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100 unusual facts about Lille


1906 World Weightlifting Championships

The 1906 Men's World Weightlifting Championships were held in Lille, France on March 18, 1906.

1938 International Cross Country Championships

In addition, an unofficial women's championship was held three weeks earlier in Lille, France on March 12, 1938.

2010 European Under-18 Rugby Union Championship

The following two championships, held in Lille, France in 2005 and again in Treviso in 2006, were won by England.

Achille Liénart

Born in Lille to a bourgeoisie family of cloth merchants, Liénart was the second of the four children of Achille Philippe Hyacinthe Liénart and Louise Delesalle.

Andrea Zanzotto

In the course of time his opposition to the fascist regime made it difficult for him to find any kind of work, to the point of deciding in 1925 to take refuge in Paris and then at Annoeullin (near Lille), where he worked for some friends of his.

Anton Dunckern

In June, 1954, Dunckern was granted an early release from a prison in the Loos district of Lille.

Augustin Dupré

However, the Assemblée nationale rejected his idea and retained 8 mints: Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Bayonne, Perpignan, Nantes, Lille, and Strasbourg.

Automated guideway transit

The VAL (Véhicule Automatique Léger) system in Lille, France, opened in 1983, is often cited as the first AGT installed to serve an existing urban area.

Battle of La Bassée

The German 6th Army took Lille before a British force could secure the town, while the 4th Army arrived and attacked the exposed British flank at Ypres.

Belgian railway line 94

Beyond Baisieux the line continues to the French city Lille.

Bonduelle

The company was founded in 1853, when Louis Bonduelle-Dalle (23 October 1802 - 13 November 1880) and Louis Lesaffre-Roussel (1802–1869) established a grain and juniper berry distillery in Marquette-lez-Lille.

Bruno Matykiewicz

In 1981 he earned two silver medals at the World and European Championships in Lille.

Brussels–Charleroi Canal

It is part of a north-south axis of water transport in Belgium, whereby the north of France (via the Canal du Centre) including Lille and Dunkirk and important waterways in the south of Belgium including the Sambre valley and sillon industriel are linked to the port of Antwerp in the north, via the Brussels-Scheldt Maritime Canal.

Carl Faia

He has collaborated with artists to present new works with computer electronics in various festivals throughout Europe including Ars Musica (Brussels), Holland Festival (Amsterdam), Musica (Strasbourg), Agora (Paris), Gaida (Vilnius), MaerzMusik (Berlin), Lille 2004 as well as the Casa da Musica (Porto) et Lille 2004 and Queen Elizabeth Hall (London).

Carl Philipp Reichsgraf von Wylich und Lottum

At the outbreak of the War of Spanish Succession he was made supreme commander of the Prussian troops in the Netherlands.In 1703 he besieged Rheinberg and Geldern, and later Lille and Tournai.

Cassiopée

She started her professional career by performing in over 500 shows by the French-traditional cabaret company's Les Folie's De Paris in Quebec City, Canada and then in Lille and Cannes, France, as a dancer, magician's assistant, entertainer, and lead singer, before moving to Montreal in 2000 as the star of another cabaret and musical company, La Troupe Paris Paris.

Chigi Chapel

The original cartoons were lost but some preparatory drawings, that confirm the originality of the work, survived in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and Lille.

Claude-Auguste Lamy

In 1854 he became professor at the faculty of sciences of Lille (Université Lille Nord de France) and taught at École centrale de Lille.

After he graduated from University in 1842 he became a teacher at Lille than at Limoges and again in Lille.

Cologne–Aachen high-speed railway

The opening of the line created further connections as the already well-developed Belgian network had two connections with northern France, but the routes to Paris was only finished in 1846, on 16 June from Valenciennes, and on 20 June 1846 from Lille.

Commandement des Forces Terrestres

The CFT (then CFAT) was founded on the 30th of June 1998 from the disbanding III Corps and is garrisoned in Lille, at Kleber barracks.

Crédit Commercial de France

From 1912, the bank began to develop a branch network, with 14 offices opening in Paris and a first provincial office in Lille.

Dominic Mancini

Mancini's report was lost for centuries but was discovered in the Municipal Library in Lille, France, in 1934.

Economy of Naples

In terms of international arrivals, Naples came 166th in the world in 2008, with 381,000 visitors (a -1.6% decrease from the previous year), coming after Lille, but overtaking York, Stuttgart, Belgrade and Dallas.

Enguerrand de Marigny

He acted as the agent of Philip in his contest with Louis, Count of Nevers, the son of Robert III of Flanders, imprisoning Louis and forcing Robert to surrender Lille, Douai and Béthune.

