History of Split

The city of Split was founded as the Greek colony of Aspálathos (Aσπάλαθος) in the 3rd or 2nd century BC. It became a prominent settlement around 650 CE when it succeeded the ancient capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia, Salona. After the Sack of Salona by the Avars and Slavs, the fortified Palace of Diocletian was settled by the Roman refugees. Split became a Byzantine city, to later gradually drift into the sphere of the Republic of Venice and the Kingdom of Croatia, with the Byzantines retaining nominal suzerainty. For much of the High and Late Middle Ages, Split enjoyed autonomy as a free city, caught in the middle of a struggle between Venice and the King of Hungary for control over the Dalmatian cities.
Venice eventually prevailed and during the early modern period Split remained a Venetian city, a heavily fortified outpost surrounded by Ottoman territory. Its hinterland was won from the Ottomans in the Morean War of 1699, and in 1797, as Venice fell to Napoleon, the Treaty of Campo Formio rendered the city to the Habsburg Monarchy. In 1805, the Peace of Pressburg added it to the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy and in 1806 it was included in the French Empire, becoming part of the Illyrian Provinces in 1809. After being occupied in 1813, it was eventually granted to the Austrian Empire following the Congress of Vienna, where the city remained a part of the Austrian Kingdom of Dalmatia until the fall of Austria-Hungary in 1918 and the formation of Yugoslavia. In World War II, the city was annexed by Italy, then liberated by the Partisans after the Italian capitulation in 1943. It was then re-occupied by Germany, which granted it to its puppet Independent State of Croatia. The city was liberated again by the Partisans in 1944, and was included in the post-war Socialist Yugoslavia, as part of its republic of Croatia. In 1991, Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia amid the Croatian War of Independence.
Antiquity.
Although the beginnings of Split are traditionally associated with the construction of Diocletian's Palace in 305 CE, the city was founded several centuries earlier as the Greek colony of Aspálathos, or Spálathos. It was a colony of the polis of Issa (inhabited by Dorian Greeks), the modern-day town of Vis on the island of the same name. Issa, itself a colony of the Sicilian city of Syracuse, had acquired sovereignty and started founding its own colonies in 367 BCE, after the death of Dionysius the Elder. The exact year the city was founded is not known, but it's estimated to have been in the 3rd or 2nd century BCE.
The Greek settlement lived off trade with the surrounding Illyrian tribes, mostly the Delmatae. In time, the Roman Republic became the dominant power in the region, conquering the Illyrians in the Illyrian Wars of 229 and 219 BCE. Upon establishing permanent rule, the Romans founded the Province of Dalmatia. The city of Salona, only a short distance from Spálathos, became the capital of the province and evolved into a significant city in the Roman state. The history of Spálathos becomes obscure for a while at this point, being overshadowed by that of nearby Salona, to which it would later become successor.
The Roman Emperor Diocletian (ruled 284 to 305 CE) reformed the government in the late Roman Empire and established the Tetrarchy. This new system presupposed that Diocletian himself would retire at some point in favor of Galerius. Thus, in 293 CE, he began the construction of an opulent and heavily fortified palace near his home town of Salona, selecting the site of Spálathos (or Spalatum in Latin). The palace was built directly fronting the sea, so as to allow its occupant to escape by that means if necessary (in an era plagued by civil wars). The site was most likely chosen due to being near to Salona, but also with a secure port and a more immediate access to the open sea in the case of an attack. Following a bout of illness in 303 CE, Diocletian announced he would retire as soon as his Palace, scheduled for completion in 305 CE, was ready.
The Palace was built as a massive structure, much like a Roman military fortress. It faces the sea on its south side, with its walls 170 to 200 metres (570 to 700 ft) long, and 15 to 20 metres (50 to 70 ft) high, enclosing an area of 38,000 m² (9½ acres, or about 5.5 football pitches). The palace water supply was substantial, fed by an aqueduct from the Jadro Spring (9 km away from the city), which supplies the city to this day. The palace and the city of Spalatum which formed its surroundings were at times inhabited by a population as large as 8,000 to 10,000 people. Diocletian established Marjan hill as a recreational area for the residents, a tradition which persists to this day. The palace was finished on schedule in AD 305. Diocletian accordingly retired, becoming the first Roman Emperor to voluntarily remove himself from office. After Diocletian's death, the palace became state property and was used for various purposes. For a period one part of it seems to have been the site of a textile manufactory where Salonitan women worked.
The Palace was to have one further significant occupant, however: Flavius Julius Nepos, the last legitimate Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. By the late 5th century CE, the Western provinces of the Empire fell under the control of various Germanic confederations. Dalmatia (which had been considered a Western province since the reign of Theodosius I) eventually remained the only exception in that regard. From 468 CE, the Province was ruled by Julius Nepos, who was appointed Western Emperor in 473 CE by Leo I of the Eastern Court. He attempted to establish himself in the Western capital of Ravenna (right across the Adriatic from Salona), but was deposed within two years by his Germanic "Magister militum", Orestes. He returned to Salona in 475 and took Diocletian's Palace for his residence. Orestes installed his young son Romulus Augustulus as the Emperor in the West, but was murdered within a year (476 CE) by Odoacer and his son deposed. Thereupon Odoacer did not establish his own puppet emperor, but instead returned the Imperial regalia of the West to the Emperor in the East (that now being Emperor Zeno), effectively abolishing the Western Imperial throne. The Eastern Court in Constantinople, however, still recognized Julius Nepos as legitimate Western Emperor. From AD 475, Nepos therefore ruled from Diocletian's Palace as effective "Emperor of Dalmatia". He was however murdered in the Palace by local political enemies in 480 CE, whereupon the two thrones of the Roman Empire were formally united under the Eastern emperors in Constantinople, who now became the sole Roman emperors. The Empire itself is henceforward more commonly referred to in historiography as the Byzantine Empire.
In 493 CE Salona, along with most of Dalmatia, was lost to the Ostrogothic Kingdom. However, by 535 CE the Emperor Justinian the Great was ready to attempt a reconquest of Roman lands held by the Ostrogoths. By July of the same year, the Roman general Mundus had quickly overrun Dalmatia and captured Salona. But a large Gothic army arrived to reclaim the province, and though he inflicted a heavy defeat upon them, Mundus himself was mortally wounded. As a result, the Roman army withdrew, and all of Dalmatia, with the exception of Salona, was abandoned to the Goths. Salona was then taken by the Gothic general Gripas. Justinian dispatched a new general, Constantianus, to recover Dalmatia, which he accomplished speedily. Gripas was forced to abandon Salona because of the ruined state of its fortifications and the pro-Roman stance of its citizens. Constantinianus then occupied the city and rebuilt its walls. Seven days later, the Gothic army departed for Italy, so that by late June 536 CE Dalmatia was again in Roman hands.
Sack of Salona.
The history of Split as a significant city, in its own right, begins with the Sack of Salona by the Avars in 639 CE. Conflicting versions of the event are in existence, and it is unknown whether the city was taken by treachery, by ruse, or whether the defense was simply abandoned by the terrified populace. In either case, the city (in spite of its newly-rebuilt circuit of walls) fell with little or no resistance, and was thoroughly sacked and destroyed, "so that nothing but the theatre remained standing". The Romans of Salona fled by sea to the nearby Adriatic islands of Solentia (Šolta), Bretia (Brač), Pharia (Hvar), Issa (Vis), and Corcyra Nigra (Korčula). The Avars had ravaged the entire region and expelled or killed most of the Roman population. The Dalmatian region and its shores were at this time settled by tribes of Croats, a South Slavic people subservient to the Avar khagans (the Avars themselves, i.e. the Avar Khaganate, occupied the more fertile land of the Pannonian Basin).
For the following decade, the Salonitans lived in huts on the islands, suffering from a lack of drinking water (the islands themselves appear to have been mostly deserted by that time). The younger men equipped some light ships and raided Croat settlements on the mainland "so that none of the Slavs dared to go down to the sea". At this point there emerged a leader among the exiles, known only as Severus the Great ("whose house had stood next to the columns of the Palace by the sea"). He persuaded the vast majority of the remaining Salonitans to return to the mainland. They could not return to the ruins of Salona, which were entirely indefensible and closer to the Slavic tribes of the interior, but chose instead to occupy the 300-year-old Palace of Diocletian. They intended to stay in the Palace until such a time as Salona might be reoccupied, but this never became possible. The strong fortifications of the palace, along with its placement directly upon the sea, meant that it could not be effectively besieged by the Slavic tribes of the mainland.
The Salonitans occupied the Palace around the year 650 CE. Their numbers were so reduced by this point that the fortress-like structure, which was not built to serve as a city, was sufficient for their needs. Contrary to their expectations of retaking Salona, the citizens were hard-pressed to maintain themselves even in the Palace. Upon hearing of their return, the Croats destroyed their crops and confined them within the gates. The Emperor Constans II intervened at this point, and granted them an Imperial mandate to establish themselves in the Palace as the City of Spalatum, which imposed upon the Slavs a cessation of further hostilities through diplomatic arrangements. The Empire itself at this time was hard-pressed to defend itself against the Caliphate and the Lombards in Italy, but was at the time in fact allied with the Croatian Slavs against the Avars.
The citizens of Spalatum now purged the Temple of Jupiter in Diocletian's Palace and rededicated it to the Virgin Mary. They undertook a dangerous expedition to the overgrown ruins of Salona to recover the remains of the popular Saint Domnius, a one-time Bishop of Salona of Syrian ancestry, executed by order of Emperor Diocletian. They brought the remains to Spalatum in great haste, fearing attack by Slavs, and so brought the remains of the wrong saint. A second expedition was more successful, and the Cathedral of Saint Domnius could now be established with the necessary conditions of sanctity (some have later argued, however, that the remains interred in the Cathedral were not in fact those of Saint Domnius). The new see was invested by the Pope with all the authority of the ancient archiepiscopal see of Salona. The Archbishop of Salona retained his status as metropolitan of all Dalmatia, continuing on to be referred to for centuries by the name of the ruined ancient city. In 1100, the bell tower which became the main symbol of the city was constructed and dedicated to Saint Domnius, by then regarded as the patron saint of the city.
Byzantine period.
Throughout the following centuries, effectively until the Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople, Split remained a "de jure" possession of the Byzantine Empire. Its hinterland, however, ravaged and desolated by the Avar invasion (from which it never fully recovered), was lost to the Empire beyond much hope of recovery. The region was now home to the Duchy of the Croats. In this period, an independent Dalmatian language developed from Latin, with a distinct local dialect: to its inhabitants, the city became known as Spalatrum or Spalatro.
Dalmatia, or rather the cities, islands, and the immediate coastline, was organized as a Byzantine duchy, administered by the Exarchate of Ravenna. After the final fall of Ravenna to the Lombards in 751, the prefects and fleet fled from Ravenna to the port of Jadera (Zadar), and the Duchy of Dalmatia began to be administered from there. The cities along the coast, however, enjoyed significant privileges and in practice ran their own affairs independently.
In 925, in the hinterland of Spalatro, Tomislav, Duke of the Croats, conquered the Duchy of Pannonia to the north, and the Kingdom of Croatia now emerged in the hinterland of the city. He was an ally of the Byzantine Empire against their common enemy, Simeon I of Bulgaria, and relations with the Empire were cordial. However, contrary to some claims originating in the 19th century, the notion that the King received from the Emperor any powers (the position of "Strategos") over Spalatro or other Dalmatian cities, or exercised any authority there, is not supported by historical sources. He did receive from the Emperor Romanus I Lecapenus the title of "proconsul", but this was an honorific with no function attached to it.
Tomislav had his seat at Nin, on the northern Dalmatian coast (relatively near to Zadar), and the bishops of Nin (also known as "bishops of the Croats") gained jurisdiction and influence over the Church in Croatian territories, at the expense of the Archbishopric in Spalatro. The Bishopric of Nin, headed by Bishop Gregory, attempted to institute the "Slavonic" or "Slavic language" as the language of religious service in the Croatian realm. In response to these developments, in 925 a significant synod was held in Split, at which it was decreed that "no one should presume to celebrate the divine mysteries in the Slavonic language, but only in Latin and Greek, and that no one of that tongue should be advanced to the holy orders". Further, the Archbishop of Spalatum was reaffirmed as having jurisdiction over Croatian lands.
Throughout the 9th and 10th centuries, the waters of the Adriatic were the theatre of a naval struggle between the Narentines (a South Slavic confederation recognizing the King of Croatia as their sovereign) and the Venetian Republic, with the Narentines long holding the upper hand and at one point raiding Venice itself. Split was constantly subjected to raids from both the Narentines on the sea, and by the Croats in its immediate hinterland. Therefore, the city offered its allegiance to Venice in exchange for the Doge establishing security. In 998 the Venetian Doge Pietro II Orseolo, led a large naval expedition along the eastern shores of the Adriatic. He arrived in Split and was welcomed by the population, with the city immediately allying itself to him and providing naval assistance. He defeated the Narentines the same year, and the cities of Dalmatia offered to pledge their allegiance to the Doge and his successors. After obtaining permission from Emperor Basil II in Constantinople, Orseolo proclaimed himself Duke of Dalmatia.
In 1014 the First Bulgarian Empire was destroyed by Basil II, and in 1019 the Byzantine Empire restored direct control over Dalmatia. The title "Duke of Dalmatia" seems to have been dropped at this point by the Venetian doges. In 1069 Peter Krešimir IV, King of Croatia, gained control over Dalmatian islands and cities, including Split, and stretched his rule south to Neretva. The coastal cities retained autonomous administration and were still nominally under Byzantine Empire, but were now subjects of the Croatian king. By 1084 Imperial influence was waning again. Emperor Alexius I Comnenus conferred once more the title of "Duke of Dalmatia" to the Venetian Doge (his nominal vassal). The Venetians had rendered invaluable naval assistance to the Empire in the Byzantine–Norman wars, while the last King of Croatia, Demetrius Zvonimir, had offended the Emperor by seeking investiture from the Pope and not the Patriarch of Constantinople (as was the case with his immediate predecessors). However, it was merely a title since Dalmatian coastal cities remained under control of King Zvonimir.
