St. Elizabeth's Flood of 1421
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 21, 2025
On the night of November 18–19, 1421, a powerful storm surge from the North Sea broke through poorly maintained dikes in the County of Holla...
Showing posts with the label Netherlands
Abraham Crijnssen: The Ship That Disguised Itself As An Island
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 3, 2025
Camouflage is a vital strategy in warfare—whether on land, at sea, or in the air. During the First and Second World Wars, many Allied ships—...
The Delft Tower Experiment
Kaushik Patowary
Oct 7, 2024
In 1654, twelve years after the death of the brilliant Italian astronomer and scientist Galileo Galilei, Prince Leopold de' Medici, brot...
Leendert Hasenbosch: The Gay Soldier Who Was Marooned on a Deserted Island
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 25, 2023
In January 1726, a British East India Company ship named James and Mary landed on Ascension Island. While exploring the island, the crew st...
World’s First 3D-Printed Steel Bridge
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 21, 2021
A 12-meter long steel pedestrian bridge opened last week in Amsterdam. Unlike other steel bridges around the world, this was not forged in a...
The Accidental Bombing of Bezuidenhout
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 5, 2021
At eight o’clock in the morning of 3 March 1945, the air-raid sirens were heard for the first time over Hague. A short while later a wave of...
Dementia Villages
Kaushik Patowary
Jul 29, 2020
At first glance, Hogewey, a small community situated about 20 km outside of Amsterdam looks like any other Dutch town. Residents go about th...
Waterloopbos: Where Dutch Engineers Learned to Play With The Sea
Kaushik Patowary
May 27, 2020
A quarter of Netherlands lie below the sea level. Most of these low-lying areas are land reclaimed from the sea. The region was originally o...
The Kettle War
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 17, 2020
Photo: B toy Anucha/Shutterstock.com The Kettle War of 1784 was a quintessential David versus Goliath story. A formidable naval fleet of...
Why Mediaeval Europeans Slept Inside Boxes
Kaushik Patowary
Nov 1, 2019
For much of human history, privacy during bedtime was an alien concept. Many poor families lived in small houses, where there was only one o...
