The Hague

Noordeinde Palace is one of the three official palaces of the Dutch royal family. Located in The Hague in the province of South Holland, it has been... used as the "working palace" for Queen Beatrix since 1984. The palace originally started as a medieval farmhouse, which was converted into a spacious residence by the steward of the States of Holland, Willem van de Goudt in 1533. The original farmhouse's cellars can still be seen in the palace basement. From 1566 to 1591, the palace had a different owner. After that it was leased, and in 1595, purchased by the States of Holland for Louise de Coligny, the widow of William of Orange, and her son Prince Frederik Hendrik. In recognition of William’s service to the nation, the States presented the building to his family in 1609. Frederik Hendrik substantially enlarged the house, which was then known as the Oude Hof. He began by buying the surrounding plots of land. The architects Pieter Post and Jacob van Campen, who built Huis ten Bosch Palace in 1645, were among those involved in the alterations.
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Kyocera Stadion is a multi-use stadium in The Hague, the Netherlands, designed by Zwarts & Jansma Architects. Completed in 2007, the stadium is... used mostly for football of ADO Den Haag. It has a capacity of 15,000 people, and replaced ADO's former stadium Zuiderpark which was considerably smaller. Despite being one of the three largest cities in the Netherlands, the clubs attendances have been traditionally smaller than their rivals Ajax, Feyenoord and PSV Eindhoven. The opening ceremony was on July 28, 2007, since June 2010 ADO Den Haag has an agreement with the multinational Kyocera to change the name of the stadium to Kyocera Stadion. When the club opened the stadium, Wim Deetman, the mayor of The Hague, said that this stadium is the most secure stadium of Europe. The stadium has security cameras installed that record several pictures of every audience member and the so-called Happy Crowd Control system will take pictures of spectators when entering the stadium.
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Constantijn Huygens , was a Dutch Golden Age poet and composer. He was secretary to two Princes of Orange: Frederick Henry and William II, and... the father of the scientist Christiaan Huygens. Constantijn Huygens was born in The Hague, the second son of Christiaan Huygens , secretary of the Council of State, and Susanna Hoefnagel, niece of the Antwerp painter Joris Hoefnagel. Constantijn was a gifted child in his youth. His brother Maurits and he were educated partly by their father and partly by carefully instructed governors. When he was five years old, Constantijn and his brother received their first musical education. They started with singing lessons, and they learned their notes using gold colored buttons on their jackets. It is striking, that Christiaan senior imparted the 'modern' system of 7 note names to the boys, instead of the traditional, but much more complicated hexachord system. Two years later the first lessons on the viol started, followed by the lute and the harpsichord. Constantijn showed a particular acumen for the lute.
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Carel Struycken is a Dutch film, television, and stage actor. He is best known for playing Mr. Homn on the television series Star Trek: The Next... Generation and Lurch in the films The Addams Family and Addams Family Values. He is an exceptionally tall man at 2.13 metres and thus is often called upon to play character or comedic roles in which height plays a major part. Struycken was born in The Hague, Netherlands. When he was 4 years old his family moved to Curaçao, an island in the Caribbean. At age 15, while living on the island of Curaçao, he composed several Caribbean waltzes. At 16 he returned to his home country, where he finished secondary school. He graduated from the directing program at the film school in Amsterdam. Following that, he spent a year at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. In 1978 he was "discovered" as an actor. Struycken is considered a giant as the result of acromegaly. Struycken is married to an American woman and has two children. He lives in the Los Angeles area. His brother Peter Struycken is a noted Dutch artist. Struycken is a vegetarian on ethical grounds.
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Simon Carmiggelt was a Dutch writer who became a well known public figure in the Netherlands because of his daily newspaper columns and his... television appearances. Simon Johannes Carmiggelt was born on 7 October 1913 in The Hague, the second son of Herman Carmiggelt and Jeanne Bik. He had one older brother, Jan. Simon did not turn out to be a very bright student, and he left secondary school in 1929. He enjoyed working as an editor for the school paper though, and he was determined to become a journalist. After various editorial jobs, he became a reporter for the left-wing newspaper Het Volk . Later on he worked for the same paper as a drama critic. He also wrote short columns about daily life in The Hague, which he called Kleinigheden . In 1939 Simon married Tiny de Goey. A year later she gave birth to a daughter, Marianne. In the same year the first collection of Kleinigheden was published, named Vijftig dwaasheden . When the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940 and Het Volk was taken over and censored, Carmiggelt resigned from the paper.
