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Inhabited since prehistoric times, the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region has always been one of the most strategic (and hence one of the most fought-over) regions of France. French President Charles de Gaulle, who was born in Lille, called the region a "fatal avenue" through which invading armies repeatedly passed. It was conquered in turn by the Celtic Belgae, the Romans, the barbarian Franks and the Alamanni. It was bitterly contested by England, France and Burgundy in the Hundred Years War before finally becoming part of the Kingdom of France in the 15th century. It was annexed to the Spanish Netherlands in 1598, having been offered as part of a wedding dowry. The region was re-annexed to France in the 17th century, though not without considerable opposition on the part of the (mostly Flemish) population. It was divided into its present two départements following the French Revolution of 1789.
During the 19th century, the region underwent major industrialisation and became one of the leading industrial regions of France, second only to Alsace-Lorraine. Nord-Pas-de-Calais was barely touched by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870; indeed, the war actually helped it to cement its leading role in French industry due to the loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. However, it suffered catastrophic damage in the two World Wars of the 20th century. In the First World War, much of the region was occupied by Germany. Many of its towns and hundreds of square miles of land were wrecked in four years of trench warfare, with the region suffering more damage than any other part of France. Germany occupied it again in the Second World War and used the region as a launching base for attacks on England by the Luftwaffe and the V-1 and V-2 missile systems. Heavy Allied bombing and fighting on the ground again devastated many of the region's towns. Although most of the region was liberated in September 1944, Dunkirk was not liberated until 9 May 1945, making it the last French town to be freed from German occupation. The region's conflicted history is memorialised in numerous war cemeteries and memorials, such as the Vimy Memorial at Vimy Ridge, which is Canada's most important memorial to its fallen soldiers.
Since the war, the region has suffered from severe economic difficulties (see Economy below) but has benefitted from the opening of the Channel Tunnel and the growth in cross-Channel traffic in general.
extracted from wikipedia.org
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