- arising spontaneously or from an obscure or unknown cause
- peculiar to the individual
- It is illegal in the United Kingdom to handle salmon in suspicious circumstances.
- A flea can jump 30,000 times without stopping.
Jan van Eyck was a painter from the County of Loon active in Bruges. He is one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. The surviving records of his early life indicate that he was born around 1380–1390, most likely in Maaseik, in present-day Belgium. He took employment in the Hague around 1422, when he was already a master painter with workshop assistants, and employed as painter and valet de chambre with John III the Pitiless, ruler of Holland and Hainaut. He was then employed in Lille as court painter to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy after John's death in 1425, until he moved to Bruges in 1429 where he lived until his death. He was highly regarded by Philip and undertook a number of diplomatic visits abroad, including to Lisbon in 1428 to explore the possibility of a marriage contract between the duke and Isabella of Portugal.
About 20 surviving paintings are confidently attributed to him, as well as the Ghent Altarpiece and the illuminated miniatures of the Turin-Milan Hours, all dated between 1432 and 1439.
Robert Abercrombie Lovett was the fourth United States Secretary of Defense, having been promoted to this position from Deputy Secretary of Defense. He served in the cabinet of President Harry S. Truman from 1951 to 1953 and in this capacity, directed the Korean War.
Lovett was a core member of the group of foreign policy elders known as "The Wise Men", and was deemed an "architect of the cold war" by social scientist G. William Domhoff, in his 1970 book, The Higher Circles: The Governing Class in America.
The Battle of Seneffe took place on 11 August 1674, during the 1672–1678 Franco-Dutch War near Seneffe in present-day Belgium. It was fought by a French army commanded by Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé and a combined Dutch-Imperial-Spanish force led by William of Orange. While a clear French victory, both sides suffered heavy losses and it had little impact on the outcome of the war in the Low Countries.
Seneffe was one of three battles in the Spanish Netherlands during the Franco-Dutch War and the only one unconnected to a siege, the dominant form of warfare in the late 17th century; Cassel in 1677 was an attempt to relieve Saint-Omer, while Saint-Denis in 1678 was fought to prevent the fall of Mons.