The Dutch are an energetic bunch , and although there ’s no potential way we could get over everything that the world’stallest peoplehave been up to over the past 400 years , we can give you the best - of list , right here . Bookmark it for air hole reference the next time you ’re essay to impress your lovelyDutch escort . Here ’s everything the world take to thank the Dutch for :
1. Most of the audio & video formats you grew up with
Dutch gadget giant Philips invented the cassette format ( well , they called it the “ compact cassette ” ) in 1962 . Thanks to the innovation of Sony ’s Walkman , a ten later , it became incredibly pop for a long , long clock time . Eventually the cassette was replaced by the CD – and yeah , Philips invented that too … with Sony , in 1979 .
Philips and Sony were working on the video side , too . In 1969 they released a Modern land - of - the - art data format for at - habitation movie watching : the LaserDisc . Though the LaserDisc lost the marketing battle to the JVC - invented VHS format , the Dutch were n’t done . Sony and a couple more of JVC ’s fellow - Nipponese competitors helped Philips down this technical school into the DVD data formatting by 1995 . Later they make out up with their own replacing : the Blu - ray disk , in 2006 . Unfortunately , this format was bear at the ending of the physical - medium age of amusement .
Oh yeah , the CD - ROM ? They did that too .
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2. WiFi & Bluetooth
The Dutch are definitely into IT , so it ’s no surprise that there were Dutch scientist behind the world ’s two most omnipresent wireless local data - transfer technologies , invented in the ‘ ninety . However , they definitely were n’t alone . They could n’t have done it without the Australians and the Swedish .
3. M.C. Escher
Did you do it the artist of the unsufferable staircases was Dutch ? There’sa museum dedicate to himin The Hague , and it ’s as mind - bendingly trippy as you would expect .
4. Booze
Well , the Christian Bible for it anyway . ( And theexistence of noose . ) The word “ booze ” come from Olde Dutch slang for “ to drink heavy . ” Other Dutch share to the English lexicon include hemp ( duh ) , landscape , boss , yankee , spooky , cookie , coffee , cruise , quack , skate , and Santa Claus ( to name a handful ) .
5. Marriage equality
The world ’s first legal same - sex marriage ceremony admit office between four couples in Amsterdam at midnight on April 1st , 2001 and was preside over by the ( very enthusiastic ) Mayor Job Cohen himself .
6. The Enlightenment
By the seventeenth century , the Netherlands ( specially Amsterdam ) was already a cultural melting heap . They also had a particular distaste for being say what to do and decided they were going to print whatever infernal book they felt like . Together , this not only spawned local detached thinkers ( most notably Baruch Spinoza ) , but also attracted top thinker from neighboring countries , like France ( René Descartes ) and England ( John Locke ) .
7. Orange carrots
Before the seventeenth hundred , carrots were purple or white or yellow . Around that sentence , though , everyone started eating orange . There is some debate around who was really behind the switch , but most people concord that it had to do with honoring the Dutch purple family : the House of Orange , who were popular with the revolutionist and the Protestant bunch ( see the orange stripe in the Irish flag ) . At the very least , orange carrot appeared first in the Netherlands .
8. Gouda cheese
In case you did n’t have intercourse that Gouda was a cheese - trading townsfolk in the Netherlands . Fun fact : though Gouda is called Gouda because of the way it ’s made and discernment , in the Dutch cheeseflower industry , the name actually bring up to the big , round shape the high mallow is commonly betray in .
9. Melisandre (fromGame of Thrones)
Actress Carice van Houten is as well known for get naked in front of the camera in her aboriginal Netherlands as she is toGame of Thronesfans the universe over . She issue forth from a culture that ’s quite well-to-do with nudity . You ’re welcome .
10. Daario Naharis
noblewoman , we got you covered too . Michiel Huisman ( or Cal fromOrphan Blackor Liam fromNashville , if you prefer ) is also Dutch .
11. The telescope and microscope
Galileo Galilei made the scope celebrated … a yr after it was fabricate in the Netherlands ( in 1608 ) . It ’s still up for debate whether the actual inventor was Zacharias Janssen or Hans Lipperhey – but either way , he was Dutch . The Dutch were also casting their eye on the small-scale scale leaf with the invention of the microscope ( and even the century of excogitation ) . And although this is also under difference of opinion – whether it was Zacharias again , or Hans Jansen in 1595 , or Antonie van Leeuwenhoek a few X subsequently – it was still a Dutchie . The original edition of both equipment were moderately crappy and a pain in the bottom to practice , but hey , you receive ta start somewhere .
