The KNS exam asks about a few big events in Dutch history. Learning them in order makes it easier.

The war with Spain and the birth of the state

In the 1500s, today's Netherlands was ruled by the Spanish king Philip II (Filips II). The king was Catholic (katholiek); many people in the north were Protestant (protestants). Freedom of religion and taxes were big points of conflict. Willem van Oranje (William of Orange) led the revolt; that is why he is called the "Father of the Fatherland" (Vader des Vaderlands). The war lasted from 1568 to 1648: de Tachtigjarige Oorlog, the Eighty Years' War. During this time an independent republic was founded. So the Dutch state is about four hundred years old.

The Golden Age

The 1600s are the Dutch Golden Age (de Gouden Eeuw). De VOC, founded in 1602, was a trading company; its ships sailed to Asia and brought back goods such as spices. They were for trade (de handel), not for fishing. The painter Rembrandt van Rijn lived in the same period. His most famous painting, De Nachtwacht (The Night Watch), hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

The Second World War

Germany (Duitsland) occupied (bezetten) the Netherlands from May 1940 to May 1945. At the start of the war, Rotterdam was bombed and its city centre was largely destroyed. Anne Frank was a Jewish girl; she hid with her family in a secret annex in Amsterdam and wrote a diary (het dagboek). She died in a concentration camp in 1945. Her diary is now famous all over the world and the house where she hid is a museum.

Colonies and migration

Indonesië declared independence in 1945, right after the war; the Netherlands recognised it in 1949.
Suriname became independent in 1975.
In the 1960s and 70s many guest workers (de gastarbeider) came to the Netherlands, especially from Turkey and Morocco.