Netherlands

On 8 April 1911, Professor Heike Kamerlingh Onnes and his collaborators, Cornelis Dorsman, Gerrit Jan Flim, and Gilles Holst, discovered superconductivity.   They observed that the resistance of mercury approached  "practically zero" as its temperature was lowered to 3 kelvins.  Today, superconductivity makes many electrical technologies possible,  including Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and high-energy particle accelerators.

On 8 March 1979, N.V. Philips' Gloeilampenfabrieken demonstrated for the international press a Compact Disc Audio Player. The demonstration showed that it is possible by using digital optical recording and playback to reproduce audio signals with superb stereo quality. This research at Philips established the technical standard for digital optical recording systems. This event marked the start of the worldwide development of consumer digital optical recording and reproduction equipment, obtainable by the peoples of the world for a low price.

The first Zuiderzee Enclosure Dam ran from North Holland to the island of Wieringen, successfully barring the sea for over 50 years and protecting a large area north of Amsterdam. The total Zuiderzee project was the largest land reclamation effort in the Netherlands, developed over a period of about 80 years, beginning in 1918 and reaching completion in 1996. The huge dyke/dam was considered one of the greatest engineering feats of its time.

This is one of three nearly identical pumping stations that drained the Haarlemmermeer (Haarlem Lake), 1849- 52, then continued to maintain the polder's water table for more than 80 years. The Haarlemmermeer area covers 45,000 acres (about 70 square miles) in a triangular region between the cities of Amsterdam, Haarlem, and Leiden.