History of Scandinavia
During the Weichselian glaciation, almost all of Scandinavia was buried beneath a thick permanent sheet of ice and the Stone Age was delayed in this region.
During the 5th millennium BC, the Ertebølle people learned pottery from neighbouring tribes in the south, who had begun to cultivate the land and keep animals.
The Nøstvet and Lihult tribes learnt new technology from the advancing farmers (but not agriculture) and became the Pitted Ware cultures towards the end of the 4th millennium BC.
The transmission of metallurgy to southern Scandinavia coincided with the introduction of long barrows, causewayed enclosures, two-aisled houses, and certain types of artefacts, and seems to have enabled the establishment of a fully Neolithic society.
Mycenaean Greece, the Villanovan Culture, Phoenicia and Ancient Egypt have all been identified as possible sources of influence in Scandinavian artwork from this period.
A thousand years later, the numerous East Germanic tribes that claimed Scandinavian origins (Burgundians, Goths and Heruls), as did the Lombards, rendered Scandinavia (Scandza) the name "womb of nations" in Jordanes' Getica.
While many Germanic tribes sustained continued contact with the culture and military presence of the Roman Empire, much of Scandinavia existed on the most extreme periphery of the Latin world.
In Scandinavia, there was a great import of goods, such as coins (more than 7,000), vessels, bronze images, glass beakers, enameled buckles, weapons, etc.
The early Germanic Iron Age is the period when the Danes appear in history, and according to Jordanes, they were of the same stock as the Swedes (suehans, suetidi) and had replaced the Heruls.
In February 2020, Secrets of the Ice Program researchers discovered a 1,500-year-old Viking arrowhead dating back to the Germanic Iron Age and locked in a glacier in southern Norway caused by the climate change in the Jotunheimen Mountains.
[5][6][7] The Origins of the Sámi developed during prehistoric times,[8][9] as the Sami people of Arctic Europe have lived and worked in an area that stretches over the northern parts of the regions now known as Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Russian Kola Peninsula.
Swedish settlers were mostly present in Rus, Livonia, and other eastern regions while the Norwegians and the Danish were primarily concentrated in western and northern Europe.
Cnut the Great, King of Denmark, England and Norway, was the son of a daughter of Mieszko I of Poland,[22] possibly the former Polish queen of Sweden, wife of Eric.
Vikings placed heavy emphasis on battle, honor and focused on the idea of Valhalla, a mythical home with the gods for fallen warriors.
Völvas, practitioners of seid, a Scandinavian pre-Christian tradition, were executed or exiled under newly Christianized governments in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
[25] Sweden required a little more time to transition to Christianity, with indigenous religious practices commonly held in localized communities well until the end of the eleventh century.
The countries had given up their sovereignty but not their independence, and diverging interests (especially Swedish dissatisfaction over the Danish and Holsteinish dominance) gave rise to a conflict that would hamper it from the 1430s until its final dissolution in 1523.
As an administrator, Christian IV had done remarkably well, obtaining for his kingdom a level of stability and wealth that was virtually unmatched elsewhere in Europe, paid for by the Øresund toll and extensive war reparations from Sweden.
Some within Ferdinand II's court believed that Wallenstein wanted to take control of the German princes and thus gain influence over the emperor.
The bombardment of Copenhagen led to an alliance with France and outright war with Britain, whose navy blockaded Denmark-Norway and severely impeded communication between the two kingdoms and caused a famine in Norway.
Baron Karl Otto Mörner, an obscure member of the Diet, was the one who initially extended the offer of the Swedish crown to the young soldier.
After the battle of Leipzig in October 1813, Bernadotte abandoned the pursuit of Napoleon and marched against Denmark, where he forced the king of Denmark-Norway to conclude the Treaty of Kiel on 14 January 1814.
The Norwegian vice-roy and heir to the throne of Denmark-Norway, Christian Frederik took the lead in a national uprising, assumed the title of regent, and convened a constitutional assembly at Eidsvoll.
The Swedish king rejected the premise of an independent Norway and launched a military campaign on 27 July 1814, with an attack on the Hvaler islands and the city of Fredrikstad.
[33] The union provided fixed exchange rates and stability in monetary terms, but the member countries continued to issue their own separate currencies.
Even if it was not initially foreseen, the perceived security led to a situation where the formally separate currencies were accepted on a basis of "as good as" the legal tender virtually throughout the entire area.
Norway's large merchant marine delivered vital supplies to Britain but suffered huge losses in ships and sailors because of indiscriminate attack by the German navy.
By 10 June 1940, Norway's official military had surrendered to the attackers, while King Haakon VII and his legal government fled to exile in Britain.
However, brave Norwegians managed to save over half of the Jewish population from Nazi death camps and help them to escape to safety in Sweden, even though they ran the risk of being severely punished for aiding Jews.
When it became known that the western alliance would not be able to supply the Scandinavian countries with armaments before meeting their own pressing needs, this issue ultimately proved to be the turning point for Norway, which resigned from the talks.
