Timeline Sweden
Return to home
CIA Factbook: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sw.html
Emulate: http://www.emulateme.com/sweden.htm
History: http://www.luth.se/luth/present/sweden/history/
SverigeTourism: http://www.sverigeturism.se/smorgasbord/smorgasbord/society/history/
Timeline: http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/swedhis/
Travel Docs: http://www.traveldocs.com/se/index.htm
Sweden is
about the
same size as California.
Stockholm is built on an archipelago of 14 islands woven together by 50
bridges.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, Par p.27)(SSFC, 10/18/09, p.M4)
Long and narrow, the Scandinavian nation sits on Europe's
northern fringe and covers nearly 411,000 square kilometers (158,000
square
miles), about the size of California.
It is bounded by Norway,
Finland and the Baltic Sea.
Some 85 percent of Swedes nominally are members of the
Lutheran Church of Sweden, although only about 5 percent attend church
regularly. Literacy is virtually 100 percent, life expectancy is among
the
world's highest, 76.7 years for men, 81.8 for women, and the United
Nations
Development Program says Sweden
has the world's smallest percentage of poor residents.
Government: Constitutional monarchy, but the king is a
figurehead. The government is led by a prime minister who is elected by
a
349-seat single-chamber parliament, the Riksdag. The ruling Social
Democratic
party has had support in parliament from the ex-communist Left Party
and the
Green Party, with four parties in opposition. 42.7 percent of the
members of
parliament are women.
(AP, 9/15/02)
The nyckelharpa is a keyed
fiddle from Sweden.
(NH, 6/97, p.66)
7542BC In 2008 Umeaa University said
the world's oldest living tree on record, a spruce, took root about
this time in central Sweden.
(AP, 4/17/08)
c900BC The Fossum panel was carved on a rock
outcropping in Sweden about this time and depicted 2 Bronze Age figures
with raised axes.
(NH, Jul, p.32)
800-900 In Scandinavia Futhark evolved around the 9th
century. Instead of 24 letters, the Scandinavian "Younger" Futhark had
16 letters. In England, Anglo-Saxon Futhorc started to be replaced by
the Latin alphabet by the 9th century, and did not survive much more
past the Norman Conquest. Futhark continued to be used in Scandinavia
for centuries longer, but by 1600 CE, it had become nothing more than
curiosities among scholars and antiquarians.
(www.ancientscripts.com/futhark.html)
860 Jun 18, Swedish Vikings
attacked Constantinople.
(MC, 6/18/02)
c1050 In 2004 some 280 silver
coins, that probably originated from a trade journey by Gotlanders to
the area around the river Elbe in Germany around 1050, were found on
the Swedish island of Gotland.
(AP, 3/1/04)
1160 May 18, Erik IX Helgi, [The
Saint] King of Sweden, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1167 Sweden’s King Charles VII was
assassinated after ruling for 6 years. Charles VII was the first
Swedish king with the name Charles.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_VII_of_Sweden)
1288 In Sweden a charter
recognized the sale of a stake in the Stora Kopparberg copper mine to
Bishop Petrus of Vasteras for his parish. In the 1970's Stora sold its
mining operations to focus on forest products and power. In 1998 it
merged to become Stora Enso, a paper-packaging and timber firm.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)(Econ, 12/18/04, p.105)
1341 Jun 19, Juliana van
Falconieri, Italian saint, Swedish tenor, died.
(MC, 6/19/02)
1373 Jul 23, Birgitta of Sweden,
Swedish saint, died.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1397 Jun 20, The Union of Kalmar
united Denmark, Sweden, and Norway under one monarch. The alliance grew
out of the dynastic ties of the Scandinavian countries of Denmark,
Norway and Sweden in response to rising German influence in the Baltic.
The union lasted from 1397 to 1523.
(HN, 6/20/98)(HNQ, 7/22/00)
1489 A sculpture St. George and
the Dragon, created by Bernt Notke, was unveiled in Stockholm, Sweden.
He composed the dragon entirely of elk horns.
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.G4)
1500s The popularity of
surströmming, a Swedish fermented herring with a noxious stench,
surged in the early 1500s and again in the early 1700s.
(WSJ, 8/13/02, p.A1)
1520 Nov 4, Danish-Norwegian king
Christian II was crowned king of Sweden.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1520 Nov 9, Swedish King Christian
II executed 600 nobles.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1522 Gustavus Vasa became
administrator of Sweden and pledged to free his country from Danish
control.
(TL-MB, p.12)
1523 Jun 6, [Gustav] Gustavus Vasa
was elected Gustavus I of Sweden.
(HFA, '96, p.32)(TL-MB, 1988, p.12)(HN, 6/6/98))
1524 Denmark confirmed Swedish
independence under Gustavus Vasa in the Treaty of Malmo.
