Today, The Morgans have met in Leicester Square to take some fantastic coloured pills, before heading to Stonehenge, the enigmatic Neolithic circle, from where they will cross to an even more fantastic world: Camelot. For The Grandma is very emotional because Stonehenge is the last place where a closer friend of her, CortoMaltese,waslastseen. He disappeared in the middle of the Neolithic stones and in that moment the hero became a legend, and the legend, a myth.
During the trip from London to Stonehenge, the family has been reviewing prepositions of place, reading a new chapter in their reading book and talking about topics as diverse as the legend of King Arthur, Arthur Conan Doyle, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll, Jefferson Airplane or the history of M&M's. It has been a different Friday, without so much grammatical load and with more space to listen to stories and participate orally in them.
The Morgans will celebrate Easter in Camelot and will be telling their adventures daily and The Grandma has talked about how literature has protected communities and countries during the Middle Age with the examples ofKingArthur and his Knights of the Round Table,Tirant lo Blanc, Orlando Il Furioso, Roland and El Cid Campeador,
incredible heroes with powerful skills in a dark age, heroes who are
part of our History and stories that we have to keep as long as we can.
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England,
3 km west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen
standing stones, each around 4.0 m high, 2.1 m wide, and weighing around
25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a
ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons,
two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument,
now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice. The
stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of
Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli (burial mounds).
Archaeologists believe that Stonehenge was constructed from around 3000 BC to 2000 BC.
The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the
earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC.
Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised
between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at the site as
early as 3000 BC.
One of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom, Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon.
It has been a legally protected scheduled monument since 1882, when
legislation to protect historic monuments was first successfully
introduced in Britain. The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986.
Stonehenge is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage; the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.
Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from its earliest beginnings.
Deposits containing human bone date from as early as 3000 BC, when the
ditch and bank were first dug, and continued for at least another 500
years.
The Oxford English Dictionary cites Ælfric's tenth-century glossary, in which henge-cliff is given the meaning precipice, or stone; thus, the stanenges or Stanheng not far from Salisbury recorded by eleventh-century writers are stones supported in the air.
In 1740, William Stukeley notes: Pendulous rocks are now called henges in Yorkshire... I doubt not, Stonehenge in Saxon signifies the hanging stones. Christopher Chippindale's Stonehenge Complete gives the derivation of the name Stonehenge as coming from the Old English words stān stone, and either hencg hinge (because the stone lintels hinge on the upright stones) or hen(c)ento hang or gallows or instrument of torture (though elsewhere in his book, Chippindale cites the suspended stones etymology).
The henge
portion has given its name to a class of monuments known as henges.
Archaeologists define henges as earthworks consisting of a circular
banked enclosure with an internal ditch. As often happens in
archaeological terminology, this is a holdover from antiquarian use.
Despite being contemporary with true Neolithic henges and stone circles, Stonehenge
is in many ways atypical -for example, at more than 7.3 m tall, its
extant trilithons' lintels, held in place with mortise and tenon joints,
make it unique.
The twelfth-century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), by Geoffrey of Monmouth, includes a fanciful story of how Stonehenge
was brought from Ireland with the help of the wizard Merlin. Geoffrey's
story spread widely, with variations of it appearing in adaptations of
his work, such as Wace's Norman French Roman de Brut, Layamon's Middle English Brut, and the WelshBrut y Brenhinedd.
According to the tale, the stones of Stonehenge
were healing stones, which giants had brought from Africa to Ireland.
They had been raised on Mount Killaraus to form a stone circle, known as
the Giant's Ring or Giant's Round. The fifth-century king Aurelius
Ambrosius wished to build a great memorial to the British Celtic nobles
slain by the Saxons at Salisbury. Merlin advised him to use the Giant's
Ring. The king sent Merlin and Uther Pendragon (King Arthur's father)
with 15,000 men to bring it from Ireland. They defeated an Irish army
led by Gillomanius, but were unable to move the huge stones. With
Merlin's help, they transported the stones to Britain and re-erected
them as they had stood.
Mount
Killaraus may refer to the Hill of Uisneach. Although the tale is
fiction, archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson suggests it may hold a grain of truth, as evidence suggests the Stonehenge bluestones were brought from the Waun Mawn stone circle on the Irish Sea coast of Wales.
Another
legend tells how the invading Saxon king Hengist invited British Celtic
warriors to a feast but treacherously ordered his men to massacre the
guests, killing 420 of them. Hengist erected Stonehenge on the site to show his remorse for the deed.
