After the 1000th video was uploaded to Open Images last October a new milestone has been reached: the addition of the 1500th video. A few themes can be distinguished among the last 500 video’s, such as winter, traffic and transportation, living, Schiphol Airport, fashion and beauty, sports, Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles, industry and production, countryside and performing arts. On the occasion of the 1500th video we will highlight a few videos from some of these themes.

The 1500th video that was added to Open Images is a report from the Polygoon newsreels on the 60 years existence of Philips in 1951. The electronics company Philips was founded in 1891 by Gerard Philips and his father Frederik Philips. In 1951 Eindhoven was decorated with thousands of light bulbs to celebrate the 60 years existence. There was also an unveiling of a statue of Anton Philips. This week it is 120 years ago that Philips was founded:

The former Netherlands Antilles celebrated a special day on October 10, 2010. On that day Curaçao and Sint Maarten became constituent countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, a status Aruba had since 1986. The other islands – Saba, Saint Eustatius and Bonaire – became a direct part of the Netherlands as special municipalities. The status of the former colonies is laid down in the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which dates from 1954. The alteration made in 2010 wasn’t the first one. In 1974 Polygoon newsreels did a report on a conference on the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands in The Hague. Subject of discussion was Suriname’s desire to become independent. This would become a reality a year later, when the charter was altered for the first time:

In the countryside of Groningen they had other things to worry about in 1975. There the village of Weiwerd had to be demolished to make room for the expanding industry of the neighbouring Delfzijl. Polygoon newsreels made a report on the demolition of the village. The first houses had already been taken down by then and many inhabitants had left the village. The school in the village only had 14 students and 2 teachers left and the church in the middle of Weiwerd hadn’t had a service in months. Polygoon interviewed a woman who hadn’t moved yet:

More than 20 years earlier workers were doing the exact opposite in the IJsselmeer. There they were busy building a new city, Lelystad. In 1950 they started working on the construction of a ring-dike for the future Flevopolder from the working island Lelystad. In the first months of 1954 they hadn’t reached the mainland yet and the winter caused problems. Because of the ice they couldn’t reach the mainland with a boat anymore. And after the thaw had set in, the ice wasn’t thick enough to provide the inhabitants with food and mail via that route. Thus the sixty inhabitants of the island were provided with the necessary goods via a helicopter:

After the 1500th video the collection of videos on Open Images will keep expanding gradually. Later this year we hope to make the 2000th video available for reuse. Amongst the themes that will be added in the future is a theme on women with subjects like female football, female police officers and the feminist movement.