered Leopold deported to Germany. Princess Liliane followed the next day under an SS armed guard. The Nazis held the family in a fort at Hirschstein in Saxony from June 1944 to March 1945, and then at Strobl, Austria.
Leopold was freed by the United States in early May 1945. Because of the controversy about his conduct during the war, Leopold III and his wife and children were unable to return to Belgium. They spent the next six years in exile at Pregny-Chambésy near Geneva, Switzerland. A regency under his brother Prince Charles had been made by the Legislature in 1944.
On his return to Belgium in 1950, Leopold was met with one of the most violent strikes in the history of Belgium. The country stood on the edge of civil war. Belgian banners were replaced by Walloon flags in Liège and other municipalities of Wallonia. To avoid tearing the country apart, and to keep the monarchy, Leopold decided on 1 August 1950 to withdraw in favour of his 20-year-old son Baudouin.
In retirement, he followed his passion as an amateur social anthropologist and entomologist and travelled the world. He went, for instance, to Senegal and he explored the Orinoco and the Amazon with Heinrich Harrer.
Leopold died in 1983 at Woluwe-Saint-Lambert.
Seventeen Provinces
The Seventeen Provinces were a personal union of states in the Low Countries in the 15th century and 16th century. The lands were about the same as the current Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, a good part of the North of France (Artois, French Flanders), and a small part of Western Germany.
The Seventeen Provinces were first held by the Dukes of Burgundy of the House of Valois. Later they were held by the Habsburgs. From 1512 the Provinces formed the major part of the Burgundian Circle.
The map matches to the following provinces:
It was not always the same "Seventeen" Provinces.
Prince-Bishopric of Liège
The Bishopric of Liège or Prince-Bishopric of Liège was a state of the Holy Roman Empire in the Low Countries in present Belgium. It got its status as a prince-bishopric between 980 and 985. Bishop Notger became Prince-Bishop after he received secular control of the County of Huy from the emperor .
The Prince-Bishopric belonged from 1500 on to the Lower Rhenish-Westphalian Circle. It was headed by the Prince-Bishop of Liège. Its land included most of the present Belgian provinces of Liège and Limburg, and some exclaves in other parts of Belgium and the Netherlands. The capital was Liège. It was added into France in 1795.
Egide Charles Gustave Wappers
Egide Charles Gustave, Baron Wappers (23 August 1803 Antwerp – 6 December 1874 Paris) is best known as the Belgian painter Gustave Wappers
He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, and during 1826 in Paris. The Romantic movement with its new ideas about art and politics was happening in France. Wappers was the first Belgian artist to use this form. His first painting, "The Devotion of the Burgomaster of Leiden," appeared at the right time. It had much success in the Brussels Salon during 1830, the year of the Belgian Revolution.
Wappers was invited to the court at Brussels. In 1832 the city of Antwerp made him Professor of Painting.
He showed his masterpiece, "Episode of the Belgian Revolution of 1830" at the Antwerp Salon in 1834. He was then made painter to Leopold, King of the Belgians. At the death of Matthieu-Ignace Van Brée in 1839 he was raised to director of the Antwerp Academy. One of his students was Ford Madox Brown, another was the Czech history painter Karel Javůrek.
He has many works. Some of them in traditional devotional modes, while others show the Romantic view of history.
After retiring as director of the Antwerp Academy, he lived in 1853 in Paris. He died in 1873.
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium is one of the most famous museums in Belgium.
The museums are in the capital of Brussels in the downtown area on the Coudenberg. There are four museums. Two of them, the Museum of Ancient Art and the Museum of Modern Art, Brussels, are in the main building. The other two, the Constantin Meunier Museum and the Antoine Wiertz Museum, are dedicated to specific Belgian artists. They are much smaller and are a few kilometers from the city center.
The Royal Museum has over 20,000 drawings, sculptures, and paintings, which date from the early 15th century to the present. The museum has a large collection of Flemish painting, among them paintings by Bruegel and Rogier van der Weyden, Robert Campin, Anthony van Dyck, and Jacob Jordaens. The museum is also proud of its "Rubens Room", which houses more than 20 paintings by the artist.
The main building, which now houses the "Museum of Ancient Art", was built as the Palais des Beaux-Arts. It was designed by Belgian architect Alphonse Balat and paid for by King Leopold II. The building was completed in 1887.
Capuchin monkey