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Petten is said to have originated in 739. The name refers to the three wells that were located on site. Already in 1388 there is a sand dike between Petten and 't Oghe (Callantsoog). During the St. Elizabeth's Flood of 1421, Petten was completely knocked away, and the dunes were affected. In 1432 a sleeper dike was built behind the dunes and from 1506 active coastal defense took place, with pile heads of beams from Norway and Sweden and stone from Vilvoorde. Nevertheless, in 1625 more than 100 houses washed away, plus the church of Petten, In 1793 the construction of the Hondsbossche seawall was started.

During the Second World War, the entire village of Petten was demolished in 1943 by order of the German Wehrmacht because of the construction of the Atlantic Wall. The church of Petten was demolished in 1944. After the war, a whole new village was built from 1946, designed by the architects Van de Ban and De Vassy.

In 1955 the foundation Reactor Centrum Nederland (RCN) was founded, which then built a research reactor (Petten Nuclear Power Plant) in Petten. Since 1976, the foundation has been called the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN). With its research programme, ECN focuses on a total package of sustainable energy generation, clean use of fossil fuels and limiting total energy consumption. The institute has a leading position in several of the research areas worldwide. This is reflected, among other things, in the approximately 600 publications and reports, various patents and in the participation of ECN in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency IEA.

In December 1962 (according to some sources 1963) the Fluxus artist Wim T. Schippers poured a bottle of Green Spot lemonade into the sea at Petten (Manifestation Aan Het Strand In Petten).

On December 11, 2004, an approximately three-year-old basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) stranded on the coast near Petten. The animal was 3.65m long and weighed 250kg. The remains were put on ice and were exhibited in the aquarium of Fort Kijkduin in Huisduinen.

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