Map of the Week – Famous Events in the Netherlands

For April Fools’ Day, let’s look at a whimsical map. This map of the Netherlands, created in 1930, shows various historical and (then) current events.

Netherlands, the source of famous events in past and present, 1930. Credits: Ton van Tast (‘fantast’; pseudonym for Anton van der Valk, 1884-1975), call no. MC215, 4.HEK, Nationaal Archief (public domain).

Highlights include:

• The light bulb factory in Eindhoven, representing Philips.
• The reclamation of land in the Zuiderzee.
• The prison in Veenhuizen.
• Jan van Schaffelaar jumping from the tower in Barneveld.
• The fruit orchards in the Betuwe.
• The invention of herring preservation.
• Coal mines in southern Limburg.
• Broadcasting from Hilversum.

What fascinates me about this map is how it mixes well-known historical events that are still taught to children today with more obscure facts that may have been known to people in 1930 but are no longer part of the collective memory of people in the Netherlands.