History & Heritage

From Waterloo and the Congo to the trenches of the Westhoek and the founding of the EU — the heavy history under the light culture.

Part of Belgium

36 moments in this segment.

1. 1099-01-01 — Godfrey of Bouillon. The Ardennes lord who led the First Crusade and became the first ruler of Jerusalem.
2. 1302-01-01 — Battle of the Golden Spurs. 1302: Flemish militias routed French knights at Kortrijk — now the Flemish national holiday (11 July).
3. 1450-01-01 — The Flemish Primitives. Van Eyck, Memling, Van der Weyden — the 15th-century Bruges painters who revolutionised oil painting.
4. 1450-01-01 — The Burgundian Netherlands. The dazzling court of the Dukes of Burgundy — when Flanders was the richest region in Europe.
5. 1519-01-01 — Charles V of Ghent. Born in Ghent in 1500, ruler of an empire "on which the sun never set" — a Belgian-born colossus.
6. 1600-01-01 — The Spanish Netherlands. Habsburg rule, the Counter-Reformation and Rubens — the southern Low Countries under Spain.
7. 1815-01-01 — The Battle of Waterloo. 1815: Napoleon’s final defeat on Belgian soil — the Lion’s Mound now marks the field.
8. 1830-01-01 — The Belgian Revolution. 1830: independence from the Netherlands sparked, legend has it, by an opera. A nation is born.
9. 1831-01-01 — Leopold I, First King. 1831: the new kingdom’s first monarch, a German prince, founds the Belgian dynasty.
10. 1885-01-01 — Leopold II & the Congo. The dark colonial chapter — Leopold’s brutal personal rule over the Congo Free State, still being reckoned with.
11. 1900-01-01 — Ostend — "Queen of Beaches". Leopold II’s belle-époque seaside resort — royal villas, the Kursaal and North Sea glamour.
12. 1912-01-01 — The Brabant Fauvists. Rik Wouters and the joyous colour of early-20th-century Flemish painting — light before the war.
13. 1914-01-01 — The Battle of the Yser. 1914: Belgians flooded the Yser plain to halt the German advance — the front held for four years.
14. 1914-01-01 — King Albert I, the Knight King. The WWI soldier-king who stayed with his troops — a national hero, killed climbing in 1934.
15. 1914-01-01 — The Burning of Leuven. 1914: German troops torched the university library and its medieval manuscripts — an atrocity that shocked the world.
16. 1915-01-01 — "In Flanders Fields". The poppies of the Westhoek and the poem that made them the global symbol of remembrance.
17. 1915-01-01 — In Flanders Fields. The poppies of the Westhoek and McCrae’s poem — Belgium as the eternal WWI battlefield.
18. 1917-01-01 — Tyne Cot Cemetery. The largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world — near Passchendaele.
19. 1918-01-01 — The Zeebrugge Raid. 1918: the daring British attempt to block the U-boat port — a famous WWI naval action on Belgian shores.
20. 1927-01-01 — The Menin Gate, Ypres. The WWI memorial where the Last Post has sounded nightly since 1928 for the missing of the Westhoek.
21. 1928-01-01 — The Last Post — Menin Gate. Buglers have sounded the Last Post under the Ypres memorial every evening since 1928.
22. 1930-01-01 — The IJzertoren. The towering Flemish peace-and-emancipation memorial on the Yser — "No More War" in four languages.
23. 1940-01-01 — Fort Breendonk. The grim WWII prison camp preserved as a memorial.
24. 1940-01-01 — Fort Breendonk. The chillingly preserved WWII Nazi prison camp near Mechelen — a place of national memory.
25. 1944-01-01 — The Battle of the Bulge. Winter 1944: the last great German offensive, and the siege of Bastogne — "Nuts!"
26. 1950-01-01 — The Royal Question. 1950: the bitter post-war crisis over Leopold III’s wartime conduct nearly split the country.
27. 1958-01-01 — Expo 58 — The World’s Fair (archive film). Period footage of the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair and the gleaming new Atomium.
28. 1958-01-01 — Expo 58. The 1958 Brussels World’s Fair — the Atomium, optimism and the atomic age made Belgian.
29. 1958-01-01 — Expo 58. The 1958 Brussels World’s Fair — atomic-age optimism, the Atomium, and Belgium centre-stage.
30. 1958-01-01 — Brussels, Capital of Europe. The EU institutions made Brussels the de facto capital of a continent.
31. 1960-01-01 — Congo Independence — Lumumba’s Speech. 30 June 1960: Patrice Lumumba’s defiant speech as the Belgian Congo became independent.
32. 1960-01-01 — Congo Independence (1960). Lumumba’s independence speech and the turbulent birth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
33. 1985-01-01 — The Heysel Disaster. 1985: 39 dead at the European Cup final in Brussels — a tragedy that reshaped football.
34. 1993-01-01 — The Death of King Baudouin. 1993: a nation in mourning for the long-reigning, much-loved king.
35. 1998 — The White March. 1996: 300,000 marched in Brussels in silent protest — the largest demonstration in Belgian history.
36. 2020-01-01 — The Reckoning with Leopold II. The contested statues of the king whose Congo Free State rule is now openly confronted.