Canon of the Netherlands

The Canon of the Netherlands (Dutch: Canon van Nederland; also known as the Canon of Dutch History) is a list of fifty topics that aims to provide a chronological summary of Dutch history to be taught in primary schools and the first two years of secondary school in the Netherlands.^[2][3] The fifty topics are divided into fourteen sections.

Canon

The Canon of Dutch History was prepared by a committee headed by Frits van Oostrom and presented to the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Maria van der Hoeven, on 16 October 2006.

A revised version was presented to the Dutch government on 3 October 2007 and in October 2008 it was agreed to include the canon in the school curriculum by 1 August 2009. An updated version was presented in June 2020, with ten topics replaced, parts rewritten and other modifications made to make the canon more diverse and accessible.^[4][5]

The canon was designed to provide an overview of "what everyone ought to know, at the very least, about the history and culture of the Netherlands", as well as providing a framework for the teaching of History in Dutch schools.^[6] Schools are not obliged to teach the canon, in accordance with the Freedom of education principle incorporated in the Dutch constitution (article 23) that guarantees the right of parents to have their children educated in accordance with their religious and other views.

The website entoen.nu is responsible for developing the canon for use in schools and in society in general.^[7]

The 14 sections

1. The Low Countries by the Sea
2. On the outer edges of Europe
3. Conversion to Christianity
4. The Dutch language
5. An urban center and trading centre at the confluence of the Rhine, the Meuse and the Scheldt rivers
6. The Dutch Republic emerges from an uprising
7. The flowering of the Golden Age
8. A trading nation and colonial power
9. A nation-state under a constitutional monarchy
10. The rise of modern society
11. The Netherlands during the time of the world wars from 1914 to 1945
12. The welfare state, democratisation and secularisation
13. The diversification of the Netherlands
14. The Netherlands in Europe

The 50 topics

	Topic	Section	Date	Description
1	Dolmens	3	c. 3000 BCE	Early farmers
2	The Roman limes	2, 3	47 - c. 400	On the borders of the Roman empire
3	Willibrord	3	658 - 739	Spread of Christianity
4	Charlemagne	2	742 - 814	Emperor of the Western world
5	Hebban olla vogala ...	4	c. 1100	Earliest fragment of Old Dutch script
6	Floris V, Count of Holland	6	1254 - 1296	A Dutch Graaf and a discontented nobility
7	The Hanseatic League	5	1356 - c. 1450	Trading cities in the Low Countries
	The 'Printing press' was originally at No. 8 in the first version. In the revised version it was replaced by 'Christiaan Huygens', now at No. 21 in the list.	4	c. 1450	Printing Revolution
8	Erasmus	3	1466? - 1536	An international humanist
9	Charles V	2, 6	1500 - 1558	The Low Countries as an administrative unit
10	The Beeldenstorm	3, 6	1566	Religious conflict
11	William the Silent	6	1533 - 1584	From rebellious nobleman to 'Father of the Nation'
12	The Dutch Republic	6	1588 - 1795	An exceptional federal republic
13	The Dutch East India Company	8	1602 - 1799	Expansion overseas
14	The Beemster polder	1, 6	1612	The Netherlands and water
15	The Grachtengordel	5, 6	1613 - 1662	Urban expansion in the seventeenth century
16	Hugo Grotius	6, 7	1583 - 1645	A pioneer of modern international law
17	The Statenbijbel	3, 4	1637	The Book of Books
18	Rembrandt	7	1606? - 1669	The great painters
19	The Atlas Maior of Joan Blaeu	7, 8	1662	Mapping the world
20	Michiel de Ruyter	7	1607 - 1676	Naval heroes and Dutch naval power
21	Christiaan Huygens	7	1629-1695	Science in the Dutch Golden Age
22	Spinoza	7	1632 - 1677	Seeking the truth
23	Slavery	8	c. 1637 - 1863	Trafficking and forced labour in the New World
24	Buitenplaatsen	7, 9	17th and 18th century	Summer residences in the country
25	Eise Eisinga	9	1744 - 1828	The Enlightenment in the Netherlands
26	The Patriots	9	1780 - 1795	Crisis in the Republic
27	Napoleon Bonaparte	9	1769 - 1821	The Kingdom of Holland
28	William I	9	1772 - 1843	The United Kingdom of the Netherlands
29	The first railway	10	1839	The Industrial Revolution
30	The Dutch constitution	9	1848	A state's most important law
31	Max Havelaar	4, 8	1860	Protest against colonial abuse in the Dutch East Indies
32	Opposition to child labour	10	19th century	Out of factories and into schools
33	Vincent van Gogh	10	1853 - 1890	Modern art
34	Aletta Jacobs	10, 12	1854 - 1929	Emancipation of women
35	The First World War	10, 11	1914 - 1918	War and neutrality
36	De Stijl	11	1917 - 1931	Revolution in Design
37	Crisis years	11	1929 - 1940	Society in the Great Depression
38	The Second World War	11	1940 - 1945	Occupation, resistance and liberation
39	Anne Frank	11	1929 - 1945	The Holocaust in the Netherlands
40	Indonesia	11, 13	1945 - 1949	A colony wrests itself free
41	Willem Drees	12	1886 - 1988	The welfare state
42	The watersnood	1, 12	1 February 1953	The perils of a low-lying country
43	Television	12	from 1948	A breakthrough in media technologies
44	Port of Rotterdam	12	from c. 1880	Gateway to the world
45	Annie M.G. Schmidt	4, 12	1911 - 1995	Going against the grain in a bourgeois society
46	Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles	13	from 1945	The West decolonises
47	Srebrenica	14	1995	The dilemmas of peacekeeping
48	Veelkleurig Nederland	13	from 1945	A multicultural society
49	Natural gas	12	1959 - 2030?	A dwindling resource
50	Europe	14	from 1945	Netherlands and the European Union

Members of the Committee

• Frits van Oostrom (professor of Humanities at the University of Utrecht, President of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Spinoza Prize 1995, AKO Literatuurprijs 1996), chairperson
• Paul van Meenen (leader of the Democrats 66 (D66) party in Leiden, vice chairperson of entoen.nu),^[8] vice chairperson
• Herman Beliën (senior lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam)
• Marjolijn Drenth (philosopher, novelist, columnist for de Volkskrant)
• Frans Groot (history teacher at the Amsterdam University of Applied Science)
• Els Kloek (history teacher and senior researcher in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Utrecht, project leader of the Online Women's Dictionary of the Netherlands)^[9]
• Susan Legêne (professor of political history at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam, formerly curator of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam)
• Rob van der Vaart (Professor in Human Geography at the University of Utrecht)
• Hubert Slings (director of entoen.nu,^[8] director of education at the Dutch National Museum of History), secretary

See also

• Canon of Dutch Literature
• Canon of Amsterdam [nl]
• Canon of Friesland
• Canon of Gelderland [nl]
• Canon of Groningen
• Canon of Limburg [nl]
• Canon of Zeeland [nl]
• Canon of South Holland [nl]
• Canon of Curaçao