X-Nico

38 unusual facts about Belgium


10me Escadrille de Chasse

An overwhelming invasion by the German army left Belgium partially occupied by the end of 1914, with its preserved territory shielded by deliberate defensive flooding at Nieuwpoort by the Belgians.

1956–57 in English football

They began on a high note by eliminating Belgian champions Anderlecht, confirming qualification for the first knockout round by beating the Belgian side 10-0 in the premilinary round second leg at Old Trafford.

2012 Spa-Francorchamps GP2 and GP3 Series rounds

The 2012 Spa-Francorchamps GP2 Series round and the 2012 Spa-Francorchamps GP3 Series round was a group of motor races held at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps near Spa in Belgium for the GP2 and GP3 Series championships.

Apostolic Nuncio to Belgium

The Apostolic Nuncio to Belgium is the holder of a diplomatic position within the Catholic Church, who acts as Ambassador of the Holy See to the Belgium.

Bas Leinders

Bas Leinders (born 16 July 1975 in Bree) is a racing driver from Belgium.

Beringen

Beringen, Belgium, a municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg.

Brantano Footwear

The company originated from a small factory run by André Brantegem and his brother in Lede, East Flanders.

Châtillon, Belgium

Châtillon (Tchekion in Gaume) is a section of the Belgian town of Saint-Léger, located in Wallonia municipality in the province of Luxembourg of Belgium

Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia

The site (Bouckaert Farm) was chosen due to its resemblance to Boom, a Belgian town which traditionally hosts the Tomorrowland festival it was spun off from.

Chenogne massacre

An eyewitness account by John Fague of B Company, 21st Armored Infantry Battalion (of the 11th Armored Division), near Chenogne describes the killing of German prisoners by American soldiers.

Church of Saint Joseph, Waterloo

The Church of Saint Joseph of Waterloo (French - Église Saint-Joseph de Waterloo) is an 18th-century Belgian church in Waterloo dedicated to Saint Joseph.

Claeys Formula

The Claeys Formula is used in Belgium by the practitioners of social law to evaluate the notice period that has to be respected when an employee is dismissed.

Count Harmel

The title was created by King Baudouin for Pierre Harmel, who was a well-known Belgian lawyer, politician and diplomat, and served for eight months as Prime Minister of Belgium.

Delta station

The main railway station, located within the same complex, encompasses two platforms and is served by the suburban services of NMBS/SNCB line 26 linking Vilvoorde with Halle via Etterbeek.

Étalle

Étalle, Belgium, a municipality in the province of Luxembourg, Belgium

Fernande de Cartier de Marchienne

Ferdinande Louise Marie Ghislaine (Fernande) de Cartier de Marchienne (Suarlée, 23 February 1872-Bruxelles 19 June 1903) was the Belgian mother of Marguerite Yourcenar.

Forest-South railway station

The Forest-South railway station is a railway station in the municipality of Forest in Brussels, Belgium.

Incourt

Incourt, Belgium, a municipality in the province of Walloon Brabant

Les Pastoureaux

Les Pastoureaux (literally: "The Shepherd Boys"), Petits Chanteurs de Waterloo et de Louvain-la-Neuve (Waterloo & Louvain-la-Neuve Boys' choir) is a Belgian choir of boys and men based in Waterloo, Belgium.

Louis III, Count of Löwenstein

When he died in 1574 without a male heir, the Lordship of Rochefort fell to his daughter Anna.

M1A1 Flamethrower

Used first in a battle on July 30, 1915 at Hooge in Flanders, the Germans surprised the British and French forces in an assault that inflicted almost 800 casualties.

Mariemont

Mariemont, Belgium, former hunting estate created in 1546 by Queen Mary of Hungary

Montefiore Institute

The Montefiore Institute is the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the Faculty of Applied Sciences of the University of Liège, Belgium.

Neumayer-Station III

The above surface construction of Neumayer III is predominant in the Antarctic, seen at other new stations such as the American Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and the Belgian Princess Elisabeth Base.

