Everything about Gravelines totally explained
Gravelines (
Dutch:
Grevelingen) is a small historic town and
commune on the northern coast of
France on the
river Aa 15 miles (25 km) south west of
Dunkirk, in the
Nord département. Population: 12,482.
History
In the early
12th century,
Saint-Omer was an important port in western
Flanders. However silting gradually cut it off from the
North Sea, resulting in the construction of a
canal to the new coast at what is now Gravelines. The name is derived from the
Dutch Gravenenga, meaning Count's Canal. The new town became heavily fortified as it guarded the western borders of
Spanish territory in Flanders.
There was a famous
Meeting at Gravelines in 1520, between the
Holy Roman Emperor,
Charles V and King
Henry VIII of England. There were also
two battles fought nearby, the first was a land battle in
1558 resulting in a victory by Spanish forces of
Lamoral, Count of Egmont over the
French under Marshal
Paul des Thermes. The second was a naval attack using
fire ships in
1588 launched by the
Royal Navy under
Lord Howard against the
Spanish Armada at
anchor.
The town was captured and recaptured several times by the French and Spanish between
1639 and
1658, and finally annexed to France in the
Treaty of the Pyrenees of
1659.
Associated towns
Gravelines has been associated with
Dartford in the
English county of
Kent.
Economy
Now the city is mainly known for its
nuclear energy plant, with six
PWR reactors of 910 MWe each.
Family
The name Gravelines is most notable for surname of family in Canada. Many were named Boudreau dit Gravelines (Boudreaus of Graveline, France) but later changed their last name to Graveline. This has also been changed to Gravelin in some families.
One famous family member is Thomas Gravelines, the top rated AAA midget goalie in the 2005/2006 hockey season in Canada, who won the all-Ontario's with the Sault North Stars in Waterloo, Ontario.
Another famous family member is Joseph Gravelines who was an Arikara interpretor for the Lewis and Clark expeditions across the United States in the 18th Century.
The family name has now spread all over Canada (especially Quebec) and the United States.
Related names: Boudreau, Graveline, Gravelin.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Gravelines'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://gravelines.totallyexplained.com">Gravelines Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