After the death of Croatian King Stephen II in 1091, a period of succession crisis followed in Croatia, with King Ladislaus I of Hungary interfering in it. Byzantine Emperor Alexius took advantage of this and joined the old Theme of Dalmatia to the Empire. In 1096 Emperor Alexius, at the time engaged in the First Crusade, granted the administration of Dalmatia to the Doge of Venice.
Struggle for Dalmatia.
Split was now a subject of the Venetian Doge, and was, along with Trogir and Zadar, one of the three (major) cities of Dalmatia. At this time the Kingdom of Hungary arrived on the scene. King Coloman had by 1097 conquered the Kingdom of Croatia in the Dalmatian hinterland, and after a failed Croat rebellion in 1102, crowned himself "King of Croatia and Dalmatia" at Biograd, the coastal town that served as the traditional seat of the Croatian monarchy. The neutrality of Venice in these events was acquired by assurances that the Hungarian kings would respect Venetian rule in Split and the other coastal cities. Hungarians and the Venetians now sailed against the Duchy of Apulia in a joint expedition to end Norman incursions into the Adriatic, in which they were successful. After this, however, it was no longer in Coloman's interest to maintain his Venetian alliance, and, in 1105, when the Venetians under Doge Ordelafo Faliero de Doni were engaged in Syria and Acre, Coloman laid siege to Zadar and took it by assault, whereupon he advanced on Split. The citizens of Split, seeing the appearance of "an army of unknown race" were "disposed to fight", but "finding that the men were Christians and that the King was disposed to deal liberally with them", they surrendered upon guarantee of their ancient privileges. Nearby Trogir (at that time the primary rival of Split), did the same.
The rights granted to the city (and reaffirmed by new charters) were substantial. Split was to pay no tribute, it was to choose its own count and archbishop whom the king would confirm, it preserved its old Roman laws, and appointed its own judge. Dues from trade (which were substantial in the period), were divided between the count, the archbishop, and the king, and no foreigner was to live within the walls of the city against the will of the citizens. These rights were generally upheld by Hungarian kings, but there were inevitable incidents of violation. The new Hungarian Archbishop of Split, Manasses, attempted to take control of the city with the aid of the Hungarian garrison (whose presence was in itself a violation of privilege). Headed by Adriano de Treviso, the Count of Split, the citizens rose up, and, with the help of a contingent from Trogir, massacred the garrison and expelled the Archbishop. Some years later, one Reles, referred to as the Duke of Croatia, attempted to gain control over the city by inducing the citizens to elect him their Count, but the citizens refused "out of detestation of being ruled by a Slav". When Reles ravaged their lands the citizens defeated him in battle and killed him.
King Coloman died in 1116, ten years after his conquest, while the Doge Ordelafo Faliero had in the meantime returned from Outremer. In a comprehensive campaign along the coast, the Doge retook all the Dalmatian cities, and also, for the first time, the Croatian cities of coast such as Biograd and Šibenik. In 1117, however, he was defeated and killed in renewed battle with the Hungarians under Stephen II of Hungary, and Split again acknowledged Hungarian rule. But the new Doge, Domenico Michele, quickly defeated the Hungarians again and restored Venetian authority by 1118. In 1124, while the Doge was engaged against the Byzantine Empire (now hostile to Venice), Stephen II recovered Split and Trogir without resistance. Upon Michele's return in 1127, however, the Doge yet again expelled the Hungarians from the two cities and utterly destroyed Biograd, the favored seat of the Croatian Kings that the Hungarians were attempting to establish as a rival to the Venetian Zadar.
The cities remained in Venetian hands without contest during the reign of Béla II. But in 1141, his successor, King Géza II of Hungary, having conquered Bosnian lands, marched to Split and Trogir, both voluntarily accepting him as overlord. This turned out to be a definitive conquest, as Venetian rule was not to return to Split for another 186 years. His son Stephen III then retook Šibenik, which had become a large and wealthy town due to the influx of refugees from the ruined Biograd. Šibenik was at this time chartered by the King and became counted among the "Dalmatian" cities. In 1145 the episcopal see of Zadar became raised to metropolitan rank by Pope Anastasius IV, to avoid submission to the now-Hungarian Archbishopric of Salona at Split (a distinction which remains to this day, with the Archdiocese of Zadar being subject directly to the Holy See).
In that period, however, Split was to see one brief (and final) restoration of Imperial power in Dalmatia. The Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus began his campaigns against the Kingdom of Hungary in 1151, and by 1164, had secured the submission of the Dalmatian cities back under Imperial rule. Having won a decisive victory against Hungary in 1167 at the Battle of Sirmium, consolidating his gains, the Emperor suddenly broke with Venice as well, and sent a fleet of 150 ships to the Adriatic. Split was to remain in Byzantine hands until Manuel's death in 1180, when Béla III of Hungary moved to restore Hungarian power in Dalmatia. The city remained loyal to the Empire, resisting the re-establishment of Hungarian rule, and consequently, upon its inevitable submission, was punished with the King's refusal to renew its ancient privileges. In that year Rainiero, the Archbishop of Split, attempted to regain Church farmlands on Mount Massarus (Mosor) from Croats who occupied them, and was stoned to death by the locals.
During the 20-year Hungarian civil war between King Sigismund and the Capetian House of Anjou of the Kingdom of Naples, the losing contender, Ladislaus of Naples, sold his disputed rights on Dalmatia to the Venetian Republic for 100,000 ducats. Acting on the pretext, the Republic took over in the city by the year 1420.
Venetian period.
By this time the population was largely Croatian, while Romance Dalmatian names were not as common, according to the Medieval city archives. The common language was Croatian, but Italian (a mixture of Tuscan and Venetian dialects) was also spoken due to Italian notaries, school teachers and merchants. The city's autonomy was greatly reduced: the highest authority was a prince and captain ("conte e capitanio"), assigned by Venice.
Split eventually developed into a significant port-city, with important trade routes to the Ottoman-held interior through the nearby Klis pass. Culture flourished as well, Split being the hometown of Marko Marulić, a classic Croatian author. Marulić's most acclaimed work, "Judita" (1501), was an epic poem about Judith and Holfernes, widely held to be the first modern work of Croatian literature. It was written in Split and printed in Venice in 1521. The advances and achievements were reserved mostly for the aristocracy: the illiteracy rate was extremely high, mostly because Venetian rule showed little interest in educational and medical facilities.
In 1797 Split was ceded to the Habsburg Monarchy by the Treaty of Campo Formio, ending 377 years of Venetian rule in the city.
Napoleonic wars.
Split became part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1805, after the defeat of the Third Coalition at the Battle of Austerlitz and the consequent Treaty of Pressburg. It was included directly in the French Empire in 1806. The same year, Vincenzo Dandolo was named "provveditore generale" and general Auguste de Marmont was named military commander of Dalmatia.
In 1809, after a brief war with France, Austria ceded Carinthia, Carniola, Croatia west of the Sava River, Gorizia and Trieste to France. These territories, along with Dalmatia, formed the Illyrian Provinces. During this period, large investments were undertaken in the city, new streets were built and parts of the ancient fortifications were removed.
Austria, with help from a British force led by Captain William Hoste, occupied Split in November 1813. Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the city was officially ceded to Austria.
Under Habsburg rule.
The Split region became part of the Kingdom of Dalmatia, a separate administrative unit. After the revolutions of 1848 as a result of the romantic nationalism, two factions appeared. One was the pro-Croatian "Unionist faction" (later called the "Puntari", "Pointers"), led by the People's Party and, to a lesser extent, the Party of Rights, both of which advocated the union of Dalmatia with the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia which was under Hungarian administration. This faction was strongest in Split, and used it as its headquarters. The other faction was the pro-Italian Autonomist faction (also known as the "Irredentist" faction), whose political goals varied from autonomy within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to a political union with the Kingdom of Italy.
The political alliances in Split shifted over time. At first, the Unionists and Autonomists were allied against the centralism of Vienna. After a while, when the national question came to prominence, they separated. Under Austria, however, Split can generally be said to have stagnated. The great upheavals in Europe in 1848 gained no ground in Split, and the city did not rebel.
Antonio Bajamonti became Mayor of Split in 1860 and – except for a brief interruption during the period 1864–65 – held the post for over two decades until 1880. Bajamonti was also a member of the Dalmatian Sabor (1861–91) and the Austrian Chamber of Deputies (1867–70 and 1873–79). In 1882 the Bajamonti's party lost the elections and Dujam Rendić-Miočević, a prominent city lawyer, was elected to the post.
As part of Yugoslavia.
Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
After the end of World War I and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the province of Dalmatia, along with Split, became a part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Split was the site of a series of incidents between 1918 and 1920.
Since Rijeka, Trieste and Zadar, the three other large cities on the eastern Adriatic coast, were annexed by Italy, Split became the most important port in the Kingdom. The Lika railway, connecting Split to the rest of the country, was completed in 1925.
The country changed its name to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, and the Port of Split became the seat of new administrative unit, Littoral Banovina. After the Cvetković-Maček agreement, Split became the part of new administrative unit (merging of Sava and Littoral Banovina plus some Croat populated areas), Banovina of Croatia in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
World War II.
In April 1941, following the invasion of Yugoslavia by Nazi Germany, Split was occupied by Italy. Although Split formally became part of the Independent State of Croatia, the Ustaše were not able to establish and strengthen their rule in Split, as Italians assumed all power in Dalmatia. One month later on 18 May 1941, when the Treaties of Rome were signed, Italy formally annexed Split and large parts of Dalmatia down to Kotor. The Dalmatian Governatorate hosted 390.000 inhabitants, of which 280.000 Croats, 90.000 Serbs and 5.000 Italians.
Italian rule met heavy opposition from the Croat population as Split became a centre of anti-fascist sentiment in Yugoslavia. The first armed resistance group was organized on 7 May 1941; the 63 member strong 1st Strike Detachment ("Prvi udarni odred") served as the basis for future formations, including the 1st Split Partisan Detachment. Between September and October 1941 alone, ten officials of the Italian fascist occupation were assassinated by the citizens.
On 12 June 1942, a fascist mob attacked the city's synagogue, and destroyed its library and archive. Worshipers were beaten as they left the synagogue and Jewish-owned shops were targeted the following day.
The local football clubs refused to compete in the Italian championship; HNK Hajduk and RNK Split suspended their activities and both joined the Partisans along with their entire staff after the Italian capitulation provided the opportunity. Soon after Hajduk became the official football club of the Partisan movement.
In September 1943, following the capitulation of Italy, the city was temporarily controlled by Tito's brigades with thousands of people volunteering to join the Partisans of Marshal Josip Broz Tito (a third of the total population, according to some sources). 8,000 Italian soldiers from the 15th Infantry Division Bergamo prepared to fight alongside the Yugoslav Partisans against the Waffen SS Prinz Eugen. The Italian General Becuzzi handed over to the Partisans 11 soldiers which they considered as "war criminals; the Partisans also executed up to 41 members of the Italian Police forces, later found in mass graves.
A few weeks later, however, the Partisans were forced into retreat as the Wehrmacht placed the city under the authority of the Independent State of Croatia. The Germans decimated the Italian soldiers as traitors, including three Generals (Policardi, Pelligra e Cigala Fulgosi) and 48 officials (Trelj massacre). In this period the last remaining symbols of Italian heritage in Split, including several Venetian Lions of St.Mark, were erased from the town.
In a tragic turn of events, besides being bombed by axis forces, the city was also bombed by the Allies, causing hundreds of deaths. Partisans finally captured the city on 26 October 1944 and instituted it as the provisional capital of Croatia. On 12 February 1945 the Kriegsmarine conducted a daring raid on the Split harbour, damaging the British cruiser "Delhi".
After the war the remaining members of the Italian community in Split left Yugoslavia towards Italy (Istrian-Dalmatian exodus).
Federal Yugoslavia.
After World War II, Split became a part of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, itself a constituent sovereign republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. During the period the city experienced its largest economic and demographic boom. Dozens of new factories and companies were founded with the city population tripling during the period. The city became the economic centre of an area exceeding the borders of Croatia and was flooded by waves of rural migrants from the undeveloped hinterland who found employment in the newly established industry, as part of large-scale industrialization and investment by the Yugoslav Federal Government.
The shipbuilding industry was particularly successful and Yugoslavia, with its Croatian shipyards, became one of the world's top nations in the field. Many recreational facilities were also constructed with federal funding, especially for the 1979 Mediterranean Games, such as the Poljud Stadium. The city also became the largest passenger and military port in Yugoslavia, housing the headquarters of the Yugoslav Navy ("Jugoslavenska ratna mornarica," JRM) and the Army's Coastal Military District (equivalent of a field army). In the period between 1945 and 1990, the city was transformed and expanded, taking up the vast majority of the Split peninsula. In the same period it achieved an as yet unsurpassed GDP and employment level, still above the present day's, growing into a significant Yugoslav city.
Since independence.
When Croatia declared its independence again in 1991, Split had a large garrison of JNA troops (drafted from all over Yugoslavia), as well as the headquarters and facilities of the Yugoslav War Navy (JRM). This led to a tense months-long stand-off between the JNA and Croatian National Guard and police forces, occasionally flaring up in various incidents.
The most tragic such incident occurred on 15 November 1991, when the JRM light frigate "Split" fired a small number of shells at the city and its surroundings. The damage was insignificant but there were a few casualties. Three general locations were bombarded: the old city center, the city airport and an uninhabited part of the hills above Kaštela, between the airport and Split. JRM Sailors who had refused to attack Croat civilians, most of them Croats themselves, were left in the vessel's brig. The JNA and JRM evacuated all of its facilities in Split during January 1992. The 1990s economic recession soon followed.
In the years following 2000, Split finally gained momentum and started to develop again, with a focus on tourism. From being just a transition centre, Split is now a major Croatian tourist destination. Many new hotels are being built, as well as new apartment and office buildings. Many large development projects are revived, and new infrastructure is being built. An example of the latest large city projects is the Spaladium Arena, built in 2009.


