Belgian Revolution in the context of "Palace of the Nation"

For most of its history, what is today Belgium was either a part of a larger territory, such as the medieval Carolingian Empire, or was divided into a number of smaller states. In the Middle Ages, the territory of present-day Belgium was fragmented into numerous feudal principalities, including the Duchy of Lower Lorraine, the Duchy of Brabant, the County of Flanders, the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the County of Namur, the County of Hainaut and the County of Luxembourg. Belgium's modern shape can be traced back at least as far as the southern core of the medieval Burgundian Netherlands. The Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) later led to the split between a northern Dutch Republic and the Southern Netherlands from which Belgium and Luxembourg developed. The area, long a Habsburg stronghold, briefly came under Bourbon control during the War of the Spanish Succession. The resulting Peace of Utrecht transferred the area back to Habsburg control, creating what is now known as the Austrian Netherlands. The French Revolutionary wars led to Belgium becoming part of France in 1795. After the defeat of the French in 1814, the Congress of Vienna created two new states, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which were placed in dynastic union under the House of Orange-Nassau. The Southern Netherlands rebelled during the 1830 Belgian Revolution, establishing the modern Belgian state, officially recognized at the London Conference of 1830. The first King of Belgium, Leopold I, assumed the throne in 1831.

The first half of the twentieth century was tumultuous. Its historic neutrality was violated in each of the World Wars. During World War I, frustrated German invaders launched the Rape of Belgium. During the 1940 invasion, the quick surrender by Leopold III of Belgium to German forces drove a wedge between the King and his people. The King's attempt to return led to a constitutional crisis in 1950, which led to his abdication in favor of his son Baudouin. Belgium entered the second half of the twentieth century showing an unprecedented era of economic growth, as Belgium took an active role in the formation of the Benelux customs union with its neighbors. Ultimately, the Benelux union would serve as a model for the European Economic Community, a precursor to the European Union; to this day Brussels serves as the seat of many of the European Union institutions.

The Société Générale de Belgique (French pronunciation: [sɔsjete ʒeneʁal də bɛlʒik]; Dutch: Generale Maatschappij van België, lit. 'General Company of Belgium'; often referred to in Belgium simply as "Société Générale" or SGB) was an investment bank and, subsequently, an industrial and financial conglomerate in Belgium between 1822 and 2003. It has been described as the world's first universal bank. The banking element was split in 1935 and became the Générale de Banque. At its height in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Société Générale exercised significant control over large portions of the national economy of Belgium and the Belgian colonial empire.

The Société Générale was originally founded as an investment bank called the Société Générale des Pays-Bas pour favoriser l'industrie nationale or Algemeene Nederlandsche Maatschappij ter Begunstiging van de Volksvlijt (lit. 'General Netherlands Society for Advantage to the National Industry') by William I of the Netherlands in 1822 when Belgium was under his rule within the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. After the Belgian Revolution in 1830, it was the new country's dominant financial institution and remained so even after the creation of the National Bank of Belgium in 1850. Its investments in the national economy contributed to the rapid development of the Industrial Revolution in the country and it soon emerged at the head of a major conglomerate of industrial and financial institutions active in Belgium and the Belgian Congo. The bank pioneered investments in non-listed equity.

Radicalism (from French radical) was a political movement representing the leftward flank of liberalism between the late 18th and early 20th century. Certain aspects of the movement were precursors to a wide variety of modern-day movements, ranging from laissez-faire to social liberalism, social democracy, civil libertarianism, and modern progressivism. This ideology is commonly referred to as "radicalism" but is sometimes referred to as radical liberalism, or classical radicalism, to distinguish it from radical politics. Its earliest beginnings are to be found during the English Civil War with the Levellers and later the Radical Whigs.

During the 19th century in the United Kingdom, continental Europe and Latin America, the term radical came to denote a progressive liberal ideology inspired by the French Revolution. Radicalism grew prominent during the 1830s in the United Kingdom with the Chartists and in Belgium with the Revolution of 1830, then across Europe in the 1840s–1850s during the Revolutions of 1848. In contrast to the social conservatism of existing liberal politics, radicalism sought political support for a radical reform of the electoral system to widen suffrage. It was also associated with a variety of ideologies and policies, such as liberalism, left-wing politics, direct democracy, republicanism, modernism, atheism, secularism, antimilitarism, civic nationalism, abolition of titles, rationalism, casual clothing, redistribution of wealth and property, and freedom of the press.

The history of Brussels, the capital city of Belgium and the European Union, stretches back over a millennium. In that time, it has developed into one of Europe’s most important political and cultural centres. The city has endured foreign occupation, religious conflict, bombardment, revolution, and waves of urban transformation.

The United Kingdom of the Netherlands is the unofficial name given to the Kingdom of the Netherlands as it existed from 1815 to 1839. The United Netherlands was created in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars through the fusion of territories that had belonged to the former Dutch Republic, Austrian Netherlands, and Prince-Bishopric of Liège in order to form a buffer state between the major European powers. The polity was a constitutional monarchy, ruled by William I of the House of Orange-Nassau.

The polity collapsed in 1830 with the outbreak of the Belgian Revolution. With the de facto secession of Belgium, the Netherlands was left as a rump state and refused to recognise Belgian independence until 1839 when the Treaty of London was signed, fixing the border between the two states and guaranteeing Belgian independence and neutrality as the Kingdom of Belgium. Today, the Netherlands and Belgium are still kingdoms and Luxembourg is still a grand duchy and the only surviving grand duchy in the world.

The Low Countries comprise the coastal Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta region in Western Europe, whose definition usually includes the modern countries of Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands and parts of Northern France. Both Belgium and the Netherlands derived their names from earlier names for the region, due to nether meaning "low" and Belgica being the Latinized name for the Low Countries, a nomenclature that became obsolete after Belgium's secession in 1830.

The Low Countries—and the Netherlands and Belgium—had in their history exceptionally many and widely varying names, resulting in equally varying names in different languages. There is diversity even within languages: the use of one word for the country and another for the adjective form is common. This holds for English, where Dutch is the adjective form for the country "the Netherlands". Moreover, many languages have the same word for both the country of the Netherlands and the region of the Low Countries, e.g., French (les Pays-Bas), Spanish (los Países Bajos) and Portuguese (Países Baixos). The complicated nomenclature is a source of confusion for outsiders, and is due to the long history of the language, the culture and the frequent changes of economic and military power within the Low Countries over the past 2,000 years.

The Belgian Armed Forces (Dutch: Defensie; French: La Défense, German: Die Streitkräfte) are the combined national military forces of Belgium. The King of the Belgians is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. The Belgian Armed Forces was established after Belgium became independent in October 1830. Since then, the Belgian armed forces have fought in World War I, World War II, the Cold War (Korean War and the Belgian occupation of the Federal Republic of Germany), Kosovo, Rwanda, Somalia and Afghanistan. The Armed Forces comprise five branches: the Belgian Army, the Belgian Air Force, the Belgian Navy, the Belgian Medical Service and the Belgian Cyber Force.