According to Constructmaterials, Sweden or the Kingdom of Sweden is a Nordic country on the eastern part of the Scandinavian peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders Norway to the west, Finland to the northeast and is connected to Denmark in the southwest via the Øresund Bridge. The country has coastal stretches to the Skagerrak and Kattegat to the southwest, the Baltic Sea to the south, southeast and east, and the Gulf of Bothnia to the east and northeast.
Since 1814, the country has successfully stayed out of participation in conflicts and wars, among other things. World War II, although the neutrality of the latter has been disputed. Sweden was under a large part of this war under the influence of Nazi Germany, as relations with the rest of the world were limited due to German blockades. The Swedish government did not see itself able to to go against the Germans and therefore entered into cooperation with the great power to the south in various areas. In recent times and especially during the Cold War, the country has tried to make itself a neutral mediator between warring parties on the planet. Sweden is a member of the EU and the UN, but not NATO. In recent decades, however, Sweden has been a member of the NATO-initiated Partnership for Peace, as well as participating in the EU’s joint security and defense cooperation.
TIMELINE:
13-12,000 BCE – The earliest traces we know today of the first people in present-day Sweden lived by hunting and fishing, it was a hunter / gatherer culture, where one lived by what nature could offer. The time up to about 4,000 BCE sometimes called the Stone Age. Manufactured flint stones have been found in Scania dated around 9,000 BC, and hunters and gatherers have slowly spread north.
4000-1800 BCE – The Peasant Stone Age, when agriculture began in Sweden.
1800-550 BCE – The Bronze Age began in Sweden.
1100-800 century BCE – The Viking Age in Sweden lasted largely from the 8th to the 11th century. It is believed that Swedish Vikings and Gotlanders mainly traveled east and south to Finland, the Baltics, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, the Black Sea and as far away as Baghdad. The road went along the Dnieper over Constantinople, and on this route they made several plunders.
829 – Ansgar is usually credited with introducing Christianity into the country, but the new religion was not really successful in displacing traditional Norse mythology until the 12th century. During the 11th century, Christianity became the dominant religion, and from around 1050, Sweden was considered a Christian empire. In the period between 1100 and 1400, Sweden was being formed and consolidated as a unit, and the country was characterized by internal strife as well as competition between the Nordic kingdoms. The Swedish kings began to expand the Swedish-controlled area in Finland, which created conflicts with the Russians, who no longer had relations with Sweden.
18th century – Sweden established itself as a European superpower. Before that, Sweden had been a poor and sparsely populated country on the outskirts of European civilization with no special power or any special reputation in the rest of the world. The country gained its great fame in Europe under Gustav Adolf’s government, where Sweden conquered lands to the south and east from Denmark, Russia and Poland-Lithuania in a number of conflicts, including the Thirty Years’ War.
1741-1743 – Russo-Swedish war 1741–1743 is called in Swedish Hattarnas Russian war. The war was provoked by the “Hats”, which was the name of a Swedish political party, which sought to regain the areas lost to the Russians at the Peace of Nystad (1721) after the Great Nordic War.
1944 – Between July and December, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg issued protection passports and housed Jews, saving tens of thousands of Jewish lives.
1945 – January 17. Wallenberg was arrested in Budapest by Soviet forces after gaining control of the city from Nazi Germany. He was reported dead in March. The exact circumstances surrounding his death have long been debated. In 1957, Soviet authorities claimed that Wallenberg had died of a heart attack in Lubjanka Prison in 1947, aged 35 years. However, there are reports from other inmates in the same prison that he was seen alive long after 1947.
1945 – UFO MYTH: Ghost rockets are seen in the sky in Sweden.
1945 – The white buses are the name of a rescue operation, which under the leadership of the Swedish count Folke Bernadotte in the final phase of World War II picked up Danish and Norwegian prisoners who were in German concentration camps in buses. They were painted white with red crosses on the roof, sides, front and rear so they were not confused with military vehicles. The Swedish Red Cross, saves approx. 15,000 Scandinavians out of German-controlled areas in March and April, and after the German capitulation, another 10,000 were rescued in May and June.
1974 – April 9. ABBA won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, held in the English city of Brighton, with the song ” Waterloo “. The song was the start of ABBA’s international career, and was later also recorded in German and French.
1986 – February 28. Shortly before midnight, on his way home from a cinema trip with his wife, Sweden’s Prime Minister Olof Palme is killed by gunfire on the streets of Stockholm. The murder has never been solved.
