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In 1666, the Spanish built a fortress on a headland overlooking the valley of the Sambre. The stronghold was named Charleroy to glorify Charles II, the infant King of Spain. The following year, the fortress was taken by French armies and it was under French occupation that fortifications were completed and extended by Vauban. Louis XIV, who wanted to promote the development of the new town, granted its inhabitants privileges. In 1678, under the treaty of Nijmegen, Charleroi was given back to Spain. A first industrial change based on coal, iron and glass industries brought about a rise in Charleroi’s population. French armies besieged and occupied Charleroi three times in 1693, 1746 and in 1794 , on the eve of the battle of Fleurus which was to seal the fate of Belgium for 20 years. Charleroi was renamed by revolutionary armies " Libre-sur-Sambre ". The Emperor Napoleon stayed two days in Charleroi before the battle of Waterloo and on the eve of his last victory in Ligny, on the 16th of June 1815. The Dutch built a new fortress which was stormed by the inhabitants during the Belgian Revolution of 1830. In 1914, during the First World War, Charleroi was for the last time the theatre of a great battle. More than two thousand years ago, iron ore was already used by the Celts in the area between the Sambre and the Meuse. Though coal-mining began as early as the 13th century, the development of the coal industry was slow until the invention of the fire pump in the 18th century. In the 19th century, Charleroi became the heart of the 'pays noir' (the black country), the country of the coal-mines. This area was (together with the Liθge region) the center of the rapidly industrialized Belgium. The city walls were destroyed in 1867 and new boroughs were founded. The coal miners of the 'pays noir' settled in the nearby villages, which until today, have preserved a relative autonomy and independence from the big city. Nowadays, greater Charleroi has a population of about 200.000 It was in this same century that German glassworkers produced window glass through the cylinder blowing process. At the beginning of the 19th century, the industrial revolution which started in England brought profound changes in traditional metallurgy industry. The use of coke instead of charcoal and the use of steam engines instead of hydraulic energy resulted in the shift of metallurgy centres from the forest regions of Ardennes to the coal-mining sites of Charleroi.

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