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Netherlands end Kingdom's bicentenary celebration in Amsterdam

Xinhua, September 27, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Netherlands finished the celebration of 200 years of the Kingdom of the Netherlands with a festivity in Amsterdam Saturday night.

The Kingdom of the Netherlands started between 1813 and 1815. To celebrate this birth, a national committee arranged events and festivities from November 2013 to September 2015.

Six main events and several side events were organized to commemorate the Kingdom's democratic achievements and the bicentenary.

Unity in diversity, the so-called fifth achievement, was celebrated on Saturday in Amsterdam. In Royal Theatre Carre, among others, King Willem-Alexander, Queen Maxima and princess Beatrix attended a review of all the celebrations in the past two years.

The events closed with a musical spectacle at River Amstel. At the Magere Brug, the Skinny Bridge, portraits of Dutch Kings and Queens in the past 200 years were projected and the show finished with fireworks.

The bicentenary celebrations kicked off on Nov. 30, 2013 with a re-enactment of the historic landing 200 years ago of Willem Frederik, Prince of Orange-Nassau (later King Willem I), at Scheveningen beach after sailing from England, followed by the official launch at the Ridderzaal, the Hall of Knights, in The Hague.

On March 29, 2014 in The Hague, the Dutch continued the festivities by marking the first two democratic achievements, civil rights and freedoms and stable government, exactly 200 years after the adoption of the Constitution of 1814.

On August 30, 2014 in Maastricht, the Kingdom's international orientation -- its third democratic achievement -- was highlighted, and the fourth democratic achievement -- room for active citizenship -- was the theme of the celebration in Zwolle on April 25, 2015. Endi