Famous people from the Netherlands
Monarchs & Politicians
William the Silent (1533-1584), founder of the House of Orange-Nassau, and main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish that set off the Eighty Years' War.
Peter Stuyvesant (1592-1672), last Dutch governor of the colony of New Netherland (modern NY, NJ and CT) from 1647 to 1664.
William III of Orange (1650-1702), stadtholder and king of England
Johan de Witt (1625-1672), statesman
Navigators
Abel Tasman (1603-1659), navigator who discovered among others Tasmania (named after him), New Zealand & Tonga
Michiel de Ruyter (1607-1676), most famous admirals in Dutch history
Jakob Roggeveen (1659-1729), navigator who discovered Easter Island
Artists
Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516), Renaissance painter
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), painter
Jan Vermeer (1632-1675), painter
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Impressionist painter
Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Expressionist painter
Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993), actress (Dutch by her mother, English by her father, Belgian by birth)
Theo van Gogh (1957-2004), film director
Other famous Dutch people
Pope Adrian VI (1459-1523), one of the few non-Italian popes in history.
Desiderius Erasmus (1466/1469- 1536), writer, polemicist, humanist and theologian.
Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), jurist who laid the foundations for international law.
Baruch Spinoza, (1632-1677), philosopher.
Christiaan Huygens, (1629-1695), mathematician, astronomer and physicist, inventor of the pendulum clock.
Gerard (1858-1942) and Anton Philips (1874-1951), co-founders of the Royal Philips Electronics.
Anne Frank (1929-1945), Jewish diarist during World War II.
Wim Duisenberg (1935-2005), first president of the European Central Bank.
Frans van der Hoff (1939-), Co-founder of Max Havelaar, the first Fairtrade certification initiative.
Notable Dutch-American people
Martin Van Buren (1782-1862), 8th President of the United States, first president whose family did not come from the British Isles, only president in the history of the United States whose first language wasn't English (but Dutch).
Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877), industrial entrepreneur.
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), renowned inventor. Accumulated 1500-plus patents worldwide for his inventions.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26th President of the United States
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd President of the United States
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