Amsterdam, Netherlands — History and Culture
The Dutch capital has come a long way since the River Amstel was dammed in the 13th century, spawning the settlement of Aemstelledamme. Early on the town became a trading center, with ships delivering grain and timber from the Baltic region, then picking up cloth manufactured in Leiden. As the sea trade grew, more ships were built and in the mid-16th century the harbor was expanded. Calvinism, a strict variant of Protestantism, took root. After the kingdom of Spain acquired Holland in 1519, King Philip II's attempts to restore the Catholic religion were fiercely opposed. In 1579 seven northern provinces formed an alliance against Spain, marking the inception of the Netherlands as a country. The agreement set the stage for Holland's ascent in the 17th century, as Dutch ships plied the seas seeking foreign sources of goods and Amsterdam became the center of a thriving shipbuilding industry. It was during this period that the belt of canals was completed (recently added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites) and many of the stately homes alongside them went up for a prospering merchant class. It was also a golden age for the arts, when The Night Watch and other masterpieces that now hang in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum were painted. The boom times came to an end when England challenged Holland for hegemony of its trade routes. A series of Anglo-Dutch wars followed. Not long after, the French invaded and Napoleon installed his brother Louis in Amsterdam's Royal Palace. After Napoleon's defeat in 1813, the Dutch regained control of their destiny. The construction of the grand Centraal Station secured Amsterdam's position as a rail transport hub. Industry boomed until the Great Depression, then Germany invaded soon after the start of World War II. Unlike Rotterdam and Arnhem, Amsterdam emerged physically unscathed though it suffered the mass deportation of its substantial Jewish population, and many Amsterdammers perished toward the end of the war. With reconstruction, Amsterdam expanded, building new residential zones to its west and southeast. In the 1960s the city became a countercultural mecca, and escalating rents in the following decade provoked a squatters' movement. To fill the need for labor, a huge influx of immigrants from Morocco, Turkey, and the former colonies of Surinam and Indonesia. By the turn of the millennium, Amsterdam had transformed itself into a global business center with many foreign firms setting up operations in the capital. The murder in Amsterdam of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, an outspoken critic of Islamic fundamentalism, by a Dutch youth of Moroccan heritage, sent shock waves through society and reinforced a political trend to the right. In the national elections of 2010, the ultra-right PVV party, led by the incendiary figure of Geert Wilders, made substantial headway whereas the previously dominant party, the middle-of-the-road CDA, lost almost half its parliamentary seats.
