Christiaan Huygens
“Damn you! Take your disgusting eyes off my intro page!”
“The rings of Saturn are my hemline.”
“There is no doubt that her scientific achievements are the by-products of beauty.”
Christiaan Huygens（14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695）,The Siren of Zuilichem, was the most beautiful natural philosopher in Dutch history,who won the Dutch beauty queen in 1656 and 1666.She conquered vast majority of scientists at that time with her beauty, and found many important scientific discoveries by the way.She was also a physicist,musician and litterateur in the 17th century. Britain, France and the Netherlands triggered decades of Anglo Dutch war and Franco Dutch war in order to compete for her.
Early life[edit | edit source]
Christiaan Huygens was born on 4 April 1629 in Hague, Netherlands.Her Father Constantijn Huygens was a wealthy diplomat.Christiaan was born with amazing beauty, which made William Ⅱ, Prince of Orange,once covet her beauty. Constantijn Huygens began to carefully protect his daughter from the outside world very early on.But the young stadholder never stopped pursuing her. He even went to Leiden University twice to profess his love to her in public.
In Huygens' diary, she expressed no interest in men engaged in politics. After studying law at Leiden University, she went to Breda. Fortunately, the annoying William II died in 1650.
The first Anglo-Dutch war[edit | edit source]
The Dutch suspected that the eel pie that Cromwell had given to William II in 1649 poisoned their stadholder. The First Anglo-Dutch War broke out between the two countries in 1652.The harsh Cromwell closed all brothels, resulting in the average physical fitness of British sailors at that time being better than Dutch. They won the battle in two years.The war took its toll on both sides. It also left a bad impression on the young Huygens. His diary of the time described his complaints against the British:
"Cromwell had as many faults as boils on his face……He must have been the worst of the English protestants."
These remarks were carried to the Dutch court by one of her admirers, and the Dutch people began a language attack on the English Lord Protector. The anger of the people for losing the war was hurled at Cromwell through weaving false rumors. According to a later count by diarist John Evelyn, the Dutch people made up over 30,000 insulting jokes about England and Cromwell in just four years.Making up these jokes became the fashion of that day. The elector of Brandenburg even held a contest at a banquet to make jokes insulting the British in 1657 ，and Cromwell died in 1658 after hearing three of these jokes.
Charles II commissioned a compilation of "Cromwell Jokes", which included 1,658 insulting jokes about Cromwell. He dug up Cromwell's body after the restoration, cut off his head, and read three jokes from the book to the head on September 3 each year.This tradition was not abolished until the Glorious Revolution.
Reference[edit | edit source]
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