Sweden

HISTORY

Some 20,000 years ago, Sweden was covered by an ice sheet two miles thick. As it melted, the land started springing up. So far, it has risen 286 metres and it's still rising.

View of the Stora Sjöfallet National Park By STF Saltoluokta Fjällstation 

Ansgar (801-865) was a Frankish Benedictine monk who from his teenage years been active in missionary work in north Germany and Denmark. In 829 the "Apostle of the North" was sent to Sweden by the Holy Roman Emperor, Louis the Pious, the deeply religious son and successor of Charlemagne. Ansgar had heard that several Swedes were willing to convert to the Christian faith and the Swedish king Björn had personally requested a Christian mission in his land. The king allowed him to build the first church in Sweden and amongst the small congregation was the monarch's own steward Hergeir.

Frankish missionaries have been teaching Christianity in Sweden for nearly a century, slowly establishing it as the country's religion. 
In 993 Olaf Skotkonung, the King of Sweden, accepted Christianity, the first Swedish King to do so.

Between 1161-67, Sweden was ruled by a king known as Charles VII, but there never were any kings Charles I to VI. In fact, the numbering began with Charles IX (ruled 1604-11) who calculated his number based on a fictional history of the country. Charles VIII and VII were posthumously assigned numbers.

Little of Sweden's early history is known because there are no written documents from the country before the 12th century. On its formation, a Swedish history book simply states: "How and when the Swedish kingdom appeared is not known."

In the Middle Ages the town of Hurdenburg in Sweden elected its mayor by seeing which candidate's beard was selected by a louse.

June 6 is the National Day of Sweden celebrating the foundation of modern Sweden with the election of Gustav I, later known as Gustav Vasa as king on June 6, 1523 and the adoption of a new constitution on June 6, 1809. June 6 has been an official public holiday since 2005.

Gustav Vasa

During the 17th century Sweden was a great power having conquered Estonia, Latvia and Finland and parts of Norway, Germany and Russia.

By the middle of the 17th century Sweden was the third-largest country in Europe by land area, only surpassed by Russia and Spain. Sweden reached its largest territorial extent under the rule of Charles X after the treaty of Roskilde in 1658.

The Swedish Empire  in the 17th century. By Ortus-imperii-suecorum.png:

Before Sweden's imperial expansion, Early Modern English called the country Swedeland. Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod, which meant "people of the Swedes".
The Swedes call Sweden Sverige, which means “our kingdom”.

In 1700 Peter the Great of Russia launched the Great Northern War, fighting Sweden for control of the Baltic Sea. Russia was ill-prepared to fight the Swedes, and their first attempt at seizing the Baltic coast ended in disaster at the Battle of Narva on November 30, 1700.

After the battle, Charles XII of Sweden decided to concentrate his forces against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which gave Peter time to reorganize the Russian army.

Charles XII moved from Saxony into Russia to confront Peter. Though his primary goal was Moscow, the strength of his forces was sapped by the cold weather (the winter of 1708/09 being one of the most severe in modern European history) and he stopped his march, outside Smolensk, marking the turning point in the Great Northern War.

Charles XII's campaign ended in 1709 with the destruction of the main Swedish army at the decisive Battle of Poltava (in present-day Ukraine). As a result the Swedish Empire ceased to be a major power.

The Battle of Poltava in 1709. Pierre-Denis Martin 

Sweden was in 1766 the first country to introduce a constitutional law where censorship was abolished and the freedom of the press guaranteed.

Russia invaded Sweden on February 21, 1808. The war resulted in Sweden losing control over Finland.

From 1157 to 1809, Finland was part of Sweden. There is still a golf course in which half the holes are in Sweden and the other half in Finland.

In 1812 there were 30 days in February in Sweden as it dithered over calendar change.

The French soldier Jean Bernadotte became so popular in Sweden that they elected him king in 1818 when their own royal family was about to die out. The Bernadotte family still rules in Sweden today.

Swedish timber supplied beams, joists, door and window frames for homes in 19th-century Britain.

The flag of Sweden consists of a yellow Nordic Cross on a field of blue. It was adopted on June 22, 1906. The Nordic Cross design traditionally represents Christianity. Blue and yellow have been used as Swedish colors at least since King Magnus III's royal coat of arms of 1275. 

In 1979, Sweden became the first country to impose a ban on smacking children.

Swedish only became Sweden's official language in 2009.

In 2010, Sweden removed the statute of limitations for prosecuting murder because the 1986 assassination of their prime minister, Olof Palme, had still not been solved. Though 10,000 people have been questioned, the killer remains unknown to this day.

Sweden has remained neutral in all wars for the past 200 years, including both world wars.

FUN SWEDEN FACTS

Sweden is a nation of islands - 267,570 of them. More than 100,000 of them are located in lakes or rivers. Less than 1,000 of them are inhabited.

Flickr

Sweden's capital Stockholm extends across 14 larger islands.

Sweden is the country with the most islands in the world.

Sweden won the Underwater World Rugby Championship on all five occasions it was held between 1987 and 2003.

Ystad in Sweden has a Cow Bingo festival every year, betting on where a cow will drop a cow pat.

There are about 400,000 moose in the forests of Sweden. They are said to be Sweden's most dangerous animal, causing about 6,000 road accidents a year.

The Swedes drink more coffee per head than any other nation.

"Fika" is a concept in Swedish culture that means "to have coffee, cake and a chit-chat". It's a big part of the culture and most companies have two daily fika breaks at 9am and at 3pm.

The Swedes eat more tomato ketchup than any other nation.

Sweden has the highest number of McDonald’s restaurants per capita in Europe.

The Swedish government is proud of gender equality: in 2017 it had 12 men and 12 women ministers.

The current royal family of Sweden is descended from an ordinary French commoner who rose through the ranks to become a general under Napoleon and was then randomly selected to become the King of Sweden.

Though its less famous than Switzerland for its neutrality, the two countries have been neutral for around the same time. Switzerland fought their last war in 1815, Sweden in 1814. Neither are members of NATO nor participated in either World War.

Sweden has won 3.1 Nobel prizes per million of its population. The US has only 1.1 per million.

Sweden has the highest number of choirs per capita in the world.

Sweden has more telephones per capita than any other country on earth.

Sweden has won the Eurovision Song Contest six times, most famously ABBA in 1974. Only Ireland (seven) has more wins.

ABBA  a few days after they won the Eurovision Song Contest. By AVRO 

Sweden has the  second highest wealth inequality in the world after the United States.

Source Daily Express