Today, The Grandma talks about Antoni Gaudí,theCatalan architect considered one of the greatest of all time, who was born on a day like today in 1852.
Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (25 June 1852-10 June 1926) was a Catalan architect known as the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works have a highly individualized, sui generis style. Most are located in Barcelona,including his main work, the church of the SagradaFamília.
Gaudí's work was influenced by his passions in life: architecture, nature, and religion.
He considered every detail of his creations and integrated into his architecture such crafts as ceramics, stained glass, wrought ironwork forging and carpentry. He also introduced new techniques in the treatment of materials, such as trencadís which used waste ceramic pieces.
Under the influence of neo-Gothic art and Oriental techniques, Gaudí became part of the Modernist movement which was reaching its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work transcended mainstream Modernisme,culminating in an organic style inspired by natural forms.
Gaudí rarely drew detailed plans of his works, instead preferring to create them as three-dimensional scale models and moulding the details as he conceived them.
Gaudí's work enjoys global popularity and continuing admiration and study by architects. His masterpiece, the still-incomplete Sagrada Família, is the most-visited monument in Catalonia. Between 1984 and 2005, seven of his works were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.
Gaudí's
Roman Catholic faith intensified during his life and religious images
appear in many of his works. This earned him the nickname God's Architect and led to calls for his beatification.
Antoni Gaudí was born on 25 June 1852 in Riudoms or Reus,
to the coppersmith Francesc Gaudí i Serra (1813–1906) and Antònia
Cornet i Bertran (1819–1876). He was the youngest of five children, of
whom three survived to adulthood: Rosa (1844–1879), Francesc (1851–1876)
and Antoni.
Gaudí's
family originated in the Auvergne region in southern France. One of his
ancestors, Joan Gaudí, a hawker, moved to Catalonia in the 17th
century; possible origins of Gaudí's family name include Gaudy or Gaudin.
Gaudí's first projects were the lampposts he designed for the Plaça Reial in Barcelona, the unfinished Girossi newsstands, and the Cooperativa ObreraMataronense building. He gained wider recognition for his first important commission, the Casa Vicens, and subsequently received more significant proposals.
At the Paris World's Fair of 1878 Gaudí
displayed a showcase he had produced for the glove manufacturer
Comella. Its functional and aesthetic modernista design impressed
Catalan industrialist Eusebi Güell, who then commissioned some of Gaudí's most outstanding work: the Güell wine cellars, the Güell pavilions, the Palau Güell, the Park Güell and the crypt of the church of the ColòniaGüell.
Gaudí also became a friend of the marquis of Comillas, the father-in-law of Count Güell, for whom he designed El Capricho in Comillas.
In 1883 Gaudí was put in charge of the recently initiated project to build aBarcelona church called Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada
Família. Gaudí completely changed the initial
design and imbued it with his own distinctivestyle. From 1915 until
his death he devoted himself entirely to this project.
Given
the number of commissions he began receiving, he had to rely on his
team to work on multiple projects simultaneously. His team consisted of
professionals from all fields of construction.
Several of the architects who worked under him became prominent in the field later on, such as Josep Maria Jujol, Joan Rubió, CèsarMartinell, Francesc Folguera and Josep Francesc Ràfols.
In 1885, Gaudí moved to rural SantFeliu de Codines to escape the cholera epidemic that was ravaging Barcelona. He lived in Francesc Ullar's house, for whom he designed a dinner table as a sign of his gratitude.
The 1888 World Fair was one of the era's major events in Barcelona and represented a key point in the history of the Modernisme movement. Leading architects displayed their best works, including Gaudí,
who showcased the building he had designed for the Compañía
Trasatlántica. Consequently, he received a commission to restructure the
Saló de Cent of the Barcelona City Council, but this project was
ultimately not carried out.
In
the early 1890s Gaudí received two commissions from outside of
Catalonia, namely the Episcopal Palace, Astorga, and the Casa Botines in
León. These works contributed to Gaudí's growing renown across Spain.
In 1891, he travelled to Málaga and Tangiers to examine the site for a
project for the Franciscan Catholic Missions that the 2nd marquis of
Comillas had requested him to design.