Ernst Hess

He then joined Flieger-Abteilung (Flier Detachment) 9 as an Unteroffizier, when they were operating in the vicinities of Lille and Arras, France.

Eugenia Smet

The Society of the Helpers of the Holy Souls was founded by Blessed Eugenia Smet, A.P. She was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Lille, distinguishing herself by intellectual acquirements and striking traits of devotion to the souls in Purgatory.

European Under-18 Rugby Union Championship

The following two championships, held in Lille, France in 2005 and again in Treviso in 2006, were won by England.

Faculty of Medicine of Sorocaba

Another alternative is an internship in French hospitals such as Saint-Philibert Saint Vincent and the Faculté Libre de Médecine of the Université Catholique de Lille and the Grupo Hospitalar Pitié-Salpêtrière (Paris).

Gable stone

They are a particularly charming feature of the urban fabric of Amsterdam, and are also found in cities such as Brussels, Lille and Copenhagen.

Gabriel Grovlez

Gabriel Marie Grovlez (4 April 1879 in Lille, France – 20 October 1944 in Paris, France) was an eminent French composer and conductor.

Gare of Lille-Saint-Sauveur

Lille-Saint-Sauveur is a former goods station of Lille with some of the buildings has been converted into recreational areas and exhibition on the occasion of the events of Lille 3000 in 2009.

Ten years after the opening of the first railway station of Lille, Lille-Flandres station in 1848, the city annexed the neighboring towns of Moulins, Wazemmes, Fives, and Esquermes.

Gilles le Vinier

He entered the church and served as a canon at Arras, where he was the church's legal representative between 1225 and 1234, and at Lille.

Global Alliance for Project Performance Standards

Following a Global Steering Committee meeting hosted by Services SETA of South Africa and held in London in August 2002, the first Working Session of the GAPPS (initially called Global Performance Based Standards for Project Management Personnel) was held in Lille, France in February 2003.

Gustave Charpentier

Charpentier was the son of a baker, and with the assistance of a rich benefactor he studied violin at the conservatoire in Lille before entering the Paris Conservatoire in 1881.

Helena Kurnatowska

Helena Floriana Kurnatowska was born on February 17, 1929 in Lille, France.

Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley

In 1797 Wellesley accompanied Lord Malmesbury as secretary on his unsuccessful mission to negotiate peace with the French at Lille.

Hindenburg Line

Over the winter various German deception operations were conducted, indications of an offensive through Switzerland diverted French attention at the end of 1916 and the British were occupied by the movement of troops and heavy artillery into Flanders and increased agent reports from Lille, Tourcoing and Courtrai of troop movements.

Hippolyte Lefèbvre

Hippolyte-Jules Lefèbvre (Lille 1863 — 1935) was an academic French sculptor and medallist who received numerous official marks of recognition in his day but is now largely forgotten.

Ian Monk

Ian Monk (born 1960) is a British writer and translator, based in Lille, France.

Ignace Dubus-Bonnel

Ignace Dubus-Bonnel, (born in Lille, France) was a Parisian craftsman, who most notably was the first to get a patent for a method of creating and weaving glass threads, the predecessor of fiberglass, in 1836.

Ingram Micro

In 1989 Ingram Micro, then "Ingram Micro-D" a subsidiary of the privately owned Ingram Industries group, took over the Belgian Softinvest and its three Softeurop subsidiaries active on the Belgian, the French and the Dutch markets from Brussels, Lille and Utrecht.

International Society for Micropiles

This first IWM has since led to eight additional workshops which have been held since this initial meeting: Ube, Japan (1999); Turku, Finland (2000); Lille, France (2001); Venice, Italy (2002); Seattle, WA (2003); Tokyo, Japan (2004); Schrobenhausen, Germany (2006); and Toronto, Canada (2007).

Irish Legion

In the ensuing Napoleonic retreat the regiment took part in the Siege of Antwerp 1814 and retired to Lille, where it remained until Napoleon's abdication in April 1814.

Isaac Jehner

Jehner and Elizabeth, his wife, went to Lille where Jehner learnt about painting and also made a useful business contact in Marmaduke Gwynne (a relative of Marmaduke Gwynne who was an early Welsh Methodist) who bought his prints and introduced him to useful contacts.

Jason et Médée

As early as 1454 however, the myth was presented as a dumb show in Lille, and, in 1489, the dancing master Bergonzio di Botta of Tortona adapted the tale of the Argonauts to a version that then became a model for subsequent danced entries in a variety of styles and tastes.