Palace of Governor-General in Kyiv

Palace of Governor-General in Kiev (, also known as the "Hetman Palace") a former building and an important city landmark in the neighborhood of Lypky in Kiev that was destroyed by a blast in June 1920. For most of its time it served as the official residence of the Kiev Governor General of Southwestern Krai.
Historical background.
The construction date of the building is unknown. It is first mentioned in 1817. The palace was located at the corner of vulytsia Instytutska and vulytsia Levashovska (today Shovkovychna) in the vicinity of today's address numbers 18 and 20. According to the Kiev historian Theodore-Richard Ernst the building belonged to the Major General Dmitry Begichev. Later the building was owned by Artillery Colonel Andrei Zakharovich Ivanov who land it out for profit. One of his clients was Nikolay Raevsky who stayed in the building in 1821-25. In 1833 Ivanov sold the house to the state treasury for 100,000 rubles.
Since then the building was used as an official residence. The first resident of the house was Vasiliy Levashov, the first official Governor General. Until 1914 the palace was a residence of the Governor General of Southwestern Krai. Upon liquidation of the position, the building was given to the Kiev governor in 1915. In January 1918, just before the Bolshevik forces sacked Kiev, Volodymyr Vynnychenko was able to secure the palace after the General Secretariat of Ukraine. However right after the establishment of the Ukrainian State on April 29, 1918, the house was redesignated as an official residence of the Hetman of Ukraine and after December 14, 1918 belonged to Symon Petliura.
Due to war and political situation, none of the Ukrainian state official stayed in the house for long. In 1919-20 the power in Kiev changed rapidly with advancement of the Russian forces of White Guard movement and the Liberation forces of Poland. In spring of 1920 Kiev for a short period (five weeks) was occupied by the Ukrainian allied Polish forces (anti-Bolshevik pact) and the palace was used as an ammo storage. Upon withdrawal the building was blown into pieces. Due to the extent of a damage the building could not be rebuilt and in 1925 a small city park was created in its place.
Description.
Blueprints of Vladimir Nikolayev of 1879 give an idea about facade of the Governor General Palace. Its length constituted , to the right there was a three windows annex with a cast iron porch on columns as a side entrance, while further there was a four windows annex of the Saint Nicholas Dome Church that was built on the funds of the Russian Ministry of Interior. The full length of structure along vulytsia Instytutska amounted to .
A hall of official receptions was located across a significant part of the building. During times of Trepov it was refurbished with white gilded furniture, while floor was covered with a white and pink carpet. The Cabinet of the Governor-General and his family rooms were located on the second floor.
The whole mansion was composed of three parts, while a bigger area was occupied by an old orchard which partially was left preserved to our days. The orchid was once a part of the Klov Park. On a corner there was a kitchen side house that was connected with the palace by a stone gallery and other outbuilding (sheds for firewood and ice storage). Separately, via gates towards Instytutska, there was located household yard with large stables, cartwright, barn, orangery and coachman house. A "stone barn for automobiles" was built in December 1911. Wooden stripped booths for guards stood to the side from the cast iron porch.