In
1899 Gaudí joined the Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc, a Catholic artistic
society founded in 1893 by the bishop Josep Torras i Bages and the
brothers Josepand Joan Llimona. He also joined the Lliga Espiritual de
la Mare de Déu deMontserrat, another Catholic Catalan organisation. The
conservative and religious character of his political thought was
closely linked to his defence of the cultural identity of the Catalan
people.
At
the beginning of the century, Gaudí was working on numerous projects
simultaneously. They reflected his shift to a more personal style
inspired by nature.
In
1900, he received an award for the best building of the year from the
Barcelona City Council for his Casa Calvet. During the first decade of
the century Gaudí dedicated himself to projects like the Casa Figueras,
better known as Bellesguard, the Park Güell, an unsuccessful
urbanisation project, and the restoration of the Cathedral of Palma de
Mallorca, for which he visited Majorca several times.
Between
1904 and 1910 he constructed the Casa Batlló and the
Casa Milà, two of his most emblematic works.
As
a result of Gaudí's increasing fame, in 1902 the painter Joan Llimona
chose Gaudí's features to represent Saint Philip Neri in the paintings
for the aisle of the Sant Felip Neri church in Barcelona. Together with
Joan Santaló, son of his friend the physician Pere Santaló, he
unsuccessfully founded a wrought iron manufacturing company the same
year.
After moving to Barcelona, Gaudí
frequently changed his address: as a student he lived in residences,
generally in the area of the Gothic Quarter; when he started his career
he moved around several rented flats in the Eixample area.
Finally,
in 1906, he settled in a house in the Güell Park that he owned and
which had been constructed by his assistant Francesc Berenguer as a
showcase property for the estate. It has since been transformed into the
Gaudí Museum.There he lived with his fatherand his niece Rosa Egea
Gaudí. He lived in the house until 1925, several months before his
death, when he began residing inside the workshop of the Sagrada
Família.
The
decade from 1910 was a hard one for Gaudí. During this decade, the
architect experienced the deaths of his niece Rosa in 1912 and his main
collaborator Francesc Berenguer in 1914; a severe economic crisis which
paralysed work on the Sagrada Família in 1915; the 1916 death of his
friend Josep Torras i Bages, bishop of Vic; the 1917 disruption of work
at the ColòniaGüell; and the 1918 death of his friend and patron Eusebi
Güell. Perhaps because of these tragedies he devoted himself entirely
to the Sagrada Família from 1915, taking refuge in his work.
Gaudí
devoted his life entirely to his profession. Those who were close to
him described him as pleasant to talk to and faithful to friends. Among
these, his patrons EusebiGüell and the bishop of Vic, Josep Torras iBages, stand out, as well as the writers Joan Maragall and JacintVerdaguer,thephysician Pere Santaló and some of his most faithful collaborators, such as FrancescBerenguer and LlorençMatamala.
Gaudí was always in favour of Catalan culture but was reluctant to become politically active to campaign for its autonomy.
In 1920 he was beaten by police in a riot during the Floral Games celebrations.
On 11 September 1924, National Day of Catalonia, he was beaten at a demonstration against the banning of the Catalan language by the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera.
Gaudí was arrested by the Civil Guard, resulting in a short stay in prison, from which he was freed after paying 50 pesetas bail.
On 7 June 1926, Gaudí was taking his daily walk to the Sant Felip Neri
church for his habitual prayer and confession. While walking along the
Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes between Girona and Bailén streets, he was struck by a passing number 30 tram and lost consciousness. Assumed to be a beggar, the unconscious Gaudí
did not receive immediate aid. Eventually some passers-by transported
him in a taxi to the Santa Creu Hospital, where he received rudimentary
care.
By the time that the chaplain of the Sagrada Família, Mosén Gil Parés,recognised him on the following day, Gaudí's condition had deteriorated too severely to benefit from additional treatment.
Gaudí died on 10 June 1926 at the age of 73 and was buried two days later. A large crowd gathered to bid farewell to him in the chapel of Our Lady of MountCarmel in the crypt of the Sagrada Família.
Gaudí is usually considered the great master of Catalan Modernism,
but his works go beyond any one style or classification. They are
imaginative works that find their main inspiration in geometry and
nature forms.
Gaudí studied organic and anarchic geometric forms of nature thoroughly, searching for a way to give expression to these forms in architecture.
Some of his greatest inspirations came from visits to the mountain of Montserrat, the caves of Mallorca, the saltpetre caves in Collbató, the crag of Fra Guerau in the Prades Mountains behind Reus, the Pareis mountain in the north of Mallorca and Sant Miquel del Fai in Bigues i Riells.
This study of nature translated into his use of ruled geometrical forms such as the hyperbolic paraboloid, the hyperboloid, the helicoid and the cone, which reflect the forms Gaudí found in nature.
Ruled
surfaces are forms generated by a straight line known as the
generatrix, as it moves over one or several lines known as directrices. Gaudí
found abundant examples of them in nature, for instance in rushes,
reeds and bones; he used to say that there is no better structure than
the trunk of a tree or a human skeleton. These forms are at the same
time functional and aesthetic, and Gaudídiscovered how to adapt the language of nature to the structural forms of architecture. He used to equate the helicoid form to movement and the hyperboloid to light.
Trencadís, also known as pique assiette, broken tile mosaics, bits and pieces, memoryware, and shardware, is a type of mosaic made from cemented-together tile shards and broken chinaware used by Gaudí in his works.
Several of Gaudí's works have been granted World Heritage status by UNESCO: in 1984 the Park Güell, the Palau Güell and the Casa Milà; and in 2005 the Nativity façade, the crypt and the apse of the Sagrada Família, the Casa Vicens and the Casa Batlló in Barcelona, together with the crypt of theColònia Güell in Santa Coloma de Cervelló.
Paraboloids, hyperboloids and helicoids, constantly varying the incidence of the light, are rich in matrices themselves, which make ornamentation and even modelling unnecessary.
Today, The Grandma has visited Stonehenge. It was the last place where a closer friend of her, Corto Maltese,was last seen. He disappeared in the middle of the Neolithic stones and in that moment the hero became a legend, and the legend a myth.
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, 3 km west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 4.0 m high, 2.1 m wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli (burial mounds).
Archaeologists believe that Stonehenge was constructed from around 3000 BC to 2000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at the site as early as 3000 BC.
One of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom, Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon. It has been a legally protected scheduled monument since 1882, when legislation to protect historic monuments was first successfully introduced in Britain. The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986.
Stonehenge is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage; the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.
Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from its earliest beginnings. Deposits containing human bone date from as early as 3000 BC, when the ditch and bank were first dug, and continued for at least another 500 years.
The Oxford English Dictionary cites Ælfric's tenth-century glossary, in which henge-cliff is given the meaning precipice, or stone; thus, the stanenges or Stanheng not far from Salisbury recorded by eleventh-century writers are stones supported in the air.
In 1740, William Stukeley notes: Pendulous rocks are now called henges in Yorkshire... I doubt not, Stonehenge in Saxon signifies the hanging stones. Christopher Chippindale's Stonehenge Complete gives the derivation of the name Stonehenge as coming from the Old English words stān stone, and either hencg hinge (because the stone lintels hinge on the upright stones) or hen(c)ento hang or gallows or instrument of torture (though elsewhere in his book, Chippindale cites the suspended stones etymology).
The henge portion has given its name to a class of monuments known as henges. Archaeologists define henges as earthworks consisting of a circular banked enclosure with an internal ditch. As often happens in archaeological terminology, this is a holdover from antiquarian use.
Despite being contemporary with true Neolithic henges and stone circles, Stonehenge is in many ways atypical -for example, at more than 7.3 m tall, its extant trilithons' lintels, held in place with mortise and tenon joints, make it unique.
The twelfth-century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), by Geoffrey of Monmouth, includes a fanciful story of how Stonehenge was brought from Ireland with the help of the wizard Merlin. Geoffrey's story spread widely, with variations of it appearing in adaptations of his work, such as Wace's Norman French Roman de Brut, Layamon's Middle English Brut, and the WelshBrut y Brenhinedd.
According to the tale, the stones of Stonehenge were healing stones, which giants had brought from Africa to Ireland. They had been raised on Mount Killaraus to form a stone circle, known as the Giant's Ring or Giant's Round. The fifth-century king Aurelius Ambrosius wished to build a great memorial to the British Celtic nobles slain by the Saxons at Salisbury. Merlin advised him to use the Giant's Ring. The king sent Merlin and Uther Pendragon (King Arthur's father) with 15,000 men to bring it from Ireland. They defeated an Irish army led by Gillomanius, but were unable to move the huge stones. With Merlin's help, they transported the stones to Britain and re-erected them as they had stood.