Jean Cholet

In 1284, when the aldermen of Lille attacked a troupe of Dominicans trying to preach the Aragonese Crusade in their town, Cholet fined them 4,000 livres de Paris and used the money to finance the crusade.

Jean de Marville

who was named in 1366 as working on the church of Saint-Pierre at Lille.

Jean-Louis Bruguès

He entered the Order of Preachers, made his novitiate in Lille (1968-1969), so he made his first religious profession on 29 September 1969 and was ordained a priest 22 June 1975 in Toulouse.

Jean-Pierre Fabre

Born in Lomé in 1952, Fabre studied in Togo before attending university in Lille.

John Cor

The King gave him a gift of 14 shillings on Christmas Day in 1488, and at Christmas time in 1494 Cor was given black cloth from Lille in Flanders for his livery clothes as a clerk in royal service.

John of Burgundy, Bishop of Cambrai

John of Burgundy (1404 – 27 April 1479), also known as Jean de Bourgogne, was the illegitimate son of John the Fearless, through his mistress Agnes de Croy, daughter of Jean I de Croÿ and was appointed Archbishop of Trier, served as Bishop of Cambrai from 1439–1479, Provost of St. Donatian's Cathedral and St. Peter's Cathedral at Lille.

Joseph-Charles Lefèbvre

Joseph-Charles Lefèbvre was born in Tourcoing, and studied at the Catholic University of Lille, and the Pontifical Gregorian University and the Pontifical French Seminary in Rome.

Jules-Aristide Bourdes-Ogouliguende

While studying in France, he was a member of the Lille section of the Federation of Students of Black French Africa from 1961 to 1962, and he headed the Lille section of the Union of Catholic African Students from 1962 to 1964.

Julia Danzas

She settled first in Berlin with his brother, then in France, first at the monastery of Prull, and then in Lille, where she worked in the Dominican Center for Russian Studies, "Truth."

Julie-Angélique Scio

Born in Lille as Julie-Angélique Legrand, she married the composer Etienne Scio.

Led Zeppelin European Tour 1973

It is notable for the crowd violence which occurred at some shows, with concerts at Marseilles and Lille being canceled as a result of riots by fans which had taken place at the band's earlier performances in France.

Lehrgeschwader 1

Operating with 18 of its 26 He 111s at the start of the campaign, it hit the French airfields at Lille on 10 May.

Les Innocents

The band was founded in 1982 in Lille and had their first success with the single "Jodie" (1987), and their first album Cent Mètres au Paradis (1989).

Les Spectacles de Paris

From 1792, the almanack also kept an important slot for provincial theatres (e.g. in Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Rouen, Toulouse and Lille) and the make-up of their troupes.

Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art

The Villeneuve d'Ascq Museum of Modern Art is opened in 1983 to house the collection of modern art donated by Geneviève and Jean Masurel to Lille conurbation.

Lorry-Rail S.A.

A second rolling highway was planned for 2011 on the Atlantic coast between Lille and Irun.

Louis, Count of Vermandois

Despite his illness, Louis was desperate to regain his father's love and continued to fight in battle regardless of advice given by the royal doctor and the marquis de Montchevreuil that he return to Lille in order to recuperate.

Marcel Gromaire

In 1912, he performed his military service in Lille when the war began and spent the next six years in the army and was wounded in 1916 in the Battle of the Somme.

Melville Waddington

On 5 September 1917, from Bristol F.2b (A7203), they sent an Albatros D.V out of control west of Lille, France.

Merci d'être

The video was filmed at a concert at the Zenith in Lille, on May 31, 2012, during his "À la poursuite du bonheur Tour".

Nathalie Descamps

Nathalie Descamps currently plays for French First Division Club LUC Badminton Lille located in Lille.

National Model United Nations

Since 2008, NMUN has expanded internationally, hosting conferences in Xi’an, China (2008), Quito, Ecuador (2010), Olomouc, Czech Republic (2010), Lille, France (2012), Galápagos, Ecuador (2013), and Seoul, South Korea, planned for December 2013.

Nostalgie Wallonie

The French manager of the company, who already broadcast Nostalgie in Lille, decided to implement the station in Belgium.

Olivier Henno

He was re-elected mayor of Saint-André-lez-Lille in 2008 with over 65% of the votes in the first round against a UMP and PS list.

A member of the Union for French Democracy (UDF), he was elected mayor of Saint-André-lez-Lille in 2001 with almost 52% of the vote, as well as general councillor and a member of the Urban Community of Lille Métropole.

