Timeline

List

The World in Flanders

600 v.C. - 2023

Overview

Arts & Sciences

Borders, Language & Territory

Economy & Technology

Landscape, Environment & Mobility

Meaning & Religion

Migration

Power & Resistance

Subject

Period

Info

A Place on the Planet

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12,000 years ago

prehistory

Some 12,000 years ago the last Ice Age ended. The ice-caps melted away and a green blanket of dense forests covered North-West Europe.

Neanderthals in the Valley of the Meuse

The Earliest Traces of Human Habitation

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c. 500,000 - 33,000 years ago

Prehistory

For thousands of years we, modern humans or homo sapiens, were not the only human species on earth. We shared the world with the Neanderthals.

The Settlement of Rosmeer

The fertile Haspengouw loamy soils were a magnet for the first farmers, who originated from Eastern Europe.

Celts on the Kemmelberg

Celtic Centralisation of Power

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c. 800 - 500 BC

Prehistory

Some 2,500 years ago, from their fortified hilltop headquarters on the Kemmelberg, Celtic nobles dominated the surrounding region both literally and figuratively.

Tongeren, a Roman Town

Romanisation of the Low Countries

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c. 10 BC - 400 AD

Classical Antiquity

Tongeren, the first town in the territory of present-day Flanders, had several kilometres of town walls, an aqueduct and stone buildings in a style that blended local and Mediterranean influences.

Charlemagne

In Rome, on Christmas Day in the year 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne Emperor.

Hebban olla vogala

Traces of the Earliest Dutch

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End of 11th century

Middle Ages

‘Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan hinase hic ande thu. Wat unbidan we nu?’ These scribbles on the last page of a manuscript containing Old English sermons are the oldest lines of poetry in Dutch.

The Windmill of Wormhout

Innovation in Agriculture

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c. 1183

Middle Ages

‘In Wormhout [there is] a mill that is propelled by the wind,’ we read in a deed of the count of Flanders from about 1183. It is one of the very earliest mentions of a windmill in the North Sea area.

The Lost Harbours of the Zwin

Bruges, Linked to the Sea

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c. 1100 - 1500

Middle Ages

Mude, Hoeke or Monnikerede. Those names do not mean much to us today, but in the Middle Ages they were bustling harbour towns along a tidal channel of the North Sea: the Zwin.

Towns on the Map of Al-Idrisi

Contacts with the Muslim World

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c. 1154

Middle Ages

‘Kent’ (Ghent), ‘Abrugs’ (Bruges), ‘Sant Mir’ (Saint-Omer)… Under those corrupt names various Flemish towns appeared on a map of the 12th century. Muhammad Al-Idrisi achieved a considerable feat.

Béguinages

Today béguinages (begijnhoven) are oases of calm in many towns. The oldest date back to the 13th century. From the late 12th century on groups of unmarried religious women, called béguines, started to live together in towns.

Reynard the Fox

Literature in the Vernacular

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c. 1260

Middle Ages

In around 1260 a certain Willem, about whom little else is known, wrote a story in verse about the sly fox Reynard. Vanden vos Reynaerde is one of the oldest texts in Dutch.

1302

Social Revolutions in the Towns of Flanders and Brabant

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1302

Middle Ages

In the early morning of 18 May 1302 rebellious townspeople entered Bruges by stealth. They murdered the French garrison that was stationed there to keep unruly Flanders under control.

The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by the Van Eyck Brothers

The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb is one of the most famous paintings in the history of Western art. Hubert and Jan van Eyck made the monumental triptych between 1424 and 1432.

The Battle of Gavere

On 23 July 1453 Ghent militias advanced on Gavere to attack the army of the Duke of Burgundy. When their own supply of gunpowder threatened to blow up, the men of Ghent scattered.

The Bayard Steed of Dendermonde

Processions and Parades

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At the latest 1460

Middle Ages

Every ten years a gigantic wooden horse trundles through the streets of Dendermonde: the Bayard Steed. On its back sit the four ‘Heemskinderen’, played by four brothers born in Dendermonde.

The Mechelen Choir Book

Polyphonic Music in the Low Countries

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c. 1515

Early Modern Period

The Mechelen Choir Book is one of the most beautiful and best-preserved music manuscripts from the 16th century. It was produced in around 1515 in the workshop of Petrus Alamire in Mechelen.

Erasmus

Erasmus was one of the most influential European thinkers of the 16th century. He wrote on the upbringing of children and education and sharply criticised the church and those in power.

Pedro de Gante

Europeans in a ‘New World’

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c. 1480 - 1572

Early Modern Period

In 1523 a Franciscan from Ghent travelled to Tenochtitlan, present-day Mexico City. His name was Pieter van der Moere, but he became known under his Spanish name of Pedro de Gante.

Mad Meg

Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the Renaissance

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1563

Early Modern Period

A mad woman with armour and sword leads a robber band of women among the most grotesque monsters towards the open mouth of hell: in 1563 Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted a panel that still speaks to the imagination.

