ROTTERDAM

   Originating as a small village, Rotterdam became a chartered town in 1340. Spanish troops plundered the city in 1572 at the beginning of the Dutch Revolt. Rotterdam became the second harbor in Holland after Amsterdam in the next centuries. The city’s population and harbor activities grew tremendously after the digging of the New Waterway in 1866–1872, which provided a good connec tion to the North Sea. At present, the city has about 590,000 inhabi tants, with great ethnic variety. It is the center of a large urban ag glomeration of about 1.1 million people. Its economic activities include shipping, shipbuilding, and several kinds of industry (e.g., petrochemicals). In 2004, however, Rotterdam was surpassed as the world’s largest port by Shanghai, China. The center of the city, which was destroyed by Germanbombing on 14 May 1940 (with some 850 killed, 30,000 injured, and 80,000 homeless), has many modern buildings, for instance, the cube houses of architect Piet Blom (1934–1999). Rotterdam is home to an important maritime museum and some fine collections of ancient and modern art, for instance, the Boymans van Beuningen Museum and the Kunsthal. A business school founded in Rotterdam in 1913 became Erasmus University since 1973.