Nathaniel Morton

Capt. Nathaniel Morton (christened 161629 June 1685) was a Separatist settler of Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, where he served for most of his life as Plymouth's secretary under his uncle, Governor William Bradford. Morton wrote an account of the settlement of the Colony, the first historical text published in the United States, and was first to publish a list of signers of the Mayflower Compact as well as an account of the first Thanksgiving.
Biography.
Nathaniel Morton the eldest son of George Morton (15851624) and his wife Juliana Carpenter (15841665). George Morton was one of the organizers of the Plymouth settlement, and widely considered the principal editor of "Mourt's Relation", an early account of the settlement designed to drum up interest in England. Morton's son Nathaniel was born in Leiden, Holland, during the time the Separatists lived there between their flight from England and their eventual migration to Plymouth Colony.
The Morton family sailed for Plymouth on the ship Ann in 1623. After his father's untimely death, Nathaniel was taken into the household of his uncle William Bradford, then governor of Plymouth.
Morton married Lydia Cooper (161523 Sep 1673) on 25 Dec 1635. They had nine children: Remember, Mercy, Hannah, Eleazer, Lydia, Nathaniel, a stillborn daughter, Elizabeth and Joanna. After the death of Lydia, Nathaniel married Anne Pritchard (ca. 162426 Dec 1691). Remember Morton, daughter of Nathaniel Morton, married Abraham Jackson of Plymouth, another initial proprietor of the colony. Their descendant Lydia Jackson became the second wife of philosopher, poet and Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Colonial Secretary and Historian.
From December 1645 until his death, Morton was annually elected Secretary of Plymouth Colony, and most of the colony records are in his handwriting. His careful maintenance of the records enabled him to compile "New England's Memorial", considered the first comprehensive history of the colony, published at Cambridge in 1669 and widely considered the first book of history published in the United States. Much of "Memorial" was based on the history of the colony written by Morton's uncle, Gov. Bradford, a manuscript which was lost for many years following the American Revolutionary War, when it was likely appropriated by an English soldier. It later turned up in the library of the Bishop of London in 1855, and was returned to Massachusetts.
Morton also wrote "First Beginnings and After Progress of the Church of Christ at Plymouth, in New England".
Annually since 1961, "The Wall Street Journal" publishes an excerpt from Morton's history of Plymouth Colony as an op-ed the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day.
Morton was also the first to record the list of signers of the Mayflower Compact in his work of 1669. The document itself was lost.


Jan Peumans

Jan Peter Peumans (born 6 January 1951 in Maastricht) is a Belgian politician from the Flemish province of Limburg. Being part of the Flemish Movement, he was at a young age already member of the Volksunie. He seated for that party in the Limburgish provincial council and is since 2004 a Flemish Parliament member for the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA). From 2007 until 2009 he was N-VA fraction leader in the Flemish Parliament. After the elections of 7 June 2009 (which was successful for his party; and with more than 27.000 Limburgish preference votes for him), he became President of the Flemish Parliament, succeeding Marleen Vanderpoorten.
In the Flemish Parliament, he worked e.g. on the case of the Antwerp Oosterweel connection. Peumans was elected most hard-working member of the Parliament in the period 2004-2009, by the newspaper De Standaard.
On 27 January 2010, Peumans caused controversy after he was absent during a reception at the royal palace. As convinced republican he refuses to go to receptions at the king's palace, although he talked to him once on the occasion of the day of the Flemish Community.
On 12 September 2010, he was in Visé (just across the language border in Wallonia, close to where he lives), where he claims to have been insulted and attacked by a local because "he had no business in Wallonia". Peumans said afterwards he never expected he would be attacked due to his political points of view. His statement is being disputed by the alleged attacker.


