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This month in Belgian History

1 Jul 1849 – Release of the first Belgian stamp. It bears the image of King Leopold I.

2 Jul 1959 - Albert II and Paola Ruffo di Calabria were married.

3 July 1780 – Birth of Andrew Parmentier (3 July 1780-26 Nov 1830: (Anglicized name) Belgian-American, André Joseph Ghislain Parmentier, born in Enghien, Belgium, was a horticulturist, responsible for exhibiting many plant species in America.

4 Jul 1874 – Death of Hyppolyte Boulenger, founder of the Belgian school of modern landscape.

4 Jul 1888 – Bank notes become bilingual and the Moniteur Belge is published in Dutch for the first time.

4 Jul 1898 - The British cargo ship Cromartyshire collided with the La Bourgogne at 5am, 60 miles off of Sable Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. 562 passengers died.

5 Jul 1874 – In London, the Belgian Vincent de Groof, inventor of a bat-shaped flying machine, has himself launched from a balloon. Unfortunately his attempt fails and he crashes 300 feet to the ground. He is the first Belgian casualty of the conquest of the air.

7 Jul 1882 – Death of Eugène Simonis, sculptor. He created the statue of Godefroid of Bouillon, located on the Place Royale in Brussels.

7 Jul 1904 – The engineer and industrial Edouard Empain founds the “Ateliers de construction électrique de Charleroi” – ACEC (Electric Works of Charleroi).

10 Jul 1873 - Verlaine shoots his friend Rimbaud in Brussels.

11 Jul 1832 - Creation of the Order of Leopold, meant to reward for service rendered to the country.

11 Jul 1916 – Rik Wouter, painter and sculptor, creator of ‘La Dame en bleu devant la glace’ (the lady in blue in front of the mirror) dies in Amsterdam at the age of 34y, victim of eye cancer.

12 Jul 1976 – A new law enables the establishing of the Lotto.

14 Jul 1900 – During the Paris Olympic Games, Léon de Lunden (Trap shooting) and Hubert Van Innis (Bow) win golden medals.

15 Jul 1956 – Passing of a law giving 12 days of paid vacation per year to all workers. Until then, workers who were older than 21 and whose seniority didn’t reach 15 years could only have 6 paid vacation days annually.

16 Jul 1930 - Introduction of Dascolor, color film processing method patented by Léon Dassonville.

17 Jul 1871 - Zénobe Gramme introduces his first dynamo before the Science Academy in Paris. This dynamo was the starting point of the modern electric industry.

17 July 1894 - Georges Lemaître (17 July 1894-20 June 1966): Georges (Henri) Lemaître was a Belgian astronomer and cosmologist, born in Charleroi, Belgium.

18 Jul 1991 – Andre Cools, a leading politician in the French-speaking eastern part of Belgium, was shot dead today on a street in Liège. Mr. Cools, 64 years old, had been a Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium and chairman of the French-language part of the Socialist Party.

20 Jul 1975 – The rooster drawn by the painter Paulus (1881-1959) was adopted as the emblem of the French-speaking community of Belgium.

21 Jul 1831 - King Leopold I enters Brussels and swears his oath to the Constitution.

23 Jul 1857 – Composer Peter Benoît wins Grand Prix de Rome with his cantata on the ‘Murder of Abel’.

23 Jul 1871 – Birth of Ovide Decroly in Renaix, a small town in the Belgian province of East Flanders.

23 Jul 1926 - Minister Emile Franc creates the Société nationale des chemins de fer belges (SNCB= National Railroad Society)

26 Jul 1847 - Leopold I names Henri Conscience as Dutch teacher for the royal princes. Henri Conscience (1812-1883) Flemish author, Henri Conscience, born in Antwerp on December 3, 1812, became the spokesperson for the Flemish movement through his historical novels.

27 Jul 1857 - Princess Charlotte, daughter of Leopold I, marries the Archduke Maximilian of Austria in Brussels.

28 Jul 1970 – Death of Arthur Masson, Walloon author born in 1896. He wrote about 30 novels among which the Toine Culot series.

29 Jul 1929 – Tour de France: Belgian cyclist Maurice De Waele passes the Italian Giuseppe Pancera and the Belgian Joseph Demuysere.

30 Jul 1872 – Birth of Clementine, daughter of Leopold II and Marie-Henriette.

31 Jul 1993 – Death of King Baudouin in his Motril residence in Spain.