Nicolas Chamfort

His good looks and ready wit brought him attention; but, though endowed with immense physical strength—Madame de Craon called him "Hercule sous la figure d'Adonis" — he lived so hard that he was glad to have the opportunity to do a cure at Spa when the Belgian minister in Paris, M. van Eyck, invited Chamfort to accompany him to Germany in 1761.

Nuestra de Señora de Halle

Ribera named the fort for the city of Halle, in Belgium where he had previously spent many years in the war there.

Olen

Olen, Belgium, a municipality in the province of Antwerp, Belgium

Oostmalle

There was some talk of using this airfield as an alternative for the Airport in Deurne should it have to close.

Organ donation

In some nations (for instance, Belgium, Poland, Portugal and France) everyone is automatically an organ donor, although some jurisdictions (such as Singapore, Portugal, Poland,or New Zealand) allow opting out of the system.

Pecq

Pecq, Belgium is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut

Pierre Léonard Vander Linden

Pierre Léonard Vander Linden (December 12, 1797 – April 5, 1831) was a Belgian entomologist.

R.R.F.C. Montegnée

Royal Racing Football Club Montegnée is a Belgian association football club from the municipality of Saint-Nicolas, Liège.

Ransart

Ransart, Belgium, a former Belgian municipality and now part of the city of Charleroi

Roetgen

Roetgen is located approximately 15 km (9 mi) south-east of Aachen, near the border to Belgium.

RV Belgica

Belgica was and is the name of two Belgian research vessels, with a name derived ultimately from the Latin Gallia Belgica.

Signal de Botrange

The average and extreme temperatures are usually lower than at any other place in Belgium: the minimum temperature recorded (-25.6 °C) does not, however, exceed the absolute record (-30.1 °C ), observed in the valley of the Lomme, at Rochefort during a temperature inversion phenomenon.

Stars on the Wall

Stars on the Wall is the second album from Belgian solo act The Go Find, released in 2007 by Morr Music.

Vanbreda International

In 1930 Jos en Maurice Van Breda, two brothers from Lier, founded Bank J.Van Breda & C°.


1996 European Community Championships

The 1996 European Community Championships was a tennis tournament played on indoor carpet courts at the Sportpaleis Antwerp in Antwerp in Belgium and was part of the Championship Series of the 1996 ATP Tour.

Amblève

Amel, a germanonphone town in Belgium, called Amblève in French.

Antrix Corporation

Successful Commercial Satellite Launches of Kitsat (Korea), Tubsat (DLR - Germany), BIRD (DLR - Germany), PROBA (Verhaert, Belgium) aboard the ISRO's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

Arthur Vierendeel

He obtained an MSc in construction and mining engineering in 1874 at the Université catholique de Louvain, after which he worked as an engineer for the company Nicaise et Delcuve in La Louvière, Belgium.

Béco Dranoff

In 1998, Dranoff co-founded the modern Brazilian music label Ziriguiboom in association with Belgium’s Crammed Discs, launching the international careers of artists Bebel Gilberto, Celso Fonseca, Cibelle, Zuco 103, Trio Mocotó, Bossacucanova, Apollo Nove, DJ Dolores and the late producer Suba.

Berendrecht Lock

In July 2009, it was announced that the Belgian dredging company Jan De Nul, together with a consortium of contractors consisting of the Spanish Sacyr Vallehermoso, the Italian Impregilo and the Panamanian company Grupo Cusa, had been awarded the contract to build the six new locks on the enlarged Panama Canal to accommodate larger Post-Panamax vessels.

Bullecourt 1917, Jean and Denise Letaille museum

In 2008, the Australian Department of Veterans Affairs wants to upgrade seven sites showing the Australian forces during the First World War (Ypres and Passchendaele in Belgium; Fromelles, Bullecourt, Mont-Saint-Quentin, Pozières and Villers-Bretonneux).

Café liégeois

However during World War I with the Battle of Liège in full swing and Vienna representing the enemy, Paris' cafés started renaming the dessert café liégeois in honour of Belgium's embattled forts.

Changer

In 2005, Changer played overseas for the first time, at Nevelfest in Antwerp, Belgium.