Memorial to Ion Vatamanu


Zagreb in World War II

When World War II started, Zagreb was the capital of the newly formed autonomous Banovina of Croatia within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which remained neutral in the first years of the war. After the Invasion of Yugoslavia by Germany and Italy on 6 April 1941, German troops entered Zagreb on 10 April. On the same day, Slavko Kvaternik, a prominent member of the Ustaše movement, proclaimed the creation of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), an Axis puppet state, with Zagreb as its capital. Ante Pavelić was proclaimed Poglavnik of the NDH and Zagreb became the center of the Main Ustaša Headquarters, the Government of the NDH, and other political and military institutions, as well as the police and intelligence services.
Upon the establishment of the NDH, the Ustaše enacted race laws and started persecuting Serbs, Jews, and Roma. Thousands of locals, primarily Jews, were killed in prisons and execution sites around the city, mainly in Dotršćina and Rakov Potok forests, or were taken to concentration camps and executed there.
After Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia started an armed uprising against the NDH. In January 1944, the 10th Zagreb Corps was formed. It mainly operated in the wider Zagreb area and Northwest Croatia. The Allies carried out several aerial attacks on the city in 1944 and 1945.
The influx of refugees from war-ravaged areas of the NDH nearly doubled the population of Zagreb by the end of the war. The Government of the NDH abandoned the city on 6 May 1945. Most of its military forces had withdrawn from Zagreb by 8 May, when units of the 1st and 2nd Armies of the Yugoslav Partisans took control of it. The Partisans then killed many captured soldiers and civilians accused of collaboration. In total, more than 26,000 people from Zagreb lost their lives from 1941 to 1945.
In 1975, the President of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, awarded the city of Zagreb with the Order of the People's Hero.
Banovina of Croatia.
In August 1939, a week before the start of World War II, the autonomous Banovina of Croatia within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was formed, with Zagreb as its capital. The formation of the Banovina of Croatia was negotiated under the Cvetković–Maček Agreement between Vladko Maček, leader of the Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), and Dragiša Cvetković, the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia. Ivan Šubašić, a prominent member of the HSS, was appointed as Ban of Croatia. The agreement was widely supported among Croats, and the Yugoslav government thought that it would strengthen the country.
The HSS expanded its two paramilitary organizations, the Croatian Civic Guards ("Hrvatska građanska zaštita") and the Croatian Peasant Guards ("Hrvatska seljačka zaštita"), which were planned to be the core of the future Croatian army. The Civic Guard in Zagreb had the status of an auxiliary police force. It was established in July 1938 and numbered around 3-4,000 men.
The Cvetković–Maček Agreement, Maček's entry into the Yugoslav government, and the worsening economic situation led to dissatisfaction among some segments of the population. The radical nationalist Ustaše movement considered Maček a traitor who betrayed the idea of an independent Croatia. In July 1938, Mile Budak, the second most influential member of the movement, arrived in Zagreb and started the pro-Ustaše "Hrvatski narod" (Croatian people) newspaper. The activities of the Ustaše increased in 1940, when the newspaper was banned. Despite the growth in popularity in the late 1930s, their membership remained low.
The Communist Party of Croatia (KPH), established in 1937 as a branch of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ), also experienced growth in the late 1930s. However, the HSS kept its dominance, especially among the peasantry. In September 1939, the Zagreb branch of the KPH greeted positively the Cvetković–Maček Agreement. The KPJ later rejected the agreement as an attempt to protect the interests of the Croatian and Serbian bourgeoisie. The conflict within the leadership of the KPH over their stance towards the HSS, the Cvetković–Maček Agreement, and Stalinism, led to the purge of "dissidents" in the KPH, focused around the Croatian writer Miroslav Krleža. The KPH leadership was replaced at the 5th Land Conference, held in Zagreb in August 1940.
In December 1939, a new railway bridge over the Sava River was opened by Šubašić, Maček, and Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac. In late 1939 and in 1940, the HSS Guards units and the police conducted mass arrests of the Ustaše and communists, and arrested the leadership of the newly formed Croatian National Socialist Party. The 1940 local elections, held in May and June 1940, excluded Zagreb and other cities of the Banovina of Croatia.
Occupation and the establishment of NDH.
Germany put pressure on Yugoslavia to join the Tripartite Pact, which Prince Paul of Yugoslavia accepted on 25 March. Demonstrations against the decision soon broke out and a coup d'état was launched on 27 March. Hitler took the coup as a personal insult and launched the invasion of Yugoslavia on 6 April 1941. Most Croat soldiers in the Yugoslav Army did not feel Yugoslavia as their country and refused to fight for it. The Germans tried to persuade Maček to proclaim the independence of Croatia under the patronage of Germany, but he refused it, so they decided to support the Ustaše instead. Maček returned to Zagreb from Belgrade when the invasion began to help maintain order. His support was not as high in Zagreb as in the rest of Croatia, and many in the city had already switched allegiance to the Ustaše.
On 8 April, a meeting of the Central Committee of the KPJ was held in Zagreb, chaired by General Secretary Josip Broz Tito. The meeting adopted the conclusion that the Yugoslav army has no chance to resist the Wehrmacht and that the KPJ members should report immediately to the call for mobilization, but no armed resistance was organized in Zagreb. The KPJ sent a delegation to the headquarters of the 4th Army in Zagreb, requesting weapons for workers to help in the fight against the Germans. The Command of the Military District refused their request. German agents stationed in Zagreb, the Ustaše and their sympathizers made preparations for the takeover of power in Zagreb upon the Wehrmacht arrival.
On 10 April, elements of the 14th Panzer Division entered Zagreb without resistance and were greeted by cheering crowds. Slavko Kvaternik declared the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia (, NDH) via the Zagreb Radio Station, with Zagreb as its capital. Most of the population was pleased with the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Kvaternik formed a provisional government in Zagreb on 12 April. Ante Pavelić, who was named the leader ("Poglavnik") of NDH, arrived in Zagreb on 15 April. He gave a short speech in which he said: "Ustaše! We have won. We won because we had faith. We won because we held out. We won because we fought. Ustaše! We won because we were always "for homeland ready"!" Jozo Dumančić was temporarily named the Mayor of Zagreb, replacing Mate Starčević of the HSS. Vladko Maček was forced by the Germans to recognize the NDH. The entire administrative and police apparatus of the Banovina of Croatia was handed over to the new government.
When the NDH was proclaimed, the leadership of the Communist Party was in Zagreb, together with Josip Broz Tito. After a month, they left for Belgrade. Until 22 June, while the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union was in effect, the Communists refrained from open conflict with the new regime. In the first two months of the NDH they extended their underground network and began amassing weapons.
On April 15, 1941, leaflet that contained a KPJ manifesto was duplicated and sent to all parts of Yugoslavia. The manifesto emphasized that the "Communists and the entire working class of Yugoslavia would be in the forefront of the national resistance against the invaders" and that "it would persist in the resistance until final victory".
NDH rule in Zagreb.
In early May 1941 Dumančić was replaced with Ivan Werner as Mayor of Zagreb, who stayed on that position until his death in June 1944. In December 1941 there were anti-Italian protests in Zagreb against the Italian rule in Dalmatia. Stepinac also criticized the Treaties of Rome. In April 1942 the Rebro Hospital was built.
The new government gave particular importance to the Islamic community, especially the Bosnian Muslims which they viewed as Croat Muslims. The Meštrović Pavilion in the centre of Zagreb was turned into a mosque, with three minarets built around it.
In May 1942, the Ustaše organized the Antisemitic Exhibition in Zagreb, and cinema screenings of German antisemitic propaganda films. The exhibition also featured photographs of the various stages of the demolition of the Zagreb Synagogue, which had been located in the city centre and was destroyed in stages from October 1941 to April 1942.
In June 1942 a new religious organisation was formed in Zagreb, the Croatian Orthodox Church. Germogen was named the Metropolitan of Zagreb and whole Croatia.
The population of Zagreb constantly changed during the war as much of the civilian population from regions of NDH where military operations took place moved to Zagreb. At the end of 1941, Zagreb had 218,200 citizens. In the course of 1942, as thousands of refugees began pouring into the city, the population of Zagreb ranged from 350,000 to 400,000. At the beginning of 1944 the population of the city increased to around 417,000.
Military.
After NDH was proclaimed, the main armed forces were stationed in Zagreb, where three units were formed: The Poglavnik Bodyguard Battalion, First Ustaše Regiment and a Company of university students. Later the First Ustaše Regiment was separated into individual battalions. The Croatian Home Guard officers' Academy was founded in Zagreb.
In 1944, the armed forces of NDH were reorganized. Of the 18 standing brigades, the 10th and 25th were in Zagreb, together with the Poglavnik Bodyguard Brigade and the Zagreb Ustaše Brigade. At the end of 1944, the Croatian Armed Forces were formed that unified the Croatian Home Guard and the Ustaše militia. The 1st Croatian Assault Division, 2nd Croatian Infantry Division, 16th Croatian Replacement Division and the Poglavnik Bodyguard Division were headquartered in Zagreb and operated in central and northwestern Croatia. In December 1944, the Partisans estimated the strength of the 3 divisions at 7,000 (1st), 4,500 (2nd) and 9,500 (16th).
War crimes.
When Ustaše came to power, they immediately started to spread terror and to persecute their opponents. During the occupation, Ustaša inflicted abuse and torture of prisoners at several locations around the town, such as a notorious prison on Savska street, the prison on the Square N and a torture chamber in Jandrićeva street 74, popularly known as "Sing-Sing".
Ustaše commonly used the woods in Dotršćina, which was at the time located out of Zagreb, and Rakov Potok, a forest south of the Sava river and today's Novi Zagreb, as their execution sites. It is estimated that throughout the war Ustaše executed about 10,000 people in Dotršćina (2,000 of which were members of the SKJ and SKOJ), and around 400 in Rakov Potok.
From May 1941 onwards, the Ustaša regime enforced racial laws that put thousands of Zagreb's Serb, Jewish and Roma inhabitants at risk of death. By August 1941, the Jasenovac concentration camp was founded, and Zagreb was the main transit point for people being sent to the camp.
The executions of prisoners were made at the aforementioned execution sites in and near Zagreb, but as it became clear that the Axis were eventually going to lose the war, the Ustaše government ceased hiding for the killing of prisoners, so on December 20, 1943 they hanged a group of 16 antifascists on butcher hooks on a public street at the western end of Dubrava as a retaliation for the murder of an Ustaše agent Ljudevit Tiljak. The victims of this crime became known as the "December victims". They were left hanging on poles for several days as a warning to other anti-fascists. It was the first public hanging of prisoners, a terror tactic that was afterwards used regularly by the Ustaše regime.
In 1944, Ustaše carried out several mass hangings and shootings in Vrapče, Kustošija (Črnomerec) and other locations. In early January 1945, when it was already clear that they would lose the war, Ustaše executed dozens of anti-fascists in Žitnjak from January 3 to 8.
Resistance organization.
At the beginning of May 1941, so-called May consultations of Communist Party officials from across the country, who sought to organize the resistance against the occupiers, were held in Zagreb. In June 1941, meeting of the Central Committee of KPJ, on which it was decided to start preparations for the uprising, was also held. May Day proclamation of KPJ and proclamation of KPJ and KPH on the occasion of the Operation Barbarossa, were restored. In proclamation, all people were invited to the armed resistance, while all patriots were called into a united front for the expulsion of the invaders from the country. KPH remained in Zagreb until February 1942, when it moved to the liberated territory.
The resistance movement in Zagreb was led by the Local Committee of the KPJ which had six rayon committees. At the beginning of the occupation, Zagreb KPJ organization had 53 basic organizations with about 500 members, of which 75% were workers. In addition, there was a strong Youth organisation, the "SKOJ", which, in the first half of 1942, had close to 900 members and about 500 supporters gathered in the boards of the "League of the Young Generation". The association organized youth to fight against the occupiers on the anti-fascist platform and was later core of the United League of Antifascist Youth of Yugoslavia (USAOH).
In October 1941, the Initiative Committee of the Women's Antifascist Front of Croatia (AFŽ) was established, at the end of 1941, the Central Committee of AFŽ, and in February 1942 Local Board of AFŽ.
The most massive underground organization in occupied Zagreb was (lit. "People's help"), whose tasks included developing combat anti-fascist consciousness of the citizens, raising money and materials for the Partisans, assisting the families of soldiers, harboring illegal aliens, distributing illegal press, and transporting people to the liberated territory. This organisation's local committees were divided into six district committees, which in turn had a total of more than 700 members, and about 4,000 helpers and supporters. By 1943, "Narodna pomoć" was replaced by the National Liberation Committees.
Notable sabotages in 1941.
Soon after occupation, the resistance movement organized a series of sabotages against the occupying forces. Ustaše tended to respond by carrying out acts of repression against prisoners in the case of anti-fascist sabotage or assassinations of German or Ustaša officials.
One of the first manifestations of resistance to the occupation was an action of solidarity of the Croatian youth with Jewish and Serbian youth that was conducted on May 26, 1941 at the Zagreb "City Stadium" when the leader of the Ustaša youth gave an inflammatory speech to the civil defense and called for Jews and Serbs to step forward which was essentially supposed to be an insight into the pogrom. When Jews and Serbs began to step forward, young members of SKOJ followed them, also pulling others with them so the pogrom was disabled. The 1977 movie "Operation Stadium" describes those events.
During June and early July 1941, the resistance sabotaged aerospace batteries in Prečko and storage of antiaircraft artillery in Ilica. It also organised the burglary of an ammunition train in the Zagreb Western railway station, as well as a diversionary attack on the railway lines to Varaždin, Sisak and Dugo Selo and Zagreb Radio station.
Kerestinec prison was a prison for the communists that was formed even during the government Cvetković–Maček. Upon coming to power, the Ustaše took over control of the prison, which had previously housed many communist intellectuals, among others August Cesarec, Božidar Adžija, Ognjen Prica, Otokar Keršovani, and Divko Budak. In the night of 13–14 July 1941, KPJ activists organized an escape of detainees from Kerestinec, but because of poor coordination of operations it was not entirely successful, since only 14 of the 91 detainees managed to escape. Ustaše executed survivors in Maksimir and Dotršćina on the next day, including Adžija, Cesarec and Prica.
In July, the resistance sabotaged a silk factory, where it burned 50,000 meters of parachute silk. A few days later, SKOJ members set fire to wooden parts of Maksimir Stadium, whose panels the Ustaše had intended to use for the construction of concentration camp barracks.
The first major armed action prepared by the KPJ, SKOJ, students and workers, was the one conducted near Zagreb Botanical Garden. On July 14, 1941, 12 resistance movement members, led by Slavko Komar, attacked the members of an Ustaša university company with hand grenades and revolvers, injuring 28 of them. The Ustaša government reacted to this attack with severe reprisals. On August 5, it was announced that 4 attackers were executed. "In addition, 98 Jews and Communists were sentenced to death by the Senate of the Court Martial as accomplices and intellectual pioneers of the attack." On the following day, August 6, execution of additional "87 Jews and Communists" as "further accomplices and intellectual originators of the attack " was announced. Radio Moscow reported in a special emission that the Ustaše executed 305 people.
In September 1941, a group of anti-fascists attacked a bus with German soldiers in Zvonimirova street. In the same month, there was also a sabotage in Cement factory in Podsused.
On September 14, a group of anti-fascists, led by Viliam Galjer, conducted a long-prepared Sabotage at the General Post Office in Zagreb, when explosives damaged the automatic exchange device and high-frequency device for long distance communication.
On the same day, a detachment of Ustaše was attacked in Vrbanićeva street, and on September 30, anti-fascists, led by Ivan Šibl, attacked a group of German airmen in Rusanova street.
Partisan military unit organization.
The first Zagreb-Sesvete partisan group was formed in Dubrava in July 1941. In August 1941, a group of fighters from Zagreb traveled to Žumberak where they formed a partisan unit "Matija Gubec", which had 37 members, but after it was attacked by the much stronger enemy forces it was dissolved.
The first partisan unit in the nearby Hrvatsko Zagorje was formed in March 1942 near the village Brdovec, roughly northwest of Zagreb. In April 1942, a tenth of fighters was sent from Zagreb to Žumberak where they merged with the First Zagorje unit, after which they grew into the "Josip Kraš" Battalion.
In the summer of the same year, the first partisan units were formed in Moslavina (roughly southeast of Zagreb), and in the fall the first partisan unit was formed at Kalnik (roughly northeast of Zagreb).
At the end of November 1942, the "Pokupsko-Žumberak unit" and the "First Battalion of the Croatian proletarian" merged into the 13th strike brigade "Josip Kraš" (later named "Rade Končar"). In August 1943, the "Brothers Radić" Brigade was formed, and in the fall of the same year "Matija Gubec" Brigade.
In July and October 1943, the Partisans entered Gornje Vrapče neighborhood, in what was then the immediate vicinity of Zagreb, and also penetrated the Sljeme mountain. In December of the same year, the Turopolje unit attacked the main aviation depot in Sopnica near Sesvete while on December 19 the 18th Slavonia unit destroyed the airport at Kurilovec.
The 10th Zagreb Corps was formed in January 1944. Upon formation it had around 7,000 fighters. At the end of 1944, the 10th Corps had 9,859 soldiers and officers. It became the carrier of fighting actions in northwestern Croatia and especially in the Zagreb district. In late January 1944, the Youth Brigade "Joza Vlahović" and the "Franjo Ogulinac Seljo" Brigade of the 34th Division were formed. In the fall of the same year, so were the Ljubljana Brigade "Pavlek Miškina" and the Brigade "Nikola Demonja".
Allied bombing campaigns.
The bombing of Zagreb began in February 1944. The objectives of the bombing campaigns were railroads, railway stations and nearby airports, but the city did not sustain major damage, except for a smaller number of residential buildings in the suburbs.
According to a victims list conducted in 1950, 404 people were killed in the Zagreb region and 327 people in the city of Zagreb, with no indication whether the bombings were carried out by Allied or Axis forces.
End of the war.
In early May 1945, Zagreb was defended by parts of the 1st Division of the Army of NDH and the 41st and 181st German Divisions, deployed along the unfinished fortified "Zvonimir line" between Sveti Ivan Žabno and Ivanić-Grad. The fierce battle with the 1st Army of the People's Liberation Army of Yugoslavia lasted from 5 May to 8 May. The 7 May was the single bloodiest day in the 1,240-day long history of the 1st Proletarian Brigade, with 158 killed and 358 wounded in the fighting for Vrbovec.
In the last days of the war, the city had nearly 500,000 civilians. On 6 May 1945, the collaborationist government of the Independent State of Croatia fled Zagreb. On 7 May 1945, Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allied powers, marking the formal end of World War II in Europe.
On 7 May, brigades of the 45th Serbian Division, 28th Slavonia Division and 39th Krajina Division of the 2nd Army were on the outskirts of Zagreb. First Partisan units from the 45th and 28th Division entered the deserted streets of Zagreb on 8 May at 11 AM. There were relatively few skirmishes and casualties in the city itself. There were groups of soldiers that surrendered or were captured, many of which were immediately shot. The 1st Army reported to the General Staff that 10,901 enemy soldiers had been killed and 15,892 captured in taking Zagreb. Partisan radio broadcast about the continuous street fighting. The 2nd Army had many Serbs and Montenegrins in its ranks and former Chetniks that were granted amnesty, so most of the population of Zagreb stayed in their homes. The commanders of the 10th Zagreb Corps were disappointed that the 10th Corps was not the first one to enter Zagreb. Colonel Ivan Šibl wrote about it in his diary:
"We felt tricked and cheated. We are still not real soldiers and none of us were satisfied with the knowledge that the battle for Zagreb was already won, in many battles and skirmishes in which our brigades also participated. We were supposed to get there first, but we arrive last to a peaceful, free city. They simply tricked us!"
A few days later, when forces of the 10th Zagreb Corps arrived to the city, people gathered in the Jelačić Square and gave them a triumphant welcome. Journalist and historian Josip Horvat observed the liberation of Zagreb in May 1945:
"I walked through Tuškanac. While walking I laughed like a child - for four years and one month you couldn't go through there. On this little thing I felt that freedom came, that we are entering into a new life. It's so weird at the heart, man with his brain does not realize that fear is gone. (...) Newly arrived army still goes through town, all torn up, but excellently armed, real fighters."
After the liberation of Zagreb, Yugoslav People's Army units continued their march towards the enemy forces who fled towards Klanjec and Krško in Slovenia. The pursuit of the Ustaše-led column continued through Slovenia, and ended at the border with Austria, resulting in the Bleiburg repatriations.
Aftermath.
According to Zdravko Dizdar, from 1941 to 1945, 18,637 citizens of Zagreb lost their lives. 3,335 people died in the wider Zagreb area in prisons, on the streets, in reprisals and mass terror, 5,293 died in camps (3,264 of them in Jasenovac), and 1,852 in camps outside Yugoslavia, while 1,141 died in reprisals, shootings, prisons and mass terror outside Zagreb. 4,162 died as members of the NOVJ. Around 8,000 died as members of NDH forces, in allied bombing campaigns of the city, or in reprisals after the war. The exact number of people from Zagreb that actively participated in Partisan units is unknown. Yugoslav historians estimated that there were tens of thousands of them. According to Tito more than 50,000 of citizens participated in the Partisan struggle during which over 20,000 of them were killed, half of them as active fighters including more than 4,000 members of the Communist Party and SKOJ.
Legacy.
89 people from Zagreb were declared People's Hero, while 600 were awarded Commemorative Medal of the Partisans of 1941.
While presenting the Order of the People's Hero on September 16, 1975, marshal Josip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia, who was also one of the main carriers of the Zagreb resistance movement, stated:
"Order of the People's Hero which I am presenting today to Zagreb symbolizes the recognition of all the participants of revolutionary events, to all of those who contributed to our victory and the construction of socialism, and especially those who bravely and unselfishly gave their lives in that fight."


