LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Belgium: Belgian Railway
built 615 days ago
The final region and province of Belgium is the province of Brussels, which includes the city of Brussels, capitol of the European Union. Brussels is a large metropolitan city that one could spend weeks exploring. Brussels’ main square, the Grand Place, has been home to the Belgian Brewers Guild (an important regulatory organization founded in the 13th century) since it bought the building in the late 1500s. It is ... considered by many to be the most beautiful square in the world.
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Belgium is an ancient and yet still young nation. Belgians were first mentioned about 2,000 years ago (by Julius Caesar in his book on the Gallic Wars). Nevertheless, Belgium was for centuries part of a larger state structure.
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Belgium has four official languages: Belgiunese, French, Dutch and German. Which they all master better than all other people speaking these languages. However Belgians get mightily offended if their second language is referred to as Dutch, so they pretend it is really called Flemish instead.
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Belgium played its first official game on May 1, 1904 in a 3-3 draw against France. Prior to this match, a Belgian selection played several matches, but the squad contained some English players, so these are not added to the caps. For example, Belgium beat Netherlands by 8-0 on April 28, 1901 with the help of some Englishmen. It was then decided that Belgium would play twice a year against Netherlands beginning from 1905, generally once in Antwerp and once in Rotterdam (later Amsterdam). At that time, the national squad was chosen by a committee of representatives of the 6 or 7 main clubs.
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Belgium possessed one primary foreign colony during its history: the Congo, which was given to King Leopold II in the Conference of Berlin in 1885. He made the land his private property and called it the 'Congo Free State'. In this Free State, the local population was brutalised in exchange for rubber, a growing market with the development of rubber tyres. In 1908, the international pressure against the cruelties of King Leopold II (estimates about the number of deaths range from 3 million to 22 million people, 8 million to 10 million being the estimates most often cited) became so great that he was forced to sell his property to the Belgian state as a colony for 150m Belgian francs. From then on, it became Belgian Congo, before gaining independence from Belgium in 1960.
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The skepticism towards government, the lack of pride about one's own achievements, and the general "anarchistic" way of doing things may create the false impression that life in Belgium is not well-organized. Though Belgians dislike discipline imposed upon them by superiors, bureaucracy, ideology or religion, they compensate by hard work and self-discipline. In spite of regular changes of government, Belgians trains do run on time, and the administrative services do help people generally in a fast and effective way.
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Belgian Railway