Dutch Republic: Did you mean...?

This gold aureus is one of the first Roman portrait coins. Roman Republican coins did not usually depict living people, although a statue of the politician Sulla appeared on a coin during his lifetime. The son of Pompey the Great adapted...

While the English were falling apart a little, with their civil war and their restoration and their succession problems, the Dutch were getting their act together. They were throwing off the yoke of the Spanish Empire, uniting their provinces...

Blue and white Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) logo from 1650-1674. Made in Japan to order by the company's directors in Batavia (Jakarta). Date between 1615 and 1674.

A 17th-century painting by Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom showing English and Dutch galleons in combat in 1605. Both ships are typical of the Spanish galleon type. (National Maritime Museum, Amsterdam)

Dutch whalers off Spitsbergen, oil on canvas by Abraham Storck, c. 1690. Collectie Het Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam.

Battle between Dutch and Spanish ships on the Haarlemmermeer, 26 May 1573, oil on canvas by Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom, c. 1629. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Replica of the Dutch Halve Maen ("Half Moon"), which English navigator Henry Hudson (c. 1570-1611) captained on his third voyage in 1609 in search of a northwest passage. Photographic print by Stereo-Travel Co., c. 1909. Library of Congress...

Pieter de Carpentier (1586-1659) - Governor General of the Dutch East Indies.

A 17th-century painting by Reinier Nooms showing Dutch and Spanish ships fighting at the Battle of the Downs in the English Channel in 1639. (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich)

This episode of Ten Minute History (like a documentary, only shorter) covers the rise of Calvinism in the Spanish Seventeen Provinces and the subsequent outbreak of the Dutch Revolt/Eighty Years' War. William the Silent led the United Provinces'...