Abandoned places

Together with Liège, Antwerp was home to the 1930 World's Exposition, a double exhibition that the Bureau International des Expositions did not recognise.

On the eve of World War I, the World Exposition was organized in the Belgian city of Ghent.

In the shadow of Drunen's medieval castle, ‘Het Land van Ooit’ opened in 1989, a leisure park in which knights and counts played the leading role.

In the 1950s, anyone who wanted to cross the Upper Merwede had to rely on a ferry service. This was not very convenient in emergencies.

During the final months of World War I, the British Army Troop Company Royal Engineers erected a concrete bridge over the Kemmelbeek near Ypres.

To host the 1998 World Expo, the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, spared no expense. An abandoned industrial site was bulldozed to create a new city district with expo pavilions.

When Vesuvius erupted on 24 October 79, the Roman provincial capital of Pompeii disappeared under a thick layer of ash. 

In 1939, construction of a 50-kilometre defence line between Koningshooikt and Wavre, known as the KW-Line, began on behalf of the Belgian army.

On Monday evening, 3 August 1914, an explosion signalled the start of World War I in Belgium. Belgian combat engineers detonated the southern portal of the Laschet train tunnel.

A severe storm lashed Belgium on Monday, 29 November 1897. Over a length of hundreds of metres, the sea dyke was washed away in the sea town Middelkerke. A drinking water reservoir did not remain unscathed either.