Kazan Operation

Kazan Operation was the Red Army's offensive (5–10 September 1918) against the Czechoslovak Legion and the People Army of Komuch during the Russian Civil War.
Background.
Following the capture of Samara by the Czech Legion on 8 June, several members of the Constituent Assembly, which had been dissolved by the Bolsheviks, organized a Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (in Russian "Constituent Assembly" was "Uchreditel'noe Sobranie", hence the abbreviation for Committee was "Komuch"). This threatened to form an alternative socialist government to the Bolshevik regime.
In August 1918, the Whites occupied Kazan. Bolshevik forces were defeated, and they dispersed to Kazan's neighborhood. The Whites killed the remaining of Bolsheviks in the city, including Mullanur Waxitov.
At the beginning of the operation, the Reds' disposition was as follows: To the west of Kazan were the Fifth Army of the Eastern Front under Pēteris Slavens and the Volga Flotilla under Fyodor Raskolnikov; to the east of Kazan was the Arsk group of the Second Army under Woldemar Azin. They opposed the Czechoslovak legion and KomUch People's Army under A. P. Stepanov.
The battle.
On September 7, the Right Bank Group of the Fifth Army with the flotilla's backing reached the right (west) bank of Volga and shelled Kazan from the commanding position of Uslan Hill. The Left Bank Group reached the mouth of the Kazanka River. That day the Arsk Group took Kinderle and Klyki villages to the east of Kazan. On September 9, sailors and landed marksmen under Nikolay Markin took the beachhead at the western part of Kazan. On that day the Left Bank Group and Arsk Group joined and laid siege to part of Kazan. On September 10, after storming the city from three directions, Red Army troops took control of Kazan.
The majority of Whites managed to sail away via the Volga.
Aftermath.
The capturing of Kazan and Simbirsk by the Red Army made continued strategic offensives westwards possible for the Red Army.


Libertas convoy

Libertas convoy (Croatian: Konvoj Libertas) was a partly grassroots humanitarian action aimed at breaking through Yugoslav People's Army's naval blockade of the Croatian city of Dubrovnik during the Croatian War of Independence and the siege of Dubrovnik in 1991. The purpose of the convoy was to bring supplies to Dubrovnik's inhabitants who, in connection with the siege, were living without electricity and access to fresh drinking water, food and medicine. The convoy's name 'Libertas' alludes to the Latin word for freedom which is the historical motto of Dubrovnik.
Background.
On October 1, 1991, Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), then made up of Serbian and Montenegrin units, attacked Dubrovnik from land, sea and air, and by late October had captured virtually all of the land between the Pelješac and Prevlaka peninsulas on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, with the exception of Dubrovnik itself. The siege was accompanied by a Yugoslav Navy (JRM) blockade. The JNA's bombardment of Dubrovnik culminated on 6 December 1991 which provoked international condemnation. As a result of the blockade, approximately 50,000 citizens in Dubrovnik lived without electricity and access to enough fresh drinking water, food and medicine.
The beginning.
In October 1991 in Zagreb, the "Dubrovnik Salvation Fund Sveti Vlaho", the Croatian Writers' Association and Matica hrvatska launched an initiative to break through the naval blockade and deliver the necessary humanitarian assistance to the people of Dubrovnik. The idea behind the action was to bring together as many vessels as possible, break through the blockade and sail into the port of Gruž. Rijeka become an organizational and logistical center for collecting assistance.
The action.
On October 28, 1991, the convoy sailed from Rijeka and made several port calls, growing to 29 civilian vessels (tourist boats, sailboats, tugboats, etc.), the largest being Jadrolinija's ferry "Slavija", as it approached Dubrovnik. The convoy carried European Community Monitor Mission observers, protesters, and a number of politicians, journalists, cultural figures including Veljko Bulajic and politicians, including the President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia Stjepan Mesić and the Prime Minister of Croatia Franjo Gregurić. On October 30, at around one o'clock in the morning, the convoy reached Korčula. A day earlier, Dubrovnik amateur radio operators intercepted JRM's messages in which the 9th VPS Boka Command requested for a convoy to be stopped and searched. The convoy's journey towards Dubrovnik proceeded unimpeded up until it reached the Elaphiti Islands where it was stopped by the Yugoslav frigate JRM "Split" between the islands of Brač and Šolta. JRM representatives demanded all vessels to return and "Slavia" to dock in the Montenegrin port of Zelenika, After lengthy negotiations and the thorough search of the vessels, the convoy was allowed to continue its journey towards Dubrovnik.
In the early morning hours of October 31, 1991, speedboats of the Armed Boats Squadron Dubrovnik sailed from the port of Gruž to meet the Convoy and escorted all 29 vessels into the harbor where about 1,000 Dubrovnik residents welcomed them. During his speech, president Stjepan Mesić stated that the people of Dubrovnik have not been forgotten. After a long 30 days, the much-awaited assistance arrived in the city. On its return, the 700-capacity Slavija evacuated 2,000 refugees from Dubrovnik, although she had to sail to the Bay of Kotor first for inspection by the Yugoslav Navy.
The Libertas convoy was primarily a humanitarian campaign but it also sent an important political message. Journalists who documented the humanitarian disaster that arose in Dubrovnik in connection with the city's siege caused a public relations disaster for Serbia and Montenegro, contributing to their further diplomatic and economic isolation, as well as the international recognition of Croatia's independence. In Croatia, it conveyed a picture of solidarity and consensus among the Croatian citizens.


