War refugee

This young girl is fleeing Mosul.  The top image captures the starkness of the environment; the embed below offers a better view of the little girl.

 

Photo: Sebastiano Tomada/Getty Images, via The Dish.

Recreational glacier walking

Chamonix Glacier, 1867.  The same activity was also the subject of this c. 1903 photochrome:

Top photo: William England/Getty Images/Life.com, via Not In The History Books.

This is why you should not slap a porcupine

Details at Arbroath.

"Father and Son" - Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens)

YouTube link.

Posted for Fathers' Day, a recent performance of this classic song. 

It's not time to make a change,
Just relax, take it easy -
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to know.
Find a girl, settle down, if you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old but I'm happy.

I was once like you are now,
And I know that it's not easy
To be calm when you've found
Something going on.
But take your time, think a lot, think of everything you've got,
For you will still be here tomorrow but you dreams may not.

How can I try to explain, 

Because when I do he turns away again;
It's always been the same, same old story.
From the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen -
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away
I know, I have to go.

It's not time to make a change,
Just sit down, take it slowly
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to go through.
Find a girl, settle down, if you want you can marry
Look at me, I am old but I'm happy.

All the times that I've cried,

Keeping all the things I knew inside -
It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it.
If they were right I'd agree, but it's them they know, not me -
Now there's a way and I know that I have to go away.

I know - I have to go.

See also the 1970s VH1 music video version.

Blogcation

Again?

Yes, again.

Today at TYWKIWDBI we're going to "go Dutch"

The phrase "going Dutch" conventionally refers to the sharing of expenses, but today I'm using it to note that all of the posts (and several reposts) will contain material about or from the Netherlands.

Over the years I've been blogging, the Dutch have been among the most faithful readers and commenters (the map shows their locations), and I regularly follow several blogs authored by readers here. 

I know of at least one compilation of Dutch blogs, but I'd be more interested in discovering additional blogs written by readers of TYWKIWDBI.  If you are a Dutch blogger (in the Netherlands or as an expat blogging Dutch material), please leave your blog's address in the Comments for this post.

Things you didn't know about the Netherlands

Where does the Kingdom of the Netherlands share a long border with the French Republic?  The answer is in this brief, entertaining video:

YouTube link.

When my father was growing up in a small Pennsylvania railroad town in the early 1900s, his nickname was "Dutch," not because of any Netherlands connection, but because the family was "Deutsch" (German).

Reposted from 2012 for "Dutch Treat Day" 2014.

Can you see the whale in this 1630 Dutch painting?

It's hiding behind the lacquer.  The conservator explains:

YouTube link.

Screencaps from the video:

Ancient telescope discovered in the Netherlands

Telescopes (and microscopes) were invented in the Netherlands.  Recently the oldest one ever was discovered during the construction of a subway in Delft.

The Dutch telescope was invented in 1608 in Middelburg. Shortly after that, Delft became a well-known producer of lens viewers, according to historians. Engravings from that time period reveal similar viewing apparatuses, but up to now, none were believed to have survived in the Netherlands. Worldwide, only 20 are known to exist. The oldest kept scopes in the Netherlands are only from the second half of the 17th century, among others from the Christiaan Huygens collection...

The antiques specialists concluded that it is a telescope from the 17th century. The primitive grinding work, and the poor quality of the glass lenses, full of bubbles and unevenness. The telescope can magnify up to five times, which was tested in the lab in Leiden. “Especially the frontmost glass is so primitive that it was hardly recognizable as a lens”, says curator Tiemen Cocquyt of Boerhaven. “But after cleaning, the telescope really works again.”

Further information from The History Blog:

Because tin corrodes so easily, none of the earlier ones were known to have survived. This one was found in an old canal where the low oxygen environment kept it from rusting into nothingness. There’s even a very slim chance that it’s the oldest telescope in the world, but it’s highly unlikely. There’s only a tiny window of possibility since Galileo started making his in 1609, the year after the first patents applications were filed in the Netherlands and the Museo Galileo in Florence has two of his from 1609-1610.

Netherlands medieval cathedral converted into a bookstore

Utrecht-based architectural practice, BK. Architecten, have designed the Waanders In de Broeren project. Completed in 2013, the 15th-century cathedral has been converted into a modern book store and can be found in Zwolle, The Netherlands.

This radical concept in a 15th-century Broerenkerk cathedral spans over three floors and includes a shop in the former church building. The architect radically changed the interior design of the 547-year-old Gothic building, but had to ensure they left the original features, such as the pipe organ, stained glass windows and decor intact.

Architectural details and a dozen more photos at Adelto, via Erik Kwakkel.

The corpses of the de Witt brothers

A rather bleak painting ascribed to Jan de Baen, depicting a famous historical event in Dutch history (full title: The corpses of the de Witt brothers, Jan and Cornelis, hanging on the Groene Zoodje on the Vijverberg).

The figure in the lower right corner is apparently shining light on the nighttime scene to illuminate it for the artist.

Via La Muse Verte.

