Sniffing around a rug market, having a drink at Chez Lou Lou, or with the children to the play activities on the market: there is more than enough to do during King’s Day in Zoetermeer. But how did our national holiday actually come about?
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For that we have to go back 140 years in time. To August 31, 1885 to be precise. On that day, Princess Wilhelmina was five years old. Princess day was created to celebrate her birthday. The precursor of Queen and King’s Day.
Princess day
Princess day had to emphasize ‘the National Unit’, falls on the website of the royal house To read. Princess day was celebrated up to and including 1890, but that changed on November 23 of that year. Then Wilhelmina became queen at the age of 10 under the regency of her mother Queen Emma.
Queen’s Day without Queen
The first official Queen’s Day was celebrated on August 31, 1891. You would think a big party, but nothing could be further from the truth. Queen Wilhelmina and her family were not present at the festivities. It was not until 1902 that it became a real folk festival, because the Dutch then celebrated that Queen Wilhelmina had just recovered from typhus, a serious illness.
Did you know that Queen’s Day was mainly a children’s party before 1902? The holiday fell on the last day of the school holiday, which ended the holiday festively.
The people to the queen
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In September 1948, Queen Juliana succeeded her mother Wilhelmina. She changed the date of Queen’s Day to April 30, because on that date it was Juliana’s birthday. But instead of visiting a municipality in the Netherlands, she held her birthday in Soestdijk Palace and the Dutch were able to visit Juliana ‘.
Many Dutch people walked in a kilometer -long row along the landing of the palace and gave the royal family flowers and gifts. This flower reflection was shown on television from the mid -1950s. Under Queen Juliana, Queen’s Day became an official day off and the celebration grew into a national holiday.
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The queen to the people
In 1980 Beatrix took over, or in this case the crown, from Juliana. Out of respect for her mother, Beatrix continues to celebrate Queen’s Day on April 30. Yet she gives her own twist to this day. She no longer lets the people come to the palace, but pulls into the country herself.
She brings her first visit on Queen’s Day in 1981 to Veere and Breda in Zeeland. In 2009, Queen’s Day became world news when an attack was committed on the royal family in Apeldoorn. Perpetrator Karst Tates drove into the crowd with a car that was looking at the parade. In 2012, Beatrix will pay her last visit as Queen to Veenendaal and Rhenen.
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Immediately a ‘wrong’ day
In 2014, King’s Day was celebrated for the first time. Willem-Alexander became king in 2013 and dropped King’s Day on April 27, his birthday. But there it immediately went ‘wrong’. In 2014 his birthday fell on a Sunday, so that it was shifted to Saturday 26 April.
In 2025 the king’s birthday also falls on Sunday, so King’s Day will be shifted to Saturday 26 April. The next time this shift takes place, is in 2031. Because of the religious day of rest, King’s Day does not take place on Sundays.
From two to one
Since then, the king has been celebrating his birthday in a slightly different way than his mother. He visits one instead of two municipalities on King’s Day. This place has a center function in the region and presents itself to the royal family during the visit. After the mayor’s word of thanks and the king, the visit is concluded with the singing of the Wilhelmus.
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King’s Day in Zoetermeer
Even though King’s Day this year is not on the king’s official birthday, the party is no less due to it! You can read everything you want to know about King’s Day in Zoetermeer in the article below.
