Who married María Enriqueta de Austria?

  • Leopold II of Belgium married María Enriqueta de Austria on . Marie Henriette of Austria was 16 years old on the wedding day (16 years, 11 months and 30 days). Leopold II of Belgium was 18 years old on the wedding day (18 years, 4 months and 13 days). The age gap was 1 years, 4 months and 14 days.

    The marriage lasted 49 years, 0 months and 28 days (17924 days ). The marriage ended on .

María Enriqueta de Austria: Marriage Status Timeline

María Enriqueta de Austria

María Enriqueta de Austria

María Enriqueta de Habsburgo-Lorena nacida en Pest, entonces ciudad del Imperio austríaco (ahora Budapest, Hungría) el 23 de agosto de 1836, y fallecida en Spa (Bélgica) el 19 de septiembre de 1902. Hija de archiduque palatino de Hungría José Antonio de Austria y María Dorotea de Wurtemberg. Se casó en 1853 con Leopoldo de Sajonia-Coburgo, duque de Brabante, príncipe de Bélgica, duque de Sajonia quien se convertiría en Leopoldo II de Bélgica en 1865.

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Wedding Rings

Leopold II of Belgium

Leopold II of Belgium

Leopold II (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was the second king of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, and the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908.

Born in Brussels as the second but eldest-surviving son of King Leopold I and Queen Louise, Leopold succeeded his father to the Belgian throne in 1865 and reigned for 44 years until his death, the longest reign of a Belgian monarch to date. He died without surviving legitimate sons; the current king of the Belgians, Philippe, descends from his nephew and successor, Albert I. He is popularly referred to as the Builder King in Belgium in reference to the great number of buildings, urban projects and public works he commissioned.

Leopold was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private colonial project undertaken on his own behalf as a personal union with Belgium. He used Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, the colonial nations of Europe authorised his claim and committed the Congo Free State to him. Leopold ran the Congo, which he never personally visited, by using the mercenary Force Publique for his personal gain. He extracted a fortune from the territory, initially by the collection of ivory and, after a rise in the price of rubber in the 1890s, by forced labour from the native population to harvest and process rubber.

Leopold's administration was characterized by systematic brutality and atrocities in the Congo Free State, including forced labour, torture, murder, kidnapping, and the amputation of the hands of men, women, and children when the quota of rubber was not met. In one of the first uses of the term, George Washington Williams described the practices of Leopold's administration of the Congo Free State as "crimes against humanity" in 1890.

While it has proven difficult to accurately estimate the pre-colonial population and the amount by which it changed under the Congo Free State, estimates for the Congolese population decline during Leopold's rule range from 1 million to 15 million. The causes of the decline included epidemic disease, a reduced birth rate, and violence and famine caused by the regime. He was widely condemned because of his brutal and oppressive regime in the Congo that resulted in widespread suffering and loss of life including exploitation, violence, and immense human rights abuses, particularly involving the rubber trade.

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Mother of María Enriqueta de Austria and her spouses: