Historical Context:

1. -1609: Henry Hudson (working for Dutch East India Company) anchors off Manhattan Island and sails up the Hudson River
   

2. -1615: Champlain sails into Lake Huron
   

3. -1618: Rene Descartes (“I think, therefore I am”) moves to The Netherlands
   

4. -1626: Dutch West India Company establishes Nieuw Amsterdam (later NYC)
   

5. -1630 (to 1654): Netherlands conquers Brazil
   

6. -1637: peak of Tulip Mania
   

7. -1639: Dutch universities being teaching Descartes’ principles and philosophies
   

8. -1642: Taj Mahal is built in India
   

9. -1642: Rembrandt van Rijn paints “The Night Watch”
   

10. -1645: Seventy year period of extremely cold winters begins (Maunder Minimum/Little Ice Age). Canals regularly freeze in Netherlands
    

11. -1650: WIllem II dies (of smallpox) and Netherlands is without a monarch (to 1672)
    

12. -1652: Dutch East Indies Co establishes a settlement near Cape of Good Hope
    

13. -1652 (through 1654): First Anglo Dutch War (for supremacy of the seas)
    

14. -1653: Battle of Scheveningen
    

15. -1654:
    

    Peace with England (Treaty of Westminster)

   Johan de Witt; first Statesman of the Dutch Republic

1. -1661: Brazil sold to Portugal
   

2. -1670: Hudson’s Bay Company is founded.
   

3. -1672 (through 1674): 3rd Anglo Dutch War
   

4. -1672: Louis XIV (France) invades Holland
   

5. -1675 Anton van Leeuwenhoek discovers micro-organisms through his microscope
   

6. -1688: WIllem of Orange (William III) sets sail for England from Hellevoetsluis (Rotterdam)
   

7. -1689: John Locke returns to England from Netherlands espousing religious tolerance, and arguing against the “divine right of kings”

“Skating Fun”

Hendrick Avercamp,

17th Century Dutch Painter