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Theodoor "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch film director, film producer, columnist, author and actor. Van Gogh worked with the Somali-born writer Ayaan... Hirsi Ali to produce the film Submission, which criticized the treatment of women in Islam and aroused controversy among Muslims. On 2 November 2004 he was assassinated by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim. The last film he completed before his death, 06/05, is a fictional version of the assassination of the politician Pim Fortuyn. Theo van Gogh was born in The Hague, Netherlands. His father, Johan van Gogh, was a member of the Dutch secret service . Theo's uncle, also named Theo, was executed by the Germans as a resistance fighter during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. Theo's great-grandfather was the art dealer Theo van Gogh, brother of the artist Vincent van Gogh. After dropping out of law school at the University of Amsterdam, van Gogh became a stage manager. His self-proclaimed passion was filmmaking, and he debuted as a director with the movie Luger .
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Harry Vanda , is a Dutch-born Australian popular music singer, guitarist, songwriter and record producer. "Harry Vanda"'s family migrated to... Australia in 1964, and settled in Sydney. Vanda came to fame there in 1964-65 as the lead guitarist in Australia's most popular and successful group of the 1960s, The Easybeats. In 2007, the Australian Musician magazine selected the meeting of Vanda and George Young in a Sydney migrants' hostel in 1964 as the most significant event in Australian pop and rock music history. In 1966 Harry began a successful and enduring writing partnership with rhythm guitarist Young; together they penned all of The Easybeats' late 1960s recordings, including their major international hit, "Friday On My Mind". After returning to Australia in 1973, Vanda & Young took over as the house producers for leading Australian independent record production company, Albert Productions, and publisher J. Albert & Son.
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Johannes "Jan" Pieter Pronk is a Dutch politician and diplomat. Currently, he is a Professor of Theory and Practice of International Development at... the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. Between 1973 and 2002, he has served three terms as Minister for Development Cooperation and one term as Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment in the States-General for the Labour Party . From 2004 until 2006, he was the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of Mission for the United Nations Mission in Sudan. Jan Pronk was born in Scheveningen in the Netherlands on March 16, 1940. He is the son of Johannes Pronk and Elisabeth Hendrika van Geel, who were both school teachers at the Protestant elementary school Koningin Emmaschool in Scheveningen. Jan Pronk attended the Koningin Emmaschool for three years. He attended the Protestant secondary school Zandvliet Lyceum in the Hague, where he graduated the gymnasium in 1958 with a curriculum that focused on exact sciences.
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Carel Struycken is a Dutch film, television, and stage actor. He is best known for playing Mr. Homn on the television series Star Trek: The Next... Generation and Lurch in the films The Addams Family and Addams Family Values. He is an exceptionally tall man at 2.13 metres and thus is often called upon to play character or comedic roles in which height plays a major part. Struycken was born in The Hague, Netherlands. When he was 4 years old his family moved to Curaçao, an island in the Caribbean. At age 15, while living on the island of Curaçao, he composed several Caribbean waltzes. At 16 he returned to his home country, where he finished secondary school. He graduated from the directing program at the film school in Amsterdam. Following that, he spent a year at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. In 1978 he was "discovered" as an actor. Struycken is considered a giant as the result of acromegaly. Struycken is married to an American woman and has two children. He lives in the Los Angeles area. His brother Peter Struycken is a noted Dutch artist. Struycken is a vegetarian on ethical grounds.
