Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels, which is the capital of Belgium. The Brussels-Capital Region is located in the central portion of the country and is a part of both the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community, but is separate from the Flemish Region and the Walloon Region. Brussels is the most densely populated and the richest region in Belgium in terms of GDP per capita. It covers 162 km2 (63 sq mi), a relatively small area compared to the two other regions, and has a population of over 1.2 million. The five times larger metropolitan area of Brussels comprises over 2.5 million people, which makes it the largest in Belgium. It is also part of a large conurbation extending towards Ghent, Antwerp, Leuven and Walloon Brabant, home to over 5 million people.
Leopold II was the second King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909 and, through his own efforts, the owner and absolute ruler of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908.
Philippe or Filip is King of the Belgians, having ascended the throne on 21 July 2013, following his father's abdication. He is the eldest child of King Albert II, whom he succeeded upon Albert's abdication for health reasons, and Queen Paola. He married Jonkvrouw Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz in 1999, with whom he has four children. King Philippe and Queen Mathilde's eldest child, Princess Elisabeth, is first in the line of succession.
The Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) listen (help·info) is a Dutch- and English-speaking research university located in Brussels, Belgium. It has four campuses: Brussels Humanities, Science and Engineering Campus, Brussels Health Campus, Brussels Technology Campus and Brussels Photonics Campus.
The Université libre de Bruxelles, abbreviated ULB, is a French-speaking private research university in Brussels, Belgium.
The City of Brussels is the largest municipality and historical centre of the Brussels-Capital Region, and the capital of Belgium. Besides the strict centre, it also covers the immediate northern outskirts where it borders municipalities in Flanders. It is the administrative centre of the European Union, thus often dubbed, along with the region, the EU's capital city.
Henri Leys, Hendrik Leys or Jan August Hendrik, Baron Leys was a Belgian painter and printmaker. He was a leading representative of the historical or Romantic school in Belgian art and became a pioneer of the Realist movement in Belgium. His history and genre paintings and portraits earned him a European-wide reputation and his style was influential on artists in and outside Belgium.
Kris Defoort is a Belgian avant-garde jazz pianist and composer. He was born on 30 November 1959 in Bruges. He also teaches at the Brussels conservatory. His brother is Bart Defoort.
Peter Benoit was a Flemish composer of Belgian nationality.
Jan Bucquoy is a Belgian anarchist who has worked in various media. He gained fame for his controversial anti-establishment works and media stunts, which caused many court cases, including for lèse-majesté, copyright infingement and defamation. Between 2005 and 2010 he staged five attempts to attack the Belgian Royal Palace in Brussels and conquer it. Internationally he is best known as a film director, with La Vie sexuelle des Belges 1950-1978 (1994) and the cult film Camping Cosmos (1996) being his most famous movies. A recurring theme in his work is Belgitude.
Josse De Pauw is a versatile Belgian actor, film director, dramatist, author and columnist. He was married to modern dance performer Fumio Ikeda for over thirty years.
Lubna Azabal is a Belgian actress.
Henryk Arctowski, born Henryk Artzt, was a Polish scientist and explorer. Living in exile for a large part of his life, he was one of the first persons to winter in Antarctica and became an internationally renowned meteorologist. He was instrumental in restoring Polish independence after the First World War. Several geographical features, the Henryk Arctowski Polish Antarctic Station and a medal of the National Academy of Sciences are named in his honor.
Herman Louis Cesar Teirlinck was a Belgian writer. He was the fifth child and only son of Isidoor Teirlinck and Oda van Nieuwenhove, who were both teachers in Brussels. As a child, he had frail health and spent much of his time at the countryside in Zegelsem, with his paternal grandparents. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature six times.
Martyrs' Square is a square in central Brussels, Belgium. Its current name refers to the martyrs of the September days of the Belgian Revolution of 1830.
Peeping Tom is a Belgian theatre company founded by Argentinian choreographer Gabriela Carrizo (I/AR) and French choreographer Franck Chartier (F) in 2000. The pair met while working at several other Belgian companies, including Les Ballets C de la B. In 1999, they created a first location project that was set in a trailer home, Caravana, with would-be long-time collaborator Eurudike De Beul. This location project was followed by the film Une Vie Inutile (2000).
Ivo van Hove is a Belgian theatre director known as the artistic director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam in the Netherlands and for his Off-Broadway avant-garde experimental theatre productions. On Broadway, he has directed productions of A View from the Bridge, The Crucible, Network, and West Side Story.
On the afternoon of 24 May 2014, a gunman opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, killing four people. Three of them, an Israeli couple on holiday and a French woman, died at the scene. The fourth victim, a Belgian employee of the museum, was taken to the hospital but died of his injuries on 6 June. A little less than a week later, on 30 May 2014, a suspect was arrested in the French city of Marseille in connection with the shooting. The suspect was Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year-old French national of Algerian origin. A second suspect, Nacer Bendrer, was identified and arrested later.
Milo Rau is a Swiss theater director, journalist, essayist and lecturer. He won the Swiss Theater Award in 2014.
Alain de Halleux is a Belgian film director, producer, photographer and screenwriter. His films predominantly focus on the topics of environmental, social, financial, economic and political issues such as Brexit.
