bostonphil7,
the history of Norway in a nutshell ..
The Viking Age began in the year 793 with an attack on Lindisfarne Abbey in England, which was the first documented Viking raid.
They sailed across the Baltic Sea and up Russian rivers as far as the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, reaching Byzantium and the Caliphate of Baghdad.
The Vikings founded many cities and colonies, including Dublin in Ireland and the Normandy region in France. Dublin remained an important settlement for more than three centuries. Between 879 and 920, the Vikings colonized Iceland, which paved the way for the colonization of Greenland. Remains of a Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland date back to around the year 1000. It was the Viking explorer Leiv Eiriksson who set foot on the coast of North America here—500 years before Christopher Columbus.
The Viking Age reached its peak in 1066, when the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada was defeated at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in England.
The year 1130 marked a turning point in Norwegian history, with the transition from a period of peace to a period of conflict and civil war that lasted until 1227.
Greenland and Iceland became dependent territories in 1262, while Norway lost control of the Isle of Man and the Hebrides in 1266 under the Treaty of Perth, which brought the Scottish-Norwegian War to an end.
In 1350, the Black Death raged fiercely, reducing the population by half or even to a third. As a result, the king and the nobility were forced to derive income from land holdings, regardless of national borders. In this way, they contributed to the emergence of political unions in the Scandinavian countries.
From 1319 to 1343, Norway and Sweden shared a common monarchy.
Following a marriage to the daughter of the Danish king and his subsequent death, the three Scandinavian countries were united in 1397 in the Kalmar Union.
This union would last until Sweden seceded from it in 1536 and Norway ceased to exist as an independent kingdom. Danish nobles then took over the governance of the country. Norway and its possessions rapidly declined to the status of a province during the reign of the Kingdom of Denmark and Norway.
This Danish period lasted until 1814.
After all, there was also the matter of France under Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars (1804–1815), Denmark supported France, while Sweden had joined the French opponents—namely Russia, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Spain, and Portugal.
As early as 1809, Sweden had lost Finland to Russia.
During the Treaty of Kiel on January 14, 1814, Russia and Great Britain promised that Sweden would receive Norway as compensation.
The Norwegian people viewed the union with Sweden as a step toward independence. Nationalism in Norway had by then become widespread, and the people did not want to become part of Sweden. On May 17, 1814, Norway broke away from Sweden by adopting its own constitution and electing Christian of Denmark as King of Norway. In July of that same year, Swedish troops invaded Norway (the Swedish-Norwegian War). On August 14, both parties agreed to a peace treaty with the Convention of Moss. Norway was now officially in a union with Sweden, with a Swedish king, but the country did have its own parliament and constitution.
However, during the nineteenth century, Norwegian nationalism grew, and a desire emerged to gain more control over the country’s own foreign policy and diplomacy.
Norway wanted to open its own consulates to better represent its trade interests worldwide. The Swedish king, Oscar II, refused to agree to this. When the Norwegian government subsequently resigned and the king was unable to form a new government, parliament concluded that he could no longer fulfill his constitutional duties. On June 7, 1905, Parliament therefore declared that the union had effectively come to an end.
... to be continued
