18th and 19th Century
Sodomy was a capital crime and a crackdown on sodomy was started in 1730, during which hundreds of people were executed for homosexuality.
Homosexual relations between consenting adults in private were first legalized in 1811 when France invaded and installed the Napoleonic Code. After the Dutch received independence in 1813 no new sodomy law was enacted.
Read more about this topic: LGBT History In The Netherlands
Famous quotes containing the word century:
“The great man knew not that he was great. It took a century or two for that fact to appear. What he did, he did because he must; it was the most natural thing in the world, and grew out of the circumstances of the moment. But now, every thing he did, even to the lifting of his finger or the eating of bread, looks large, all-related, and is called an institution.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)