Clare Benedict

The collection also includes photographs and autographs: an envelope addressed by Queen Victoria to the Queen of Belgium, letters by James Fenimore Cooper, Walter Scott, and Henry James.

Echo Eggebrecht

Eggebrecht has held solo exhibitions at Horton Gallery, New York; Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York; Ter Caemer Meert Contemporary, Kortijk, Belgium; Sixtyseven, New York and Sixspace in Los Angeles as well as group exhibitions at the Brooklyn Academy of Music; ICA; Nicole Klagsburn; and White Box in New York; Groeflin Maag Gallery in Basel, Switzerland; Poets on Painters at the Ulrich Museum.

Filip Claus

He also made portraits of Belgian politicians such as former Prime Ministers of Belgium Jean-Luc Dehaene and Guy Verhofstadt.

French National Monotype 1924

It might originate (or vice versa) as the Scheldejol a Class originated in Antwerp, Belgium and also used in The Netherlands but is a little different at certain measurements.

Geiner Mosquera

He ran in the fifth heat against seven other athletes, including Belgium's Jonathan Borlée and United States' LaShawn Merritt, both of whom were heavy favorites in this event.

George Ohsawa

They are, in particular, Herman Aihara in California, Roland Yasuhara in Belgium (where LIMA, the well-known manufacturer of macrobiotic products was born), Tomio Kikuchi in Brazil, Clim Yoshimi in France, and Michio Kushi in Massachusetts.

Hugh S. Gibson

He was thus present in the London office of American Ambassador Walter Hines Page when Page and representatives of Belgium persuaded Herbert Hoover to set aside his engineering activities in order to organize food relief for occupied Belgium.

Hunslet Austerity 0-6-0ST

It has recently been sold abroad to private owners from Stoomcentrum Maldegem in Belgium.

Interoute

Interoute's offices: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, plus a Network Operations Centre in Sofia and a Customer Service Centre in Prague and Luleå.

Jacopo Foroni

After studies with Alberto Mazzucato in Milan Foroni worked as a conductor in France, Belgium and Holland before arriving in Sweden in 1849 to work for Vincenzo Galli's opera company at the Mindre teatern where he gave the Swedish premieres of works by Bellini and Donizetti as well as the young Verdi.

Joshua Fineberg

He worked on an evening-length modern dance/theatre piece with the Belgian choreographer Johanne Saunier and founding member of the Wooster Group Jim Clayburgh based on Nabokov’s Lolita.

Karl Heeremans

From this time on, numerous awards and recognitions were presented to him, such as the 1964 - price of Namur, Belgium 1962–1967 Italian Olivetti, Knokke and Ronse, Belgium and Cannes, France.

Keena Young

In 2007, Young had a short stint with Spotter Leuven, a professional team in Belgium, before joining Mobis Phoebus of the Korean Basketball League (in South Korea).

Keiji Ozaki

He lost to Jessy Petit-Jean in a fight for the WKN World Lightweight Kickboxing Championship on November 17, 2012 in Liege, Belgium.

Laurensberg

Beyond the German border, the district borders the Belgian town of Kelmis, in the Province of Liège, as well as the Dutch communities of Vaals, Wittem and Simpelveld, all contained with the Dutch Province of Limburg.

Laurent Wéry

Laurent Wéry released his first solo single "My Sound" on 14 February 2009, the song reached number 20 in Belgium.

Luc Grethen

There he studied composition, orchestration and conducting at the capital conservatory, as well as oboe and English horn at the Strasbourg and Mons (Belgium) conservatories.

Lysosome

Christian de Duve, then chairman of the Laboratory of Physiological Chemistry at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, had been studying the mechanism of action of a pancreatic hormone insulin in liver cells.

Macrodontopteryx

If Macrodontopteryx is indeed a distinct genus, perhaps some pseudotooth bird fossils found in Lutetian (Middle Eocene, MP11-13, about 45 Ma) deposits at Etterbeek (Belgium) belong therein.

