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[QUOTE]Originally posted by RW: [QB] Phew, let me address everything in steps: -Christiaan Huygens is with double a! -Technically, Anne Frank was German! -Jean Leuwenhock? Do you mean Antonie van Leeuwenhoek? (ahn-tow-nee vahn lay-wun-hook) -Van Gogh. Seperate. With guttural g's. Which I won't ask you to pronounce. -the guy who discovered Tasmania was, not surprisingly, cold Abel Tasman. -Windmills: They're now mostly converted to houses, part of national heritage, and/or tourist attractions. The majority was used to grind about everything looking remotely like grain. So, mostly bread industry, not power industry. The famous ones were used to pump water from lakes in the province of (then) Holland. The land thus gained is called polder. Yes, they're protected by dikes. Dykes. Whatever. Sometimes whole rows of them were used if the water had to be transported higher up than normal. Pretty good work for the 17th century. There are some (generator) windmills (the ugly metal high ones) but they're not very common. The Netherlands being such a plain country, one would expect more, but it all has to do, I guess, with the abundant supply of methane gas as an energy source (and a relatively environment-friendly one at that too) Dikes were originally built not along rivers, but at a 90 degree angle to stop the water flooding too far across the low grounds. Later techniques made it possible to construct the dikes as we know them today. The only problem I know of is once in a while, people drive off of them and roll over until they hit a cow. But hey, that's the price we pay. Reminds me, it's been almost four years since we were evacuated because of high water levels. I remember it even made it to CNN. The poor guy had to pronounce "the town of Ochten" and he did so quite admirably, I remember. I also have some vivid memories of the weird Japanese reporter screaming at the camera making strange gestures at the camera, trying to explain to the Japanese what was about to happen. And I laughed at the Americans who thought the entire country was about to flood :] -Who invented the Hansje Brinker legend anyway? I believe it's purely American, it certainly isn't told here. Hm. Reminds me of one awful thing the Dutch did. They caused the horror of Santa Claus. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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