Belgium was created after these fights, before that there was a union of what we call Belgium and Holland now. There was a big difference between the lower class and the bourgoisie ( upper-class). After the failure of the crops that year, combined with an uprising of the lower-class in Paris, the fire was lit after an opera called "the mute of Portici". The upperclass formed a civil army, that tried to control the revolutionaries. They didn't succeed, so the Dutch ruler Willem I ordered the occupation of Brussels.

This caused the 2 groups in Brussels ( civil army and the revolutionary troops with many volunteers) to combine there strength to fight the Dutch army. They succeded, the Ducth retreated and a group of people from both the civil army and the revolutionaries formed a committee that rules the land and declared it's independece... Belgium was born...

Ehrm... kinda yeah... we didn't emerge from thin air...       

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I certainly never called you airheads 8). However, the Anlgo-Saxons, the ones who originally became the English, didn't originate in England .
Also, your little historical exposition doesn't give the dates. Ah, not the things that dangle from trees (umm, that doesn't sound right, either, does it)... I mean the calendar dates/times.

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Ahem. Good point Woody but they were the Angles who orignated from Germany.* In fact the original inhabitants of these islands were the Celtic tribes & I'm not sure when they first settled here so basically we're all immigrants.

Full details here. http://www.postroman.info/saxon1.html

Of course I was thinking of modern history & forgot to mention the ancient Britons. There are two prehistoric hill forts within a few miles of where I live & which I've often visited over the years. Some of these forts date from the Bronze or even Stone Age & extensive flint mines were discovered & excavated at Cissbury Ring some years ago. http://www.findon.com/cissbury/cissbury.htm#hillforts
I've never given much thought to where these people came from or what happened to them.

Details of Celtic Britain here. http://www.britainexpress.com/History/Celtic_Britain.htm

I just thought that I'd mention that recent Archeological research indicates that there was never a mass invasion of England by the Saxons following the Roman withdrawl.

It seems that there is no DNA evidence and no Population change evidence for it.  All of the evidence is from cultural change that took place in the 100 years following the departure of the empire.  If you look at recent history with empires ceasing to exist you see massive cultural change overnight.  It is being argued at the moment that the sudden presence of Sutton Hoo type burials in 500-600 CE Britain stems from a reaction to the void left by the Romans and the forging of new national identities with new leaders coming to the fore from the existing Britons.

It's all interesting though.

Will

Jutland, the Jutes came from there didn't they?

Schleswig! WW2 nightfighter base

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yes, and holland was on of them


as for first occupation of the british isles:
i read somewhere that durin the last ice age sealevel was 500 feet lower, i don't know how deep the channel is, but if the isles were not actually connected to the european mainland, then at least it wasn't far, and maybe the remaining gap was frozen over.