Brussels

Belgium

Brussels, the capital of Belgium, grew from a settlement on the Senne whose traditional founding date is 979. It became a seat of the dukes of Brabant and then a princely capital of the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands, where Charles V abdicated in 1555. The anatomist Andreas Vesalius was born there in 1514. The mystic Jan van Ruusbroec served as a priest at St Gudula's before leaving in 1343 for the hermitage of Groenendaal in the Sonian Forest. After the Belgian Revolution of 1830 Brussels became the national capital, and the future Pope Leo XIII was papal nuncio to Belgium in 1843-1846. It now hosts major European Union institutions and NATO.