Off the beaten track in The Netherlands

On 31 December 1974, the miners of the Oranje-Nassau I in Heerlen mined the last lump of Dutch coal, half a century ago.

Organisation Todt, Nazi Germany's construction company, sent an army of forced labourers to an old marl quarry in the Netherlands in the spring of 1944 to convert it into an aircraft engine maintenance site.

In 1951, the Hydraulic Laboratory De Voorst settled in the Dutch Noordoostpolder. There, scientists had a constant supply and drainage of water to test out scale models for hydraulic works.

One of the 138 Dutch air watchtowers was built in the 1950s right between the rivers Maas and Waal.

In 1815, after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, Dutch King William I gave the go-ahead for constructing the New Dutch Waterline. This defence line extended over a distance of 85 kilometres between the Zuiderzee and the Biesbosch.

With a bunker as its foundation and on top of a floodbank, Air Guard Tower 5K3 offered a broad view over the Hollandsch Diep and the Mariapolder beyond. 

The Western Scheldt, the gateway to the port of Antwerp, played an essential role during World War II. 

On the night of 18-19 January 1923, the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia) caught the first test signals from the Dutch broadcasting station Kootwijk, over 12,000 kilometres away. It was a miracle of technology—or was it?

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.

No expense was spared in building the more than 46-kilometre-long railway line between the Dutch town of Lage Zwaluwe and Hertogenbosch. Thus, in the 1880s, the construction of a spacious railway bridge above the Bossche inundation field began.