Addendum: MJ Valente found the following information at the website of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam:

"De Witt held a key position in Dutch politics, being a kind of Prime Minister avant la lettre. In that role, he was repeatedly in conflict with the Orange faction, led by Prince William III of Orange (later King of England during the so-called Glorious Revolution), who felt menaced in his authority. When De Witt came to power, a collective aversion to monarchical power dominated among the Dutch people. But things changed in 1672, the ‘Disaster Year’, when the Dutch Republic was attacked by a large alliance of hostile countries. Popular feeling suddenly turned in favor of William III, and mistrust grew against Johann de Witt and his brother Cornelis.

The latter, who was also an influential political figure, got imprisoned in The Hague on false accusations of treason. On 20 August 1672, when Johan was visiting his brother in prison, the brothers were dragged out of the building and lynched outside by an angry mob. The rage seemed to be spontaneous, but was in fact well-organized and planned by Orangist militiamen. The frenzy was so immense that the De Witts were not just killed, but literally ripped apart by the inflamed mass. Body parts like heart and fingers were removed to be exposed as souvenirs, while other parts were roasted and eaten(!) by the hysterical crowd, in a bizarre outburst of cannibalism. Their corpses were eventually hung upside down on a scaffold nearby. The disgusting sight was captured in this dark painting, whose artist (attributed to Jan de Baen) seems to have witnessed the lynching and presents us his gruesome experience in this early form of visual journalism."

And Rob from Amersfoort adds the following:

1672 was indeed called the Year of Disaster, when The Netherlands where attacked by England, France ànd Germany.

The scaffold was located near the prison where Johan's brother was held (the Gevangenpoort, a building with a city gate, it still exists). On the other side of the road the Dutch center of government (the Binnenhof) is located (with the parliament and the office of the PM).

I wrote a essay about Johan de Witt when I was in high school. Watching this scene always makes me feel sad, he was a good man. This is an example of what happens when people are stirred up by populists. Remarkable is that in 2002 the same thing happened at the same location after a famous politician was shot; a crowd of angry people gathered near the Binnenhof, ready to lynch the first politician they would see ...

NB the head of the first Dutch PM, a man born in Amersfoort, was chopped of inside the Binnenhof, after he was falsely accused by the ruling prince of Orange. The latter was the grand-uncle of prince Willem III who stirred up the lynch mob in 1672. Later Willem III became king of England, so for him it worked out fine.

There is significant discussion of this painting in the Comments.

Reposted from 2009 for "Dutch Treat Day" 2014.

Photos from the Nationaal Archief

Three schoolgirls, satchels on their back, peeking through a window somewhere in Elten. The Netherlands, 1959.


Dutch people celebrating their holidays in a German bunker in the dunes, two years after the Second World War.


Man at the beach fined for not wearing decent clothes. Netherlands, Heemskerk, 1931.


Land sailing: sand yacht of Emanuel Urlus on the beach between Noordwijk and Katwijk (the Netherlands), 1917.


The Dutch queen Wilhelmina and princess Juliana as snowmen. The Netherlands, 21 January, 1913.


Selections from the Nationaal Archief's photostream at Flickr, which also includes for some reason a large set of photos about Japanese culture.

Larger versions of the photos are available at the individual links.

Reposted from 2009 for "Dutch Treat Day" 2014.

English words of Dutch origin

Wikipedia has an extensive list and discussion -

The main part of refugees to England, Wales and Scotland from the 11th till the 17th century were from the Low Countries... In the Dutch Golden Age, spanning most of the 17th century, Dutch trade, science, military, and art were among the most acclaimed in the world, and many English words of Dutch origin concerning these areas are stemming from this period...English and Dutch rivalry at sea resulted in many Dutch naval terms in English... Via settlements in North America and elsewhere in the world Dutch language influenced English spoken there, particularly American English.

Just a few examples:

Aardvark, bamboo, beaker, bicker, blink, blister, booze (from Middle Dutch busen (="to drink in excess"), boss, boulevard, Brooklyn, bully, caboose, coleslaw, cookie...

Via - appropriately - Gerard Vlemming's The Presurfer.

Dutch bricklaying machine

It's not as automated as might appear from the still photo.  As a video demonstrates, humans have to be present to load the bricks in the proper order and position.  But it does allow them to do their work from a standing position, and presumably more quickly.

Via Reddit.

Dutch forensic experts can date a fingerprint

"It's not quite the Holy Grail of fingerprinting, but it's a very important discovery," Marcel de Puit, fingerprint researcher at the Dutch Forensic Institute (NFI), told AFP on Wednesday, hailing what he said was a world's first... "Being able to date the prints means you can determine when a potential suspect was at the crime scene or which fingerprints are relevant for the investigation," De Puit said...

"The chemicals in these fingerprints can be analysed," said De Puit. "Some disappear over time and it's the relative proportions of these chemicals that allow us to date a fingerprint."

Previous attempts to crack the formula for dating fingerprints failed because they focused on the amounts of chemicals, rather than their relative proportions, De Puit said.
Taking into account the temperature of the original prints' surroundings, which affects the speed of deterioration, forensic experts can now date fingerprints to within "one or two days", up to 15 days.

The new technique needs to be extensively tested on real crimes scenes, leading to the creation of a database, before it can be used in prosecutions, hopefully "within a year", De Puit said.