The oldest archaeological finds in Amsterdam date from Roman
times - coins and a few artefacts suggest there were people
around, but there's no evidence of human settlement. This isn't
surprising, considering the region was a delightful mass of
shifting lakes, swamps and soggy peat. Amsterdam's earliest
settlers were dam-building 12th-century farming and fisherfolk
who tamed the marshlands around the Amstel with ditches and
dikes.
The city grew rapidly after 1300 as a key player in trade between
the North and Baltic seas and southern Europe. But as the money
flowed in, class struggle intensified - the Reformation grew
out of a struggle for power between the emerging merchants and
the Catholic-sanctioned aristocrats. Calvinism, a form of Protestantism,
gripped the hearts and minds of Amsterdam's nouveax riches,
with its emphasis on sobriety, hard work and community-based
worship. The Calvinists took on the imperial power of Spain's
Catholic Philip II, and in 1578 they captured Amsterdam from
him. The following year Amsterdam and seven northern provinces
declared themselves an independent republic - Holland - led
by William of Orange, the forefather of today's royal family.
Amsterdam's golden age (1580-1740) kicked off when trading rival
Antwerp was taken by the Spanish and its access to the sea restricted.
By 1600, Amsterdam's ships dominated seaborne trade and fishing
in Europe, extending their horizons through the 17th century
as Dutch overseas interests were established. During the 18th
century, money gradually overtook trade as the city's biggest
industry. Amsterdam's trade and fishing came to a complete halt
in the early 19th century when the city was occupied by the
French and then blockaded by the British. By the time the French
trooped out in 1814, Amsterdam had become a local market town
and Britain ruled the seas.
Amsterdam turned its back on the sea and restyled itself as
an industrial centre: rail links were established, steel production
thrived and the population expanded. As capital of a neutral
Netherlands, Amsterdam managed relatively well in WWI, and the
1920s were boom years, crowned by the Olympic Games hosted in
1928. Unfortunately, the depression of the 1930s hit the city
hard, with unemployment peaking at 25%, and tensions rose between
socialists, communists and fascists.
The Netherlands tried to stay neutral in WWII, but Germany invaded
in May 1940, and for the first time in 400 years the city's
population experienced the grim realities of war first-hand.
The occupying forces slowly introduced measures against Amsterdam's
large Jewish population, often with the complicity of local
authorities, and although workers went out on strike in support
of their Jewish compatriots in 1941, things had gone too far.
Only one in 16 of Amsterdam's Jews survived the war, the highest
proportion of Jews murdered anywhere in Western Europe. Throughout
the occupation the city's populace had largely knuckled under
and tried to make do as best they could, but when the invaders
began rounding up Dutch men to work in Germany, a resistance
movement, founded by an alliance of Calvinists and communists,
began operating. The country's south was liberated by the Allies
in 1944, but isolated Amsterdam suffered horribly in the severe
winter of 1944-45, and thousands of residents died. The city
was finally liberated in May 1945.
Postwar Amsterdam gathered itself quietly until the early 1960s
when people began to question the status quo and Amsterdam became
the radical heart of Europe. The Provos kicked it all off, with
a series of anarchic street 'happenings', while students and
women campaigned for greater rights and hippies started arriving
in the 'Magic Centre' of Europe, the city where anything was
possible. The riotous squatter movement stopped the demolition
of much cheap inner-city housing, the lack of which is a continuing
problem, and many residents protested against thoughtless city
planning, developing the policy of an inner city where people
can live, work and shop. By the early 1980s, consensus had settled
in, and during the '90s the inner city became a very pleasant
melange of pubs, coffee shops, restaurants and hotels. The ethnic
makeup of the city has changed, with Surinamese, Moroccans,
Turks and Antillians now making up 25% of the population, and
the city today is a livable place, with its decentralised councils
and bike-friendly/car-suspicious policies.