Marc Goossens

Marc Goossens nicknamed The Goose (born 30 November 1969 in Geel) is a Belgian racecar driver who drove in Formula 3000 from 1994 to 1996 and part-time from 1999 to 2001.

Maurice Seynaeve

Maurice Seynaeve (Heule (near Kortrijk) Belgium, 31 January 1907 - Florencio Varela, Buenos Aires Argentina, 28 November 1998) was a Belgian Cyclo-cross rider in the years 1928-1940.

Morgnshtern

In 1937 Morgnshtern had prepared a delegation to take part in the Workers Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium, but the Polish government refused to give travel visas to the athletes.

Nabil Sayadi

Born in Lebanon, Nabil Sayadi was the director and founder of the European branch of Global Relief Foundation, centred in Belgium.

Nariné Simonian

She has also given concerts in Russia, Belgium, Switzerland (in Bulle, at Saint-Pierre des des Liens) where she has a recorded a CD, in Finland, at Kiev (Ukraine in 2003 with Dominique de Williencourt and in November 2008 at the Organ Hall), in North America (New York on 1 November 1998, at the Armenian Evangelical Church of New York, in Montreal and in South America in 1997, along with Olivier Latry (Argentina, Uruguay at the Festival Internacional del Uruguay Órgano,.

Norman Augustus Finch

On 22/23 April 1918 at Zeebrugge, Belgium, Sergeant Finch was second in command of the pom-poms and Lewis gun in the foretop of HMS Vindictive.

PCC streetcar

The PCC technology was exported to Europe, with La Brugeoise et Nivelles (now the BN division of Bombardier) of Bruges, Belgium, building several hundred streetcars that saw service in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, The Hague, Saint-Étienne, Marseille and Belgrade (the latter city buying vehicles initially used by the Belgian Vicinal railways).

Peteca

When Brazil was present at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium the Brazilian athletes took with them some shuttlecocks for amusement on the ship and during the intervals between games.

Princess Marie-Esméralda of Belgium

Princess Marie-Esméralda of Belgium, Lady Moncada (Marie-Esméralda Adelaide Lilian Anna Léopoldine, born 30 September 1956, Laeken, Belgium) is a member of the Belgian Royal Family.

Psyko Punkz

The two are signed to the Belgian record label Dirty Workz, where they have been regularly releasing tracks since the year 2008.

Quatre Bras

More specifically it refers to the crossroad of the Charleroi-Brussels road (currently named N5) and the Nivelles-Namur road South of Genappe in Wallonia, Belgium.

Roberto Sabatino Lopez

There he met his future wife, Claude-Anne Kirschen, a wartime refugee from Belgium who had come to New York with her family in 1940.

Rocco Granata

Granata was born in Figline Vegliaturo, Calabria, southern Italy; but his parents immigrated to Belgium when he was aged ten.

Sabena Flight 548

Sabena Flight 548, registration OO-SJB, was a Boeing 707 aircraft that crashed en route to Brussels, Belgium, from New York City on February 15, 1961, killing the entire United States Figure Skating team on its way to the 1961 World Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Staf Van Reet

He obtained a degree of engineering in Applied Biological Sciences and a Ph.D. in Agricultural Sciences from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven, Belgium) and a Law degree from the University of Antwerp (Antwerp, Belgium).

Theo Wharton

Wharton was first selected for the Wales Under-17 squad for 2011 Euro qualifiers where he start 2 games against Belgium and Denmark.

Touché Amoré

The tour started July 27, 2011 and finishing August 12 and coincided with both La Dispute's and Touché Amoré's appearances at Hevy Festival in the United Kingdom and Ieperfest in Belgium.

Triple Espresso

The production in Belgium was the first foreign-language version of the show, playing in the city of Ghent, in Flemish.

Willy Polleunis

Willy Polleunis (born 27 December 1947) is a retired long-distance runner from Belgium who won the silver medal in the 3000 metres at the 1973 European Indoor Championships, behind his clubmate Emiel Puttemans.

Wu Qian

In October 2009, Qian represented China in the Europalia festival performing Frédéric Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Brussels Philharmonic in a tour of Belgium under Carlos Kalmar.