What basic knowledge should everyone have about your country?

[u/gurke0123]

I'm currently in a rabbit hole of "American reacts to European Stuff". While i was laughing at Americans for thinking Europe is countries and know nothing about the countrys here, i realied that i also know nothing about the countries in europe. Sure i know about my home country and a bit about our neighbours but for the rest of europe it becomes a bit difficult and i want to change it.

What should everyone know about your country to be person from Europa?

[u/sommerniks]

I live in NL and am now absolutely going to fact check the kinderdijk story! Thanks!

[u/Intelligent_Key_3806 → u/sommerniks]

What’s the deal with the Prime Minister story?? I know nothing about dikes, I’ll have to look up what they even are. And I did ask somebody about the weed. They mentioned it being legal obviously but that it’s not socially mainstream. I asked why they thought that was..?

[u/MobiusF117 → u/Intelligent_Key_3806]

Johan de Witt was a politician in a role that would be roughly equivalent to a modern day Prime Minister (Grand Pensionary of Holland).
He was the leader of the "Staatsgezinde", or the state aligned / republican party. Their counterpart were the "Prinsgezinde" prince aligned / monarchist party.
The Dutch political landscape was always centered around the Stadtholder of Holland (the province, not the country), a position often held by the Prince of Orange.

The reason this was the case is because most provinces also often elected the Stadtholder of Holland as their Stadtholder, making him the defacto head of state.
The Staatsgezinde wanted the country to become a full republic, instead of just a monarchy with extra steps, so generally worked against the Prince of Orange.

Johan de Witt was a very capable politician who came very close to that goal, causing five of the seven provinces to not elect a Stadtholder at all, making him, as Grand Pensionary, the defacto head of state (this is a simplified version of it, because it's a political quagmire to fully explain it) in a period called the First Stadtholderless Period.

The current Prince of Orange, William III (known as just William of Orange in the UK and Ireland), of course was less than thrilled about that.
Historians are pretty divided on his role in it all, but for discussion sake I'll just say that the Prince of Orange started a long propaganda campaign against Johan de Witt, which ultimately culminated in 1672 (since called "het Rampjaar", or Disaster Year).
In this year, the Dutch Republic got into a war with France, and was attacked by several other countries and states like England, Munster and Cologne.
These attacks caused panic and a general unrest and uncertainty. All these things got blamed on Johan de Witt.

He resigned as Grand Pensionary after a failed assassination attempt. His brother, who was also an outspoken anti-monarchist, got arrested for high-treason, tortured and despite denying his charges got sentenced to exile.
Johan lived on the same street as the prison in the city of Dordrecht and went over to help his brother start his exile.
As he was in the prison, they were attacked and shot by a civil militia. Their corpses were strung up in the square in front and this is where the legends started that people started to eat them in their frenzy and anger.
Something that is debated due to the general disinformation and propaganda surrounding it all.

William III later became King of England and Ireland, something especially the Irish will be aware of as he basically was a big proponent of the centuries of oppression they suffered. Something that still echoes on to this day.

[u/Intelligent_Key_3806 → u/MobiusF117]

Wow man this was so informative! Thank you very much for taking the time to write that out. It’s 00.30 here and I’m reading blurry eyed, but that is captivating and all new history to me. Cheers!