Brussels is the capital city of the European nation of Belgium. The city was founded in 979 by Duke Charles of Lower Lotharingia on an island in the Senne River. Because of its location between the textile centers of Flanders and the major German city of Cologne, Brussels became an important trade center. When the Duchy of Brabant was established by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1183, Brussels became one of the duchy's capitals.
The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I inherited Brabant and Brussels from the Dukes of Burgundy, and organized the territories around the mouths of the Rhine as the Seventeen Provinces, with Brussels as the capital. After the Dutch Revolt of 1568 civil war tore apart the Seventeen Provinces until the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia recognized the independence of the Dutch Republic. Brussels continued as the capital of the remainder of the Seventeen Provinces, which became known as the Spanish Netherlands, and after the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht as the Austrian Netherlands.
The German conquest of Belgium in the fall of 1939 in the early months of the Global War left Brussels under German occupation. An uprising in Paris in November 1944 inspired a similar uprising in Brussels the following year. German Chancellor Karl Bruning ordered hostages rounded up in Brussels, and many of the city's residents were murdered by the Germans. The insurrection finally ended with Bruning's fall in 1946, when his successor Heinrich von Richter allowed for partially free elections in Belgium. By the end of 1948, a new Belgian government had been established in Brussels, and the guerrilla war came to an end. Although Sobel does not specifically say so, it is likely that Brussels was the site of anti-German demonstrations in 1970.
In For All Nails Brussels is called Brussel and is the capital of the Kingdom of Austrasia. André-Philippe Maeterlinck discusses it in A Québécois on the Scheldt.