From 1471 until its destruction in 1553, it suffered many sieges and sackings, as a result of fighting between the Kings of France, the Holy Roman Empire, Henry VIII of England and several French nobles.
Hesdin | Vendin-le-Vieil | ''The Annunciation'', miniature by Jacquemart de Hesdin from ''Les Petites Heures'' of John, Duke of Berry | Jacquemart de Hesdin | Aerial view of the château d'Ainay-le-Vieil |
Brown's aircraft was shot down by anti-aircraft fire over Vendin-le-Vieil in France while on artillery observation duties.
Kléber offered to divide the army in three columns and to march to Saint-Florent-le-Vieil, Gesté and Beaupréau in order to surround the Vendéen army and cut it from the Loire and the road to Nantes.
There is a small memorial on the D431 north of Vieil Armand, commemorating Halifax bomber MZ807 of No. 433 Squadron RCAF, which crashed nearby in December 1944.
Becoming mestre de camp (equivalent to the modern rank of colonel), Henri II gained glory fighting the Spaniards at Hesdin on 29 June 1639 and, as a reward, Louis XIII made him maréchal de camp.
Henri Victor Gabriel Le Fauconnier (July 5, 1881 – December 25, 1946) was a French cubist painter born in Hesdin.
Jacquemart de Hesdin (c. 1355– c. 1414), miniaturist and painter to the duc de Berry
Hesdin, the town from which he took his name, was a fortified citadel in the Pas-de-Calais, then part of Flanders and a stronghold of the Dukes of Burgundy.
He was born at Gueschard, between Abbeville and Hesdin, in what is now the Somme département, but was then in Picardy, and from 1435 part of the Duchy of Burgundy.
Jean-Louis Cottigny (born 12 September 1950 in Hesdin, Pas-de-Calais) is a French politician and Member of the European Parliament for the north-west of France.
From 1381 he was court painter to Louis de Mâle, Duke of Brabant, and from Louis's death in 1384 worked for his son-in-law and successor, Philip the Bold, although he remained based in Ypres, doing much work, mostly decorative, at Philip's now vanished chateau at Hesdin, which was full of elaborate mechanical devices, of what we might today call a fairground nature, which needed painting.
Galland scored his first victory on 23 July 1941, shooting down a Spitfire near Hesdin.