Mount Killaraus may refer to the Hill of Uisneach. Although the tale is fiction, archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson suggests it may hold a grain of truth, as evidence suggests the Stonehenge bluestones were brought from the Waun Mawn stone circle on the Irish Sea coast of Wales.
Another legend tells how the invading Saxon king Hengist invited British Celtic warriors to a feast but treacherously ordered his men to massacre the guests, killing 420 of them. Hengist erected Stonehenge on the site to show his remorse for the deed.
Today, The Grandma has received wonderful news of one of her closest friends, Tina Picotes, who is spending some days in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands that was founded on a day like today in 1275.
Amsterdam is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands with a population of 872,680 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban area and 2,480,394 in the metropolitan area.
Found within the province of North Holland, Amsterdam is colloquially referred to as the Venice of the North, due to the large number of canals which form a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Amsterdam was founded at the Amstel, that was dammed to control flooding; the city's name derives from the Amstel dam.
Originating as a small fishing village in the late 12th century, Amsterdambecame one of the most important ports in the world during the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, and became the leading centre for finance and trade.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the city expanded and many new neighbourhoods and suburbs were planned and built. The 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Sloten, annexed in 1921 by the municipality of Amsterdam, is the oldest part of the city, dating to the 9th century.
Amsterdam's main attractions include its historic canals, the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, the Stedelijk Museum, Hermitage Amsterdam, the Concertgebouw, the Anne Frank House, the Scheepvaartmuseum, the Amsterdam Museum, the Heineken Experience, the Royal Palace of Amsterdam, Natura Artis Magistra, Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam, NEMO, the red-light district and many cannabis coffee shops. It drew more than 5 million international visitors in 2014.
The city is also well known for its nightlife and festival activity; with several of its nightclubs (Melkweg, Paradiso) among the world's most famous. Primarily known for its artistic heritage, elaborate canal system and narrow houses with gabled façades; well-preserved legacies of the city's 17th-century Golden Age. These characteristics are arguably responsible for attracting millions of Amsterdam'svisitors annually. Cycling is key to the city's character, and there are numerous bike paths.
The Amsterdam Stock Exchange is considered the oldest modernsecurities market stock exchange in the world. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered an alpha world city by the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) study group.
The city is also the cultural capital of the Netherlands. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters in the city, including: the Philips conglomerate, AkzoNobel, Booking.com, TomTom, and ING. Moreover, many of the world's largest companies are based in Amsterdam or have established their European headquarters in the city, such as leading technology companies Uber, Netflix and Tesla.
The Port of Amsterdam is the fifth largest in Europe. The KLM hub and Amsterdam's main airport, Schiphol, is the Netherlands' busiest airport as well as the third busiest in Europe and 11th busiest airport in the world.
The Dutch capital is considered one of the most multicultural cities in the world.
A few of Amsterdam's notable residents throughout history include: painters Rembrandt and Van Gogh, the diarist Anne Frank, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza.
Due to its geographical location in what used to be wet peatland, the founding of Amsterdam is of a younger age than the founding of other urban centers in the Low Countries. However, in and around the area of what later became Amsterdam, local farmers settled as early as three millennia ago. They lived along the prehistoric IJ river and upstream of its tributary Amstel.
The prehistoric IJ was a shallow and quiet stream in peatland behind beach ridges. This secluded area could grow there into an important local settlement center, especially in the late Bronze Age, the Iron Age and the Roman Age.
Neolithic and Roman artefacts have also been found downstream of this area, in the prehistoricAmstel bedding under Amsterdam's Damrak and Rokin, such as shards of Bell Beaker culture pottery (2200-2000 BC) and a granite grinding stone (2700-2750 BC). But the location of these artefacts around the river banks of the Amstel probably point to a presence of a modest semi-permanent or seasonal settlement of the previous mentioned local farmers. A permanent settlement would not have been possible, since the river mouth and the banks of the Amstel in this period in time were too wet for permanent habitation.
The origins of Amsterdam is linked to the development of the peatland called Amestelle, meaning watery area, from Aa(m) river + stelle site at a shoreline,river bank.
Amsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306. From the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League. In 1345, an alleged Eucharistic miracle in Kalverstraat rendered the city an important place of pilgrimage until the adoption of the Protestant faith.
In the 16th century, the Dutch rebelled against Philip II of Spain and hissuccessors. The main reasons for the uprising were the imposition of new taxes, the tenth penny, and the religious persecution of Protestants by the newly introduced Inquisition. The revolt escalated into the Eighty Years' War, which ultimately led to Dutch independence.
