Who was Adriaen Block?

Adriaen Block was born in Amsterdam somewhere around 1567. There is not much known about his childhood and by 1603 he married Neeltje Hendricks van Gelder. The two of them had five children together and in 1606 they moved to a house located on Oude Waal street. The two of them would spend the rest of their lives at this location.

What happened to Amsterdam in 1585?

Amsterdam was still a small city with no more than about 30,000 inhabitants, but things changed quickly, especially in 1585, when Spanish troops recaptured Antwerp (in modern Belgium), then the dominant port and commercial centre of the Netherlands. Dutch forces responded by blockading the Schelde River, Antwerp’s only access to the sea.

What happened to Amsterdam during World War 1?

Amsterdam suffered from the disruption of trade during World War I, but modest prosperity resumed in the 1920s. The Great Depression and World War II were especially traumatic for the capital. The German army occupied the Netherlands in 1940, and Allied bombers attacked industrial areas several times.

Why was Amsterdam a prosperous city during the Napoleonic era?

The international trade on which Amsterdam had thrived suffered greatly during the Napoleonic period, and it was only the revival of Dutch rule and commerce in the East Indies in the 1830s that began to restore prosperity to the city. After 1850 sustained growth set in, and the population doubled (to 500,000) by 1900.