The Iconoclastic Fury

Civil War in the Low Countries

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1566

Early Modern Period

The divisions between Protestants and Catholics led to an iconoclastic fury, which in 1566 went through the Low Countries like a shockwave.

Simon Stevin

The versatile scientist Simon Stevin made important contributions to mathematics and physics, logic and language study, but as an engineer also found solutions for all kinds of practical problems.

Cathelyne Van den Bulcke

Witch Trials in Europe

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? - 1590

Early Modern Period

On 20 January 1590 Cathelyne Van den Bulcke was burnt at the stake in the market-place of Lier. She was one of the many ‘witches’ who between the 15th and 18th century were victims of popular superstition.

The Adoration of the Magi

Rubens and the Baroque

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1624

Early Modern Period

In 1624 Peter Paul Rubens painted a monumental work for the high altar of Saint Michael’s Abbey in Antwerp. The subject was a familiar Biblical scene: the visit of the three kings to the newborn Christ-child.

The Bombardment of Brussels

Wars in the Spanish-Habsburg Netherlands

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1695

Early Modern Period

From 13 to 15 August 1695 the French army bombarded the city of Brussels with a constant barrage of cannon and mortar fire. The military use of the action was secondary, sowing terror was the real aim.

Empress Maria Theresia

Enlightenment in Europe

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1717 - 1780

Early Modern Period

Members of the Habsburg dynasty ruled for more than six centuries over large parts of Europe. In all that time only one woman sat on the throne: Maria Theresia. For forty years she ruled (with her other domains) over the Austrian Netherlands.

The Mule Jenny

The Advent of Machines and Factories

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c. 1800

Modern Period

The Mule Jenny caused a true revolution in the cotton industry: the machine could spin cotton almost two hundred times faster than a traditional spinning wheel. No wonder that the British tried to keep their invention secret as far as possible.

The Napoleonic Code

Kilometres and centilitres, the land registry and the status of notary: things that we take for granted today, come from the period of French rule. The Civil Code – the rules that govern the mutual interaction of Belgian citizens – also dates from the French period.

A Liberal Constitution

With the Belgian Revolution of 1830 the bourgeoisie gave expression to its aspiration for a national state with a liberal regime. That was embodied in the constitution which was approved in 1831 and remained unchanged for almost 140 years.

The First Train Journey

The Railway Opens Up the Country

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1835

Modern Period

On 5 May 1835 three steam trains left Groendreef station in Brussels. On board were nine hundred guests, spread over thirty carriages. When they arrived in Mechelen just over an hour later, a huge popular celebration erupted.

The Lion of Flanders

Hendrik Conscience and the Flemish Movement

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1838

Modern Period

Why does the Flemish Community celebrate on 11 July, why does the Flemish anthem honour a proud lion and why does the same animal decorate the Flemish flag? It all dates back to the success of one book: De Leeuw van Vlaenderen (the Lion of Flanders) by Hendrik Conscience.

The Potato Crisis

Between 1845 and 1847 a hitherto unknown fungal disease destroyed the potato crop in large parts of North-West Europe. This resulted in the last great European famine in peacetime.

The Opening-Up of the Scheldt

Antwerp, Gateway to the World

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1863

Modern Period

On 1 and 2 August 1863 Antwerp celebrated: the city lit with lanterns, streets crowded with people, fireworks on the quays, decorated boats everywhere on the Scheldt. From now on no toll was payable to the Netherlands for the right to sail up the Scheldt.

Emilie Claeys

The ‘Social Question’ in the 19th Century

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1855 - 1943

Modern Period

In the nineteenth century working conditions in the Ghent spinning mills were particularly bad. Women workers had to make do with a wage that was even lower than the man’s starvation wages and they were often victims of sexual abuse.

Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889 by James Ensor

Innovation in the Visual Arts

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1889

Modern Period

Christ’s entry into Brussels in 1889 is the most ambitious work of the Ostend artist James Ensor (1860-1949). The painting illustrates the new course taken by Belgian art at the end of the 19th century.

Bloodbath in Leuven

Fighting for the Vote

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1902

Modern Period

In the evening of 18 April 1902 demonstrating workers marched through Leuven. They were protesting because parliament had just rejected the one man-one vote system.

Marie Belpaire

In the 19th century educational opportunities for women from all levels of society were extremely restricted. The Catholic writer Marie Belpaire made it her life’s work to remedy the situation.

Three Crowing Cocks

The Flemish Movement and the Language Struggle

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1910

Modern Period

On 18 December 1910 a meeting in Antwerp caused quite a stir. To a boisterous audience three members of parliament solemnly promised like three cocks to wake the country with their crowing. Their aim: to convince everyone that Flanders had a right to a Dutch-language university.