Strongly pushed by Dutch Revolt leader William the Silent, the Dutch Republicbecame known for its relative religious tolerance. Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, Huguenots from France, prosperous merchants and printers from Flanders, and economic and religious refugees from the Spanish-controlled parts of the Low Countries found safety in Amsterdam. The influx of Flemish printers and the city's intellectual tolerance made Amsterdam a centre for the European free press.
The 17th century is considered Amsterdam's Golden Age, during which it became the wealthiest city in the western world. Ships sailed from Amsterdam to the Baltic Sea, North America, and Africa, as well as present-day Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and Brazil, forming the basis of a worldwide trading network.
Amsterdam's merchants had the largest share in both the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company. These companies acquired overseas possessions that later became Dutch colonies.
Amsterdam was Europe's most important point for the shipment of goods and was the leading financial centre of the western world.
In 1602, the Amsterdam office of the international trading Dutch East India Company became the world's first stock exchange by trading in its own shares.
The Bank of Amsterdam started operations in 1609, acting as a full-service bank for Dutch merchant bankers and as a reserve bank.
Amsterdam's prosperity declined during the 18th and early 19th centuries. The wars of the Dutch Republic with England and France took their toll on Amsterdam. During the Napoleonic Wars, Amsterdam's significance reached its lowest point, with Holland being absorbed into the French Empire. However, the later establishment of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815 marked a turning point.
The end of the 19th century is sometimes called Amsterdam's second Golden Age. New museums, a railway station, and the Concertgebouw were built; in this same time, the Industrial Revolution reached the city. The Amsterdam-Rhine Canal was dug to give Amsterdam a direct connection to the Rhine, and the North Sea Canal was dug to give the port a shorter connection to the North Sea. Both projects dramatically improved commerce with the rest of Europe and the world. In 1906, Joseph Conrad gave a brief description of Amsterdam as seen from the seaside, in The Mirror of the Sea.
Shortly before the First World War, the city started to expand again, and new suburbs were built.
Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 and took control of the country. Some Amsterdam citizens sheltered Jews, thereby exposing themselves and their families to a high risk of being imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. More than 100,000 Dutch Jews were deported to Nazi concentration camps, of whom some 60,000 lived in Amsterdam.
Perhaps the most famous deportee was the young Jewish girl Anne Frank, who died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Many new suburbs, such as Osdorp, Slotervaart, Slotermeer and Geuzenveld, were built in the years after the Second World War.
The required large-scale demolitions began in Amsterdam's former Jewish neighborhood. Smaller streets, such as the Jodenbreestraat and Weesperstraat, were widened and almost all houses and buildings were demolished. At the peak of the demolition, the Nieuwmarktrellen broke out; the rioters expressed their fury about the demolition caused by the restructuring of the city.
As a result, the demolition was stopped and the highway into the city's centre was never fully built; only the metro was completed. Only a few streets remained widened. The new city hall was built on the almost completely demolished Waterlooplein. Meanwhile, large private organizations, such as StadsherstelAmsterdam, were founded to restore the entire city centre.
Although the success of this struggle is visible today, efforts for further restoration are still ongoing. The entire city centre has reattained its former splendour and, as a whole, is now a protected area. Many of its buildings have become monuments, and in July 2010 the Grachtengordel (the three concentric canals: Herengracht, Keizersgracht, and Prinsengracht) was added to the UNESCO WorldHeritage List.
In the 21st century, the Amsterdam city centre has attracted large numbers of tourists: between 2012 and 2015, the annual number of visitors rose from 10 to 17 million. Real estate prices have surged, and local shops are making way for tourist-oriented ones, making the centre unaffordable for the city's inhabitants. These developments have evoked comparisons with Venice, a city thought to be overwhelmed by the tourist influx.
Amsterdam experienced an influx of religions and cultures after the Second World War. With 180 different nationalities, Amsterdam is home toone of the widest varieties of nationalities of any city in the world. The proportion of the population of immigrant origin in the city proper is about 50% and 88% of the population are Dutch citizens.
Amsterdam has been one of the municipalities in the Netherlands which provided immigrants with extensive and free Dutch-language courses, which have benefited many immigrants.
Amsterdam lives and breathes creativity. One moment you walk into a building from the 17th century, and the next you find yourself in a hub of creative start-up companies.
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