Doris Salcedo is a Colombian-born visual artist and sculptor. Her work is influenced by her experiences of life in Colombia, and is generally composed of commonplace items such as wooden furniture, clothing, concrete, grass, and rose petals. Salcedo's work gives form to pain, trauma, and loss, while creating space for individual and collective mourning. These themes stem from her own personal history. Members of her own family were among the many people who have disappeared in politically troubled Colombia. Much of her work deals with the fact that, while the death of a loved one can be mourned, their disappearance leaves an unbearable emptiness. Salcedo lives and works in Bogotá, Colombia.

Leopold III reigned as King of the Belgians from 1934 until 1951.

On the outbreak of World War II, Leopold tried to maintain Belgian neutrality, but after the German invasion in May 1940, he surrendered his country, earning him much hostility, both at home and abroad. His act was declared unconstitutional by Prime Minister Hubert Pierlot and his cabinet, who presently moved to London to form a government-in-exile, while Leopold and his family were placed under house arrest. In 1944, they were moved to Germany and then Austria, before being liberated by the Americans, but banned for some years from returning to Belgium, where his brother Prince Charles had been declared Regent. Leopold’s eventual return to his homeland in 1950 nearly caused a civil war, and under pressure from the government, he abdicated in favour of his son, Prince Baudouin in July 1951.

Leopold’s first wife, Queen Astrid, was killed in a road accident while on a driving holiday in Switzerland in 1935, being much mourned by the public. His second marriage, to Lilian Baels in captivity in 1941, was not valid under Belgian law, and she was never permitted the title of Queen.

The Battle of France, also known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries during the Second World War. On 3 September 1939 France had declared war on Germany, following the German invasion of Poland. In early September 1939, France began the limited Saar Offensive. By mid-October, the French had withdrawn to their start lines. In six weeks from 10 May 1940, German forces defeated Allied forces by mobile operations, conquering France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, ending land operations on the Western Front until the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944. Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940.

In Fall Gelb, German armoured units made a surprise push through the Ardennes, and then along the Somme valley, cutting off and surrounding the Allied units that had advanced into Belgium to meet the expected German invasion. British, Belgian and French forces were pushed back to the sea by the German armies and the British evacuated the British Expeditionary Force, French and Belgian troops from Dunkirk in Operation Dynamo.

German forces began Fall Rot on 5 June.