FESTIVAL
THE REASON ORANGE IS A PROMINENT COLOR IN THE NETHERLANDS IS BECAUSE OF THIS ROYAL NAME AND OF COURSE BECAUSE OF THE COUNTRY’ S PREVIOUS FLAG.
When Princess Wilhelmina was born, her father King William the Third was 63 years old. Before the Princess, the King had three sons, but two of them had died prior to the birth of the Princess. The King’ s living son Prince Alexander and his uncle Prince Frederick were the first and second in line for the throne, while the Princess was the third heir. When Wilhelmina was one years old, her uncle Prince Frederick passed away and after she was 4 years old, her brother Alexander also passed away. Thus, she was made heir to the throne, since neither her father nor her uncle had any children. When the Princess was ten, she lost her father, the King, and became the Queen of Netherlands as just a child. The celebration surrounding her birthday changed its name within just five years since the inaugural event, being then called Koninginnedag, or the Queen’ s Day in English.
In 1949, the throne passed to Princess Juliana, the only child of Queen Wilhelmina. The date of the festival also changed to April 30, in honor of the new Queen’ s actual birthday. Similar to her mother, Juliana also didn’ t have any male heirs and the throne passed to her oldest daughter Beatrix. This queen, however, did not change the date of the festival and Queen’ s day continued to be celebrated on April 30 during her reign. In 2013, the country had twin celebrations since the crown changed heads during Queen’ s Day. After 123 years, a King sat on the throne and the name of the festival again became known as King’ s Day. The date also changed at this time to celebrate King Willem-Alexander’ s birthday, April 27.
The dynasty of the Dutch Royal Family is named Orange-Nassau. The reason orange is a prominent color in the Netherlands is because of this royal name and of course because of the country’ s previous flag. On King’ s Day, people of the country dress in orange colors to show their pride and loyalty to the House of Orange- Nassau. The celebrations start a day early on Koningnacht and the color orange rules the streets with numerous decorations on canals, streets and parks. Visitors from all around Europe flock to the festival. The Royal family visits a different city or district in the country every year as part of the celebrations.
102