Lida Lopes Cardozo Kindersley

Lida Lopes Cardozo Kindersley (also known as Lida Lopes Cardozo and Lida Cardozo Kindersley) (born 1954) is a letter-cutter, typeface designer, author and publisher and runs the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop in Cambridge. She is considered the foremost letter-cutter currently working in the United Kingdom and is "dedicated to the increase of good lettering in the world". Her work in slate, stone and other media includes carved memorials, plaques, inscriptions and sundials which can be seen at many public locations in the United Kingdom and beyond. Her works include the ledger stone for the grave of William Blake at Bunhill Fields. With her first husband David Kindersley she also designed the main gates for the British Library.
Early life and education.
Lida Lopes Cardozo was born in 1954 in Leiden in The Netherlands. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, in 1976 where she studied lettering with typographer and designer Gerrit Noordzij. It was in his classes that she realised that she wanted to create letters and work in carving stone.
Career.
In 1976 she met British stone-carver and type designer David Kindersley at a conference about type design, and soon afterwards relocated to the UK to become his apprentice at his workshop in Cambridge. This association developed into a close creative partnership which lasted until David's death in 1995.
Lida and David collaborated on many creative works including the British Library gates, a 1980 memorial stone to Richard III at Leicester Cathedral and Stations of the Cross for the London Oratory School and in establishing the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop in Cambridge.
In her subsequent career Lida has created works across the UK and beyond as public and private commissions with a particular focus on gravestones and memorials.
Many of her works can be seen in Cambridge and Cambridge University, including a memorial for Stephen Hawking at Gonville and Caius College.
In 2015 she was awarded an MBE for services to lettercutting.
Sundials.
Lida has cut a number of sundials on public buildings including Selwyn College and Pembroke College, Cambridge. In her work on sundials Lida has collaborated with Dr Frank King, Chairman of the British Sundial Society and Keeper of the Clock at Cambridge University, realising more than 20 of his sundial designs.
Type design.
As well as hand-cut letterforms, Lida has designed several digital typefaces including 'Emilida', commissioned by music company EMI and 'Pulle' which is based on letterforms Lida has been cutting for over 20 years and offers a very large range of letter heights rather than variations in weight.
The Cardozo Kindersley Workshop.
The Cardozo Kindersley Workshop in Cambridge was established by Lida and David Kindersley and since 1977 has occupied its current location in a converted Victorian school. Lida trains apprentices in lettercutting by hand, each usually staying at the workshop for three years.
Lida and David co-authored a number of publications on the art of lettering, their workshop, and the importance of apprenticeship. Lida has continued to write on these and other subjects and also publishes works through the Cardozo Kindersley imprint.
The Shingle Street Shell Line.
In 2005 Lida and her childhood friend Els Bottema started to arrange a line of shells on the beach at Shingle Street in Suffolk. They began the line as a way of coping with their shared experience of cancer treatment and have returned regularly to maintain and add to the line since then.
Personal life.
Lida Lopes Cardozo married David Kindersley in 1986 and they had three sons together. Two of their sons have joined her in working in the workshop. Her second husband Graham Beck now runs the workshop with her.


Juan Maria Schuver

Juan Maria Schuver (born Joannes Maria Schuver; February 26, 1852 – August 1883) was a Dutch explorer.
The son of a wealthy merchant, as a young man Schuver travelled extensively throughout Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa. At the age of 21 he worked as a private correspondent for the Dutch newspaper "Algemeen Handelsblad", covering events that took place in the Third Carlist War in Spain. Afterwards he travelled to the Balkans and reported for the "Handelsblad" involving action from the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. In 1879 his father died and Schuver inherited a fortune. At this time he made plans to pursue a lifelong dream, to undertake a scientific expedition to the interior of Africa. He joined the Royal Geographical Society of London and took classes on various subjects in order to prepare for his upcoming journey.
In March 1881, he reached Khartoum with a small entourage, and subsequently spent the better part of the next two-plus years performing explorations of southeastern Sudan, particularly the eastern watershed of the White Nile and the hill regions surrounding the upper Blue Nile. In southern Sudan, he had a keen interest in the political and social aspects of the area, and made important historical and ethnographic observations concerning the various tribes he encountered. His detailed descriptions of the Sudanese-Ethiopian border region in the early 1880s constitute an extremely valuable and exciting new contribution to the
travel literature of late nineteenth-century Africa. In August 1883, he was fatally wounded by a spear during a skirmish with Dinka tribesmen in Tek, a village that was a two-day journey from the garrison at Meshra-el-Rek.
Schuver maintained extensive notebooks during the expedition, and items he collected during his stay in Sudan are now housed at the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden.


Laura van Dolron

Laura van Dolron (born 1976 in Rotterdam) is a Dutch stage director. After three performances with her own Flemish company The Sixth Company, she wrote, played and directed with several Dutch workshops and summer festivals, and large and small theater groups. Van Dolron studied at the Theater Academy of Maastricht, where she graduated as a director in 2001.


De Kleine Komedie

De Kleine Komedie is today the oldest theatre in Amsterdam, dating from 1788. Situated on the Amstel near the Halvemaansteeg, the building offers a stage for both upcoming and established Dutch talents. The theatre has 503 seats.
History of the building.
The first theatre built in Amsterdam was the Schouwburg of Van Campen on Keizersgracht 384 in 1637, which burned down in 1772. That theatre company then moved to the Leidseplein, where it built a theatre in 1774, the first Stadsschouwburg. That building burned down in 1892 (the present building was built in 1894), making De Kleine Komedie the oldest surviving theatre in Amsterdam.
In 1784 Henry Hope of Hope & Co. purchased ground on the Amstel near the east side of the Halvemaansteeg in Amsterdam, together with his fellow banker friends Balthazar Elias Abbema, Pieter de Smeth, Henry Fizeaux, Jean Alexander Botereau, and Pieter Muilman. They commissioned the building to the architect Abraham van der Hart who completed it in 1788. The commissioners were all very influential men of Amsterdam who had far reaching connections. Henry Fizeaux was a banker who had close ties with John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. He tried to raise funds for the American cause and shared revolutionary sympathies, though merchant tradition was to deny political preferences. The 'Patriotic' or 'Anti-Orange' sympathies of the directors Henry Fizeaux and Jean Alexander Botereau resulted in their stepping down in 1787 when the House of Orange was re-established. Orangist Henry Hope took over the running of the establishment until he fled the country before Napoleon's army in 1794.
Théâtre Français.
It was called the Théâtre Français sur l'Erwtemarkt in 1794, the year performances began. In those days, the performances were often in French and modelled on a Parisian theater form that was very popular. Napoleon himself supported the Théâtre Français, and French opera's and plays were shown in the theatre well into the 19th century.
When the interest in French plays decreased, the building was sold to the 'Neues Deutsches Theater' that performed German plays. In 1856 the building came into the hands of the Free Church of Scotland and was rechristened 'Scottish Missionary Church'. The driving force behind the Dutch branch of this church was the Rev. August Ferdinand Carl Schwartz (1817–1870), the father of the novelist Maarten Maartens.
When the Vrije Universiteit (Free University) of Amsterdam started in 1880, it hired some rooms in the Scottish Missionary Church and used them as lecture rooms. Here the founder Abraham Kuyper and his four co-professors gave their lectures. In 1883 the Scottish Missionary Church became too small for the quickly growing number of students and the university bought another building.
In the first half of Twentieth Century the building was called Salvatori and was used as a meeting centre. The most various groups met here, from orthodox Protestants to leftist freethinkers. During the Second World War the building was no more than a bicycle shed.
De Kleine Komedie.
In 1947 the building was reopened as a theatre, now under its present name 'De Kleine Komedie'. Since then its program is primarily in Dutch. In the Fifties and Sixties many famous people in the Dutch entertainment world, like Toon Hermans, Wim Kan and Fons Jansen, made appearances in this theatre. In 1973 the building was closed by the Amsterdam fire brigade due to fire hazard. After a renovation financed by private sources, it was reopened in 1978.
In 1988 the continued existence of De Kleine Komedie was put in danger again, when the municipality of Amsterdam wanted to withdraw its subsidy. A campaign launched by the cabaret performer Youp van 't Hek secured the theatre's subsidy.
Because of its cosy atmosphere De Kleine Komedie is often used for try-out performances by upcoming talents as well as long-established cabaret performers. Many DVD and TV productions are recorded here.


Vincent Loosjes

Vincent Loosjes (1787, Haarlem – 3 April 1841, Haarlem), was a 19th-century writer and publisher from the Northern Netherlands.
Biography.
He was the son of Adriaan Loosjes, a prolific writer who started a publishing company in Haarlem. He translated several books from English into Dutch.
In 1833 he was chairman of the regents of the Mennonite orphanage in Haarlem that was celebrating its bicentennial. He commissioned a painting by Jan Adam Kruseman which featured the regents as well as a few orphans. He had succeeded his father in that function, who died in 1818. Loosjes also took his father's place working for Teylers Stichting. He also was a member of the Haarlem societies "Oefening in Wetenschappen", the chamber of rhetoric "Wijngaardranken", and "Demokriet". His publishing company was continued by his son Adriaan Loosjes III.


List of municipal commissioners for finance of Stockholm

This is a list of municipal commissioners for finance of Stockholm ("finansborgarråd"). In English, the title is sometimes translated as Mayor of Stockholm, because the municipal commissioner for finance has become the top politician of Stockholm municipality since the Stockholm municipal reform 1940.
The office of municipal commissioner for finance was set up in 1920, replacing an older mayor's office. While the mayor ("borgmästare") before 1920 was appointed by the government, the municipal commissioner for finance is elected by the Stockholm city council. After a reform in 1940, the municipal commissioner for finance is always representing the ruling political majority coalition in the city. From 1994 the municipal commissioner for finance is also chairman of the municipal council ("kommunstyrelsen"), a title often called mayor in English.


Breda Castle

Breda Castle is a castle in the city of Breda, in the Netherlands.
History.
In the 12th century, a fortress was located at Breda. The city of Breda came into existence near the fortress. In 1353, the Duke of Brabant sold Breda to Jan II of Polanen (Baron of Breda). He reinforced the castle with four towers and a channel. His daughter Johanna of Polanen married in 1403 the German count Engelbert I of Nassau.
Their son Jan IV of Nassau enlarged the castle.
Henry III of Nassau-Breda changed the castle into a Renaissance palace in 1536. He died in 1538 and his son René of Châlon finished the castle and built a chapel in 1540. René of Châlon died without any children and the castle became property of his German cousin, William I of Orange, during his battle with the Spanish, it had a military function again (Dutch revolt).
In 1667 the Treaty of Breda was signed by England, France and the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. This ended the second English-Dutch war.
Stadtholder - King William III of England built on the castle between 1686 and 1695. But he and his successors did not stay much at the castle.
In the France time (18th century), the castle was a military barracks and military hospital.
William I of the Netherlands placed at disposal of the Royal Military Academy in 1826. In this time, Thomas Vincidor built three wings and later William II built the fourth wing.
The entrance gate is from the 16th century.
Breda Congress.
Between 1746 and 1748 it was the site of the Breda Peace Talks between Britain and France during the War of the Austrian Succession. The talks formed the foundation for the eventual peace settlement at Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.


