History of Belgium from Korea in 1955. On September 5, 1944, the Benelux Customs Union was created. It entered into force in 1948, and ceased to exist on 1 November 1960, when it was replaced by the Benelux Economic Union after a treaty signed in The Hague on February 3, 1958. The Benelux Parliament was created in 1955. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and the United Kingdom, is considered the precursor to the NATO agreement, which Belgium became an official member of on April 4, 1949. The headquarters of NATO are located in
Military history of the Netherlands and small parts of the Netherlands and Croatia. Previously, it had included all of the Netherlands and Switzerland, parts of modern France and Italy. By the middle of the 18th century the Empire had been greatly reduced in power. The Eighty Years' War, or Dutch Revolt, was the war of secession between the Netherlands and the Spanish king, that lasted from 1568 to 1648. The war resulted in the Seven United Provinces being recognized as an independent state. The region now known as Belgium and Luxembourg also became established as the Southern Netherlands, part of the Seventeen Provinces that remained