12. The stock market
Is “ thank ” the right word here ? Anyways , the caudex market , including futurity trading and short marketing and all the other money - pump praxis that go with it , were make up by the Dutch jump in 1602 as a strategy to fund and broadcast the risk of the tenacious , trade - base sea voyages of the East India Company . And yep , they aid a draw of mass , from small business community to housemaids get rich .
13. Fair trade
Once colonialism locomote too far , the Dutch ( like everyone else ) just keep going . But then in 1859 a human being identify Eduard Douwes Dekker grew a sense of right and wrong and , under the striking pen name Multatuli ( “ I have suffered greatly ” ) , compose a satire about the brutal coffee bean business deal on the island of Java . It get really democratic . And the Dutch had to kind of cut out the cruelty a bit … if not the whole colonialism thing . Then , more than a century later ( in 1988 ) , some other Dutch guys coif up the first prescribed fairish - trade label and named it after that script : Max Havelaar .
14. Speed cameras (the original “Gatso” type)
Sorry . It was originally intended for race tracks .
15. Your garden
The Dutch are know for the tulip , which is really an adaptation of the Turkish variety , and happens to sell a huge amount in the heyday market . But the Dutch are turn a mass more than that … andshipping it to your local bloom shop . A whole 24 % of the horticultural trade is driven by the Dutch , and that number jumps up to 50 % when you ’re spill about flowers only . That ’s a lot more than tulips . It ’s nutrient too – the Dutch are also the worldly concern ’s conduct onion plant grower .
16. Modern fire-fighting
Jan van der Heyden was a Golden Age Dutch painter … and really got into ardour - quenching engineering science . Not only did he explicate the innovative peal - up fire hosiery with his blood brother , Nicolaes , in 1673 , but he also formulate an ripe pumping organisation , tinkered with the attack - railway locomotive model , published history ’s most renowned firefighting book , and set up and go the first Amsterdam Tennessean fervour department . The story goes that he witnessed the devastation of Amsterdam ’s original town hall , handily locate next to his sign , and he got super motivated to prevent that from encounter again . He also set up the metropolis ’s – and one of the mankind ’s – first street - inflammation system , because , you jazz , he was bored , probably . Or maybe he need to keep his fire brigade on their toe .
17. Levees (dykes) and man-made islands
The Dutch have been fighting back floods , run out land , and building island since they start populating their soused corner of Europe . In plus to boasting a turn of telling undertaking – locks , ostensibly endless levees , and at least half of Amsterdam – they ’re the go - to experts overseas , helping countries like Japan and the US build up water defense and the urban center of Dubai Modern island of amusement .
18.The Voice
OK , American Idolstarted the whole voting - on - outspoken - dream concept , but we all know the kinder , more chair - whirl version is good . At least the US Emmys do . And it all started in Holland first ( The Voice of Holland , to be exact ) thanks to John de Mol , co - founder of theEndemol output company , now a ball-shaped power station in reality TV . Unfortunately , de Mol was also the force out behindBig BrotherandFear Factor .
19. Blender
If you work in practical three-D , you lie with Blender as the world ’s biggest undefendable - source 3D software . If you do n’t , you might be more familiar with their animation - studio side , with free - to - utilization classics likeSintelandBig Buck Bunnybeing favorites to play on loop wherever entertainment devices or platforms are being demonstration - male erecticle dysfunction .
By the manner , contributors to open - source software do a pot of gull in Python – another Dutch innovation ( thanks , Guido van Rossum ) .
20. Everything to do with maps (from atlases to Sat Nav)
With all the sailing and trade locomotion they ’ve done throughout story , it ’s no wonder the Dutch know their way around the world . What you might not earn , though , is that it ’s thanks to a bunch of Dutch dudes . Their navigation - based innovations , go steady from the 16th century on , include triangulation , the Mercator projection ( aka the reason Greenland looks ginormous on mat maps ) , the first modern atlas , and the Dijkstra algorithm to find the shortest path between any two detail , without which there would be no Sat Nav . ( Oh yeah , TomTomis a Dutch society , as well . ) . The algorithm is discover after Edsger Dijkstra , one of the main force behind the credence of electronic computer programming as a scientific subject ( and a whole lot more – Edsger Dijkstra was badass ) .
21. The metronome
It was contrive by Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel in Amsterdam in 1812 . It uses grease monkey standardised to the pendulum clock , also by the Dutch .
22. Brussels sprouts
Well , they ca n’t all be winners .
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