00:00Archaeologists just made a really interesting discovery in the city of Ghent, Belgium.
00:04Now Ghent is a really interesting city in historical terms.
00:08I'll give you a little bit of the background.
00:09In the Middle Ages it was already quite a large city of about 50,000 people.
00:13And it belonged for a long time to the Kingdom of Burgundy.
00:17Now Burgundy, as you might know, is today part of France.
00:19It became part of France in 1477 because Charles the Bold, King of Burgundy, was killed in battle.
00:25His daughter inherited his kingdom, but she couldn't really continue independently.
00:30So, she married Prince Maximilian of the Habsburg Empire.
00:35Thus, all of the Burgundian lands, except those that had been conquered by France,
00:39became part of the vast Holy Roman Empire, which at that time was centered in Spain.
00:44Now, many people in Ghent, who became part of the Holy Roman Empire at this time, didn't like it.
00:49So there were rebellions, but they were suppressed. This went on for some time.
00:53Finally, in 1539, there was another rebellion, this time against taxes,
00:58to fund the ongoing wars between the Holy Roman Emperor and France.
01:04Well, the Holy Roman Emperor at that time, Charles V, didn't like this.
01:08So he went into Ghent and he suppressed the rebellion.
01:11To this day, people commemorate this suppression by wearing nooses around their necks
01:15because that's what Charles V made the townspeople do.
01:18Now, all of that is to tell you that what was recently uncovered in Ghent
01:22is a castle that was built in 1540 by Charles V after the rebellion
01:27to keep watch over the rebellious citizens of Ghent.
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