Brussels (Civ6)/Civilopedia

Brussels was founded along the banks of the Senne River in 979 AD when Charles of Lorraine constructed the first fortifications around a small Catholic chapel and town. The city lay low along the river and was often flooded, giving it its Dutch name Broeksel, or, “home in the marsh.” The citizens have been trying to live that down for centuries, focusing on making it an industrial center in the “new Europe.” Extensive city walls, constructed and expanded during the 11th to 14th centuries, allowed a period of growth, expansion, and relative security uncommon for the time.
For some two hundred years, the city passed from one ruler to another … more or less peacefully. That ended abruptly in 1695 when Louis XIV of France sent troops to Brussels and bombarded the city with artillery, destroying the Grand Place and nearly a third of the city in the attack. This, forcefully, brought “Frenchification” to Belgium, at least in terms of culture.
So, inevitably, in 1830 the southern French-speaking provinces of the then Kingdom of the Netherlands separated from the Dutch-speaking provinces in the “Belgian Revolution,” the conflict taking place for the most part in Brussels. Following Belgian independence, the new king Leopold I began destroying the old city walls to make way for new construction and more modern buildings for his capital. By now the Senne, once the life-blood of the city, was an open sewer and so between 1867 and 1871 was covered over.
Brussels escaped the two world wars relatively unscathed largely due to its lack of strategic significance, the inattention of its German occupiers, and the general passivity of its inhabitants. Perhaps it is this – or the fact it is a major transportation hub – which made the city a modern-day center for international commerce and the de facto capital of the European Union and the headquarters of NATO.