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Simon Carmiggelt was a Dutch writer who became a well known public figure in the Netherlands because of his daily newspaper columns and his... television appearances. Simon Johannes Carmiggelt was born on 7 October 1913 in The Hague, the second son of Herman Carmiggelt and Jeanne Bik. He had one older brother, Jan. Simon did not turn out to be a very bright student, and he left secondary school in 1929. He enjoyed working as an editor for the school paper though, and he was determined to become a journalist. After various editorial jobs, he became a reporter for the left-wing newspaper Het Volk . Later on he worked for the same paper as a drama critic. He also wrote short columns about daily life in The Hague, which he called Kleinigheden . In 1939 Simon married Tiny de Goey. A year later she gave birth to a daughter, Marianne. In the same year the first collection of Kleinigheden was published, named Vijftig dwaasheden . When the Germans invaded the Netherlands in 1940 and Het Volk was taken over and censored, Carmiggelt resigned from the paper.
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Theodoor "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch film director, film producer, columnist, author and actor. Van Gogh worked with the Somali-born writer Ayaan... Hirsi Ali to produce the film Submission, which criticized the treatment of women in Islam and aroused controversy among Muslims. On 2 November 2004 he was assassinated by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim. The last film he completed before his death, 06/05, is a fictional version of the assassination of the politician Pim Fortuyn. Theo van Gogh was born in The Hague, Netherlands. His father, Johan van Gogh, was a member of the Dutch secret service . Theo's uncle, also named Theo, was executed by the Germans as a resistance fighter during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. Theo's great-grandfather was the art dealer Theo van Gogh, brother of the artist Vincent van Gogh. After dropping out of law school at the University of Amsterdam, van Gogh became a stage manager. His self-proclaimed passion was filmmaking, and he debuted as a director with the movie Luger .
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Frederique van der Wal is a Dutch model, business woman and entrepreneur best known for her appearances in Victoria's Secret, and the covers of... such magazines as Cosmopolitan, and Vogue. Van der Wal grew up in The Hague. Frederique van der Wal, has taken her success in fashion and beauty, and translated it into a career that spans the worlds of fashion, film, television and business. She has appeared in prestigious campaigns for Revlon, Guess?, MCI, and Victoria's Secret, and has been profiled in such varied magazines as "Forbes" and "InStyle." In 2003, Van der Wal appeared in a stage production of The Vagina Monologues , and has performed in feature films by acclaimed directors Barry Sonnenfeld , Woody Allen , James Toback and Wim Wenders. Van der Wal has also appeared on programs including: Oprah, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, GMA, The Today Show, E!, VH-1, The Late Show, Late Night with Jay Leno, the Bloomberg Network, and CNN.
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Harry Vanda , is a Dutch-born Australian popular music singer, guitarist, songwriter and record producer. "Harry Vanda"'s family migrated to... Australia in 1964, and settled in Sydney. Vanda came to fame there in 1964-65 as the lead guitarist in Australia's most popular and successful group of the 1960s, The Easybeats. In 2007, the Australian Musician magazine selected the meeting of Vanda and George Young in a Sydney migrants' hostel in 1964 as the most significant event in Australian pop and rock music history. In 1966 Harry began a successful and enduring writing partnership with rhythm guitarist Young; together they penned all of The Easybeats' late 1960s recordings, including their major international hit, "Friday On My Mind". After returning to Australia in 1973, Vanda & Young took over as the house producers for leading Australian independent record production company, Albert Productions, and publisher J. Albert & Son.
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Johannes "Jan" Pieter Pronk is a Dutch politician and diplomat. Currently, he is a Professor of Theory and Practice of International Development at... the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. Between 1973 and 2002, he has served three terms as Minister for Development Cooperation and one term as Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment in the States-General for the Labour Party . From 2004 until 2006, he was the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of Mission for the United Nations Mission in Sudan. Jan Pronk was born in Scheveningen in the Netherlands on March 16, 1940. He is the son of Johannes Pronk and Elisabeth Hendrika van Geel, who were both school teachers at the Protestant elementary school Koningin Emmaschool in Scheveningen. Jan Pronk attended the Koningin Emmaschool for three years. He attended the Protestant secondary school Zandvliet Lyceum in the Hague, where he graduated the gymnasium in 1958 with a curriculum that focused on exact sciences.
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