Overseas Vietnamese

Earlier Vietnamese migrants also settled in the cities of Lille and Bordeaux.

Passage SAS

At the same time, the brand developed construction applications, in particular by supplying the nosing for the Paris metro steps and equipping the pedestrian zones in cities such as Lyon, Lille and Bordeaux.

Peugeot 402

Peugeot had been making diesel engines in the north, at their Lille engine plant, since 1928, for use in boats, railcars and agricultural tractors.

Philibert Vrau

Philibert Vrau (b. at Lille, 19 November 1829; d. there, 16 May 1905) was a French businessman, lay Roman Catholic activist, and Christian socialist.

Pierre Repp

On 14 August 1930, he married Ferdinande Alice Andrée Bouclet in Lille.

Pierre-Joseph Candeille

He studied at Lille before moving to Paris, where he worked singing basse-taille in the chorus of the Opéra and the Concert Spirituel between 1767 and 1781, except for a brief period (1771—1773) he spent in Moulins.

Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française

The first regional station, known as Télé-Lille, began broadcasting on 10 April 1950 with two hours a day of programming for Lille and its surrounding area.

Raoul de Godewaersvelde

Born in Lille, he was a member of the group Les Capenoules.

René Vierne

He was born at Lille in France on 11 March 1878 and was the younger brother of Louis Vierne.

Réseau Breton 4-6-0 tank locomotives

As the initial design was a success, a further seven locomotives were built by Compagnie de Fives-Lille pour constructions mécaniques et entreprises at Fives (Lille).

Risquons-Tout

The legion was armed by some of the administrative authorities of Lille, and intended to penetrate into Belgium to "raise the people" and overthrow the Belgian monarchy.

Roman Catholic Territorial Prelature of Mission de France

18 January 1954: cardinal Pizzardo, prefect of the Congrégation des Séminaires, notified the Lille diocese that the Mission de France seminary was to be closed and replaced by an "institute for missionary training" which would prepare priests to be sent to dechristianised regions.

Sea Bird

Sea-Bird was a chestnut horse with a narrow white blaze and white socks on his hind legs bred at the stables of his owner, the Lille textile manufacturer Jean Ternynck.

Skip the Use

Skip the Use is a French band with electro funk, rock and punk influences founded in 2008 with musicians from Ronchin, near Lille and made up of Mat Bastard (vocals), Yan Stefani (guitar), Jay Gimenez (bass), Lio Raepsaet (keyboards) and Manamax Catteloin (drums).

SNCB Class 12

They were built to work freight and passenger services between Belgium and Lille in France.

Stade Pierre-Mauroy

Plans were soon made to build a new stadium which would match UEFA demands, but the project was postponed and finally cancelled due to struggle with preservationists who stated that the location chosen for the new stadium was too close from the 17th Century Citadel.

Surrey Yeomanry

On mobilisation in 1939, the Regiment was part of the British Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.) that was sent to France, initially attached to the 1st Infantry Division in the Lille area.

TangoVia Buenos Aires

Other productions include the Festival Montpellier Danse 03, the Festival Buenos Aires Tango in the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome in both 2006 and 2008, and the Festival TangoVia Buenos Aires in both Genoa, Italy and Lille, France in 2005.

Teodoro de Croix

Teodoro de Croix (June 20, 1730, Prévoté Castle, near Lille, France – 1792, Madrid) was a Spanish soldier and colonial official in New Spain and Peru.

Théophile-Jules Pelouze

In 1830 he was appointed associate professor of chemistry at Lille, but returning to Paris next year became repetiteur, and subsequently professor at the École polytechnique.

Tramway du Havre

Le Havre was the fourth city in France to possess a tramway network after Paris, Lille and Nancy.

Urban agglomeration

The term agglomeration is also linked to conurbation, which is a more specific term for large urban clusters where the built-up zones of influence of distinct cities or towns are connected by continuous built-up development (Essen - Dortmund and others in the Rhine-Ruhr district), even in different regions, states or countries, (Lille - Kortrijk in France and Belgium).

Vente-privee.com

The company also has external call centres based in Lille for operations in France, Barcelona for Spain, Frankfurt for Germany, Milan for Italy and Richmond (Greater London) for the UK.

Vinkt Massacre

As the German Army continued to advance west, pushing back both the British Expeditionary Force (trying to escape to Dunkirk) and the Belgian army, the village of Vinkt became an important target, as it lay both on the road south from Gent to Lille, and astride the Schipdonk Canal that blocked the German advance to the west.