Conrad Theodor van Deventer

Conrad Theodor "Coen" van Deventer (29 September 1857, in Dordrecht – 27 September 1915, in The Hague) was a Dutch lawyer, an author about the Dutch East Indies and a member of parliament of the Netherlands. He became known as the spokesman of the Dutch Ethical Policy Movement. He lived at Surinamestraat 20, The Hague (1903–1915), former residence of John Ricus Couperus, his son writer Louis Couperus and the rest of his family (1884–1902).
Biography.
Early career.
Van Deventer was a son of Christiaan Julius van Deventer and Anne Marie Busken Huet. His uncle was the writer Conrad Busken Huet. He married Elisabeth Maria Louise Maas; they had no children. Van Deventer attended the H.B.S. in Deventer and studied law at Leiden University. He achieved his doctorate in September 1879 on the thesis: "Zijn naar de grondwet onze koloniën delen van het rijk" ("are, according to the constitution, our colonies part of the Dutch empire").
On 20 August 1880 he was made available to the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies by the Ministry of Colonies to be appointed as civil service official. With his wife Van Deventer travelled in September 1880 to Batavia by steamboat "Prins Hendrik"; he was appointed court clerk at the Raad van Justitie (Council of Justice) at Amboina in December 1880. As early as 1881 Van Deventer was already seen by the public as an authority in the case of the issue of the economic position of the Dutch East Indies in relation to motherland the Netherlands. In lectures held during meetings of the "Indisch Genootschap" ("Indies Institute") his opinion on this matter was presented as very important.
In June 1882 Van Deventer was appointed court clerk at the "Landraden" (land boards) of Amboina, Saparua and Wahoo; he was also appointed auditeur militair (a legal position) at the court-martial in Amboina. In March 1883 he was appointed member of the Council of Justice in Semarang and that same year he wrote a series of articles in the "Soerabaijasch Handelsblad", under the title "Gedichten van F.L. Hemkes" (poetry by F.L. Hemkes; Frederik Leonardus Hemkes was a Dutch poet, who lived in South-Africa (1854–1887)). Van Deventer wrote in February 1884 an article in "Het Indisch Weekblad voor het Recht" (The Dutch Indies Journal of Law), called "De Indische Militairen en het Koninklijke Besluit van 13 Oktober 1882 nummer 26" (The military in the Dutch East Indies and the royal order of 13 October 1882), in which he discussed the trial of a Buginese soldier in front of a civil (police) court instead of a military one. In April 1885 Van Deventer quit his job as a member of the Council of Justice in Semarang and was appointed lawyer and attorney at this Council of Justice. In this period of his life Van Deventer was also active as a second lieutenant in the schutterij. That same year, 1885, he quit his job at the Council of Justice and joined the legal practice of LLM B.R.W.A. baron Sloet van Hagensdorp and LLM M.H.C. van Oosterzee; he replaced mr. Van Oosterzee, who would return to the Netherlands.
Career as a private lawyer.
Van Deventer worked as a private lawyer from 1885 to 1888. In May 1888 he took a leave for Europe and travelled with his wife by steamboat "Prinses Amalia" from Batavia to the Netherlands. Back in Europe he wrote a series of articles, called "De Wagner-feesten te Bayreuth" (the Wagner festivals in Bayreuth), which he visited for the newspaper "De Locomotief"; in this period Van Deventer was a permanent employee of this newspaper. He returned to the Dutch Indies on 11 May 1889 by steamboat "Sumatra". He resumed his lawyers practice and also became commissioner of the limited liability company "Hȏtel du Pavillon". In September 1892 he was appointed acting member of the Committee of Directors of the Nederlands-Indische Spoorweg Maatschappij (Dutch East Indian Railway Company). In July 1893 Van Deventer was promoted to the military rank of first lieutenant at the Schutterij in Semarang.
He left for a second short stay in Europe in May 1894 and was, after his return, appointed member of the supervisory committee of the HBS in Semarang. In the newspaper "Locomotief" he wrote an article called "Samarangsche bazar – eigen hulp" (Bazar of Samarang), in which he defended himself against accusations that the prospectus of this firm (Samarangsche bazar), made up by him, was not accurate. He left the Dutch East Indies (permanently) in April 1897 by steamboat "Koningin-Regentes"; back in Europe he visited the Wagner festivals and wrote about "Wagneriana" in The Locomotief of 11 November and 16 December 1897. In 1898 Van Deventer wrote several articles about the coronation celebrations in the Netherlands, where queen Wilhelmina was crowned, in the "Locomotief". He also wrote a series of four articles, called "Het Wilhelmus als Nederlands Volkslied" (the Wilhelmus as the Dutch national anthem), for the Locomotief that year and gave in the Locomotief his perspective on the Zola trial.
Early political career.
In 1899 Van Deventer wrote a very influential article, called "Een Ereschuld" (a debt of honour) in the Dutch magazine "De Gids". In this article Van Deventer stated that the Netherlands had a dept of honor of nearly 190 million gulden opposite the Dutch East Indies and had to pay for this dept of honor. When the Dutch East Indian budget was discussed in the House of Representatives a lot of attention was paid to Van Deventer's article, although not all members agreed with the content of the article. Van Deventer was appointed member of the editorial board of "The Gids" as of 1 January 1901. Over the next years until his death he would write numerous articles in this magazine. In June 1901 Van Deventer accepted his candidacy for the electoral association Schiedam (for the Free-thinking Democratic League), located the Schiedam, for the elections for the House of Representatives, but was not chosen. In lectures Van Deventer showed himself a supporter for the installation of a Dutch East Indian House of Representatives in the Dutch East Indies. In June 1902 he was appointed member of the "Algemeen Nederlands Verbond" (General Dutch Covenant) and wrote in het "Tijdschrift voor Nederlands-Indië" (Magazine for the Dutch East Indies) together with others, a concept colonial program; in this program the authors stated that the administrative power should lie more with the residents of the Dutch East Indies and that the government of the Netherlands should limit its interference to general government principles only. It seems contradictory that he also signed the telegram, send to general J. B. van Heutsz, in which he was complemented with the submission of Panglima Polim (a local leader), which was achieved by military force, in Aceh.
Van Deventer became a member of the board of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (1903) and that same year attended the meeting in London of the "Institut Colonial International". In September 1904 he was appointed knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion. He kept writing articles in different magazines, other than The Gids; for instance he published a series of four articles in the Soerabaijasch Handelsblad in December 1904, called "Over de suikercultuur- en suikerindustrie" (about the sugar industry). On 19 September 1905 Van Deventer was elected as a Free-thinking Democratic member of the House of Representatives for the constituency Amsterdam IX and as such he emphasized his three focus points regarding Dutch East Indian policy: education, irrigation and emigration. He was also a promoter of the so-called Dutch Ethical Policy but at the same time said in a speech given in the House of Representatives on 16 November 1905, that if persuasion did not work it would be inevitable to use military force. In a series of articles in the "Soerabajasch Handelsblad" in August 1908 called "Insulinde's toekomst" (the future of the Dutch East Indies) he wrote about the importance of eductation and the creation of new jobs for natives on higher management levels. Van Deventer was not reelected and left the House of Representatives on 21 September 1909.
Later political career.
Van Deventer was elected to be a member of parliament again on 19 September 1911, when he was appointed member of the Senate by the States of Friesland. In this period he was also appointed as member of the Max Havelaar Foundation; this foundation was named after the famous book, written by Multatuli, and the aim of the foundation was the material and spiritual upliftment of the natives in the Dutch East Indies. In February 1912 Van Deventer made, as a member of the Senate, a journey of several months to the Dutch East Indies. He visited almost all islands, including but not limited to Sumatra, Java, Celebes and Borneo. He remained a Senate member until 16 September 1913, when he was reelected as a member of the House of Representatives for the constituency Assen. He kept this position until his death, on 27 September 1915. In June 1914 he was appointed official delegate of the Netherlands at the International Opium Conference held in The Hague. In 1913 he founded the Kartini Foundation in order to be able to establish girl schools in the Dutch East Indies. In September 1915 Van Deventer became seriously ill (he suffered from peritonitis) and was nursed at the Red Cross hospital in The Hague. He died at the age of 57 on 27 September 1915 and his body was cremated at Westerveld (Driehuis).
Works.
Summary.
For the most part Van Deventer wrote about Dutch East Indian finance, the rights of the native officials and their education and about the sugar industry. When he was active as a journalist for the "Locomotief" he was particularly interested in Wagner and the Wagner Festival. As he was a member of the board of directors of the magazine "De Gids" most of his later articles were published there.


Eduard Sandifort

Eduard Sandifort (November 14, 1742 – February 12, 1814) was a Dutch physician and anatomist. He received his medical doctorate degree (Ph.D.) from Leiden University in 1763, and worked as a general practitioner in The Hague. He was fluent in Dutch, German, Swedish, and Italian. He became a professor of anatomy and surgery in 1771 at Leiden University. His most important writings are "Observationes Anatomico-pathologicæ" (1778), "Excercitationes anatomicoacademicæ" (1783–85), and the "Museum Anatomicum Academiae Lugduno-Batavæ" (1789–93), which was finished by his son, Gerard Sandifort (1779–1848). Sandifort translated Nils Rosén von Rosenstein's "Underrättelser om barn-sjukdomar och deras botemedel" ("The diseases of children, and their remedies") to Dutch in 1768. Sandifort was elected in 1768 as a foreign member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. In 1779 he was the first to document a case of carpal coalition.


Nol Hendriks

Arnold (Nol) Hendriks (15 May 1937 – 21 October 2017) was a Dutch businessman and football executive.
Business career.
Born in Renkum, he moved to Limburg with his parents when his father started working in the mines in Heerlen. He later worked in the mines himself and as a grocer and dry-cleaner, before becoming a self-made millionaire in the textile business.
Roda JC.
Hendriks got involved in the Roda JC football club in the early 1980s. He started backing the club financially and became a technical director as well as a member of Roda's supervisory board. He even scouted players himself and his financial injections made Roda JC one of the leading clubs in Holland behind the country's traditional big three, culminating in finishing second to then Champions League holders Ajax in the 1994–95 Eredivisie season and winning the KNVB Cup twice.
Hendriks was also one of the driving forces behind the club's new Parkstad Limburg Stadion, which was opened in 2000. In his later years he severed ties with the club, but was still used as an advisor and made honorary member of the club.
Personal life.
Hendriks' wife Margaretha died in the 2000s. He backed out of his businesses when handing them over to his children Ronald and Myrjam in September 2017.
Death.
Hendriks was rushed to hospital with a brain hemorrhage in October 2017 and died on the 21st of that month.