The Tour of Flanders

The Land of the Road Race

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1913

Modern Period

‘Flanders’ finest’: with that expression Flemings are not referring to a person, a landscape or a painting, but to a cycle race.

Paul Panda Farnana

Congo, Conquered and Colonised

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1890 - 1930

Modern Period

Paul Panda Farnana was the first Congolese intellectual to openly criticise colonialism.

Grieving Parents by Käthe Kollwitz

Treurend ouderpaar van Käthe Kollwitz op de begraafplaats van Duitse soldaten in Vladslo geeft treffend uitdrukking aan het universele leed van de Eerste Wereldoorlog.

Multicultural Mining Villages

The discovery of coal in Central Limburg in 1901 heralded a new era for the region. There suddenly appeared in the quiet Limburg Campine derricks, roads, railway lines and new estates.

Jozef Cardijn’s Youth Movement

Pillarisation and Secularisation

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1920s –

Modern Period

Jozef Cardijn, a priest from Halle, was indignant at the wretched lot of young workers, and so after the First World War he founded the Young Christian Workers.

Our Cookbook

In 1927 there appeared on the initiative of the Farmers’ Wives’ Federation the first edition of Ons Kookboek (Our Cookbook). This kitchen guide grew into one of the most successful recipe books and set the standard in many Flemish kitchens.

The Yser Tower

The Legacy of the First World War

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1930

Modern Period

In 1928 a fifty-metre-high tower rose in Diksmuide on the left bank of the Yser, a monument to pro-Flemish soldiers who died in the First World War. The Yser Tower became one of the most controversial monuments in Flanders.

The Drama of Meensel-Kiezegem

On 11 August 1944, two months after the Allied landings in Normandy, German soldiers and Flemish collaborators surrounded the Flemish-Brabant village of Meensel-Kiezegem.

The Dossin Barracks

The Persecution of the Jews during the Second World War

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1940 - 1945

Modern Period

In 1942 in the occupied territories the Nazis started on the deportation of Jews to extermination centres in the Third Reich. In Belgium they used the Dossin barracks in Mechelen as an assembly camp.

The Social Pact

Social Security and the Welfare State

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1944

Present Period

On 20 April 1944, while the war was still raging, a number of trades union leaders and employers signed the ‘Preliminary Draft Declaration on Social Solidarity’.

Ribbon Development

Spatial Planning in Flanders

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1948

Present Period

Cobbled roads that wind from village centre to village centre, flanked on either side by villas, businesses, here and there a meadow and especially lots of improvised buildings: that view has been typical for decades of densely populated Flanders.

Paula Sémer

Television as a Window on the World

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1925 - 2021

Present Period

On Saturday 31 October 1953 a few hundred families watched the very first Flemish television broadcast. The news and weather forecast were followed by Drie dozijn rode rozen (Three Dozen Red Roses), a comedy with Paula Sémer.

The Oostakker Poems by Hugo Claus

Artistic Renewal after 1945

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1955

Present Period

The collection The Oostakker Poems by Hugo Claus was acclaimed in 1955 as a high point in Dutch-language literature.

The Pill

Sexual Revolution and Women’s Rights

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1961

Present Period

The invention of reliable contraception, such as the pill, enabled people from the 1960s on to prevent pregnancy effectively. That not only heralded a sexual revolution, but also contributed towards the emancipation of women.

Le plat pays of Jacques Brel

French-Language Culture in Flanders

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1962

Present Period

In 1962 Jacques Brel sang of the North Sea, the Scheldt and the wet, grey skies in Le plat pays. The song remains one of the most beautiful odes to the Flemish landscape.

The Establishment of the Language Border

Belgium Becomes a Federal State

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1962 - 1963

Present Period

The political significance of the Dutch-French language border had for a long time remained limited. However, the aspiration of the Flemish movement to achieve a monolingual Flanders made the language border a subject of debate.

Steel in Flanders

Economic Growth in the Sixties

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1967

Present Period

In 1967 the first steel sheets came off the rollers of the new Sidmar steel plant in Zelzate, the present ArcelorMittal. Steel had never before been produced in Flanders.

Rock Werchter

In the summer of 1975 in rural Werchter two bands performed to an audience of a few hundred. The initiative of the local Chiro youth group laid the foundation for one of the biggest music festivals in Europe.

The Euro

At New Year 2002, just after midnight, long queues formed at cash machines all over the country. For the first time euro notes could be withdrawn.

Same-Sex Marriage

LGBTQ+, from Discrimination to Emancipation

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2003

Present Period

They rewrote history with a simple ‘I do’. On 6 June 2003 two brides married each other in Kapellen. It was the first marriage between lesbians in Belgium. A week later two men married for the first time.

Goesting

A Standard Language for Flanders

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2004

Present Period

Someone with ‘goesting in een croque-monsieur’?. It must be a Fleming.

The World in Flanders

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2012

Present Period

Every year in the fourth week of September the giants of Borgerhout parade, surrounded by musicians and floats.