Virginity fraud

In 2006, a French Muslim man in Lille sought an annulment on the grounds that his bride (also Muslim) turned out not to be a virgin.

Xaveer De Geyter

Early designs such as the Ilot Saint Maurice in Lille and the Chassé Apartment towers, Breda, exemplify his capacity for innovative architectural design.

Ilôt Saint Maurice, urban study with a mixed-program housing-shop-offices in Euralille (Lille),

Yurik Vardanyan

The following year, Vardanyan moved up to middle-heavyweight for a competition in Donetsk, in which he set all the division's world records, but decided to move back down to light heavyweight for the World and European Championships in Lille.


Abdel Raouf Dafri

Abdel Raouf Dafri (born 13 August 1964 in Marseille and raised near Lille) is a César Award winning French film and television scriptwriter.

Antoine Laurent Apollinaire Fée

He later became an instructor at teaching hospitals, firstly in Lille in 1825 then Strasbourg in 1832, when he was promoted to M.D. and professor of botany.

Bon Secours Sisters

For example, in northern France, four large schools which had been started in Lille and Lens to serve the local mining population were closed, based on accusations that they were not in compliance with the institute's approved charter.

Eagle Squadrons

The squadron's first confirmed victory came on 21 July 1941 when P/O William R. Dunn destroyed a Messerschmitt Bf 109F over Lille.

État 42-001 to 42-020

This series of 20 engines, numbered 42-001 to 42-020, was built by Fives-Lille and was allocated to the Batignolles motive power depot.

France Soir

In April 2006, the Tribunal of Commerce in Lille announced that the paper would become the property of Jean-Pierre Brunois, a real-estate developer, and Olivier Rey, a former journalist for the paper.

Franchomme

Hector Franchomme (1860-1939): Engineer from the École centrale de Lille, owner of the chocolate factory Delespaul-Havez where was invented Carambar.

French Flanders

#Lilloise Flanders (French: La Flandre Lilloise; Dutch: Rijsels-Vlaanderen), historically also called Walloon Flanders, to the southeast, south of the Lys and now the arrondissements of Lille and Douai

Gabriel Gifford

This dignity he retained for about ten years, and, after his withdrawal from Lille (c. 1606), he was made "rector magnificus" of Reims University.

Groupes d'Intervention de la Police Nationale

The DCSP has competency in 75 departments and within the territorial services of 7 large provincial towns (Lille, Strasbourg, Lyon, Nice, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Rennes) and overseas (La Réunion, New Caledonia and Antilles- French Guiana).

IAE Lille

The Institut d'Administration des Entreprises de Lille was established in 1956 by Gaston Berger.

IDBUS

Currently, iDBUS serves Aix-en-Provence, Amsterdam, Brussels, Gene, Lille, London, Lyon, Marseille, Milan, Nice, Paris, Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and Turin.

Isabella of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy

With her husband, and accompanied by the Countess of Namur, Jeanne de Harcourt, Isabella then travelled through the main territories of Burgundy: from Ghent (16 January) to Kortrijk (13 February) to Lille, and then to Brussels, Arras, Péronne-en-Mélantois, Mechelen and, by mid-March Noyon, where Isabella, now pregnant, chose to rest through the spring, only leaving when Joan of Arc led a campaign against the nearby Compiègne.

Lille Airport

Lille is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the capital of the Nord-Pas de Calais region and the prefecture of the Nord department.

Louis Marie Cordonnier

In Lille the architect's Flemish Chamber of Commerce building of 1910-1921 stands twenty paces away from his Beaux-Arts Opéra de Lille of 1903-1914, its design said to be inspired by Garnier's Paris Opera.

Maria Rosseels

She started her professional career as a teacher at a school in Gierle, but she left the school to work, from 1941 up to 1944, at the department of internal affairs of the Ministry of Labor in Brussels.

Sallaumines

Sallaumines has a train station (Gare de Sallaumines) on the line from Lens to Lille, and another one (Gare de Pont-de-Sallaumines) on the line from Lens to Valenciennes.

SNCF Class Z 23500

They are mainly used on stopping services around the French Riviera (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur), Lille (Nord-Pas-de-Calais) and Lyon (Rhône-Alpes).

Transpole

Transpole is the public transport operator for the Lille Métropole, the metropolitan area surrounding the city of Lille in northern France.

The tram system consists of two interurban tram lines, connecting central Lille to the nearby communities of Roubaix and Tourcoing, and has 45 stops.

Victor-Maurice, comte de Broglie

After the death of his father he inherited Revel Counties and de Broglie, the marquisate of Senonches and also received the Government of La Bassee, near Lille.