(TL-MB, p.12)
1527 Jun 24, Gustaaf I began
Reformation in Sweden, taking RC possessions.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1544 Gustavus I of Sweden signed
an alliance with France.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.16)
1550 Helsinki was founded by the
Swedes.
(SFEM, 8/8/99, p.44)
1552 Apr 14, Laurentius Andreae,
[Lars Andersson], Swedish church reformer, died.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1557 Olaus Magnus (b.1490),
Swedish mapmaker, died. He guessed at the location of the northern land
of Thule mentioned by Greek explorer Pytheas (c380-310BC).
(WSJ, 3/4/06, p.P9)
1561 Poland-Lithuania gaining
control over Livonia. In response Sweden seized the territory of
Estonia with the major port of Reval. Denmark, also invested in
the war, seized the Livonian Islands.
(http://tinyurl.com/bngyy)
1568 Sep 30, Eric XIV, king of
Sweden, was deposed after showing signs of madness. The Swedes declared
Eric XIV unfit to reign and proclaimed John III king.
(TL-MB, 1988, p.21)(HN, 9/30/98)
1570 Dec 15, The Peace of Stettin
was concluded in Livonia. Denmark recognized the independence of Sweden
in the Peace of Stettin. Sweden gave up her claim to Norway.
(TL-MB,
p.22)(http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/papers/livonianwar.htm)
1577 Feb 26, Erik XIV Wasa (43),
King of Sweden (1560-69), died.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1581 Sweden and Poland overran
Livonia (a territory that included southern Latvia and northern
Estonia).
(TL-MB, p.23)
1594 Dec 9, Gustavus II Adolphus
(d.1632), king who made Sweden a major power (1611-32), was born.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1598 Sep 25, King Sigismund was
defeated at Stangebro by his Uncle Charles.
(HN, 9/25/98)
1610 Jul 4, Battle at Klushino:
King Sigismund III of Poland beat Russia & Sweden.
(Maggio)
1617 Mar 9, The Treaty of Stolbovo
ended the occupation of Northern Russia by Swedish troops.
(HN, 3/9/99)
1626 Dec 8, Christina (d.1689),
queen of Sweden, was born. She negotiated the Peace of Westphalia,
ending the Thirty Years' War. "Fools are more to be feared than the
wicked. "Dignity is like a perfume; those who use it are scarcely
conscious of it."
(AP, 7/8/97)(AP, 1/14/99)(HN, 12/8/99)
1628 Aug 10, The Swedish 228-foot
warship Vasa capsized and sank in Stockholm harbor on her maiden voyage
because the ballast was insufficient to counterweight the 64 guns and
ballast. The wreckage was found in 1956. It opened as part of a the
Vasa museum in 1990. Twenty-five men and women drowned when the ship
sank. Vasa was the most expensive and richly ornamented warship of its
time in Sweden. She was recovered in 1961 and the skeletal remains were
exhumed in 1989.
(NG, 5/95, Geographica)(WSJ, 7/21/00, p.W12)(HN,
8/10/00)
1631 Jul 23, Sweden's King
Gustavus II Adolfus repulsed an imperialist force at Werben, Russia.
(AP, 7/23/97)
1631 Sep 17, At the Battle of
Breitenfeld (Leipzig) Sweden’s King Gustaaf Adolf led a Saxon-Swedish
army and defeated Gen. Tilly.
(MC, 9/17/01)(PCh, 1992, p.231)
1632 Apr 15, Swedish and Saxon
army beat Earl Tilly.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1632 Sep 3, Battle at Nuremberg:
Duke Wallenstein beat Sweden.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1632 Nov 6, Gustavus II Adolphus
(37), king of Sweden, died in battle.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1632 Nov 16, Battle at Lutzen:
Sweden beat the imperial armies under Wallenstein.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1634 Sep 5, Battle at Nordlingen:
King Ferdinand III & Catholic Spain beat Sweden & German
protestants.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1634-1644 Hugo Grotius (d.1645) of Holland, father of
international law, served the Swedish government as ambassador to
France.
(HN, 4/10/98)(HNQ, 3/15/00)
1637 Nov 20, Peter Minuit &
1st Dutch and Swedish immigrants to Delaware sailed from Sweden. Peter
later purchased Manhattan Island for 60 guilders.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1638 Mar 29, The first permanent
white settlement was established in Delaware. Swedish Lutherans who
came to Delaware were the first to build log cabins in America. The
first English colonists did not know how to build houses from logs but
those who lived in the forests of Scandinavia, Germany and Switzerland
did. German pioneers who settled in Pennsylvania built the first log
cabins there in the early 1700s. The Scotch-Irish immigrants who
settled in the Appalachian highlands after 1720 made the widest use of
log cabins and by the time of the American Revolution, log cabins were
the mainstay among settlers all along the western frontier.
(HNQ, 9/15/99)(AP, 3/29/08)
1640s The violin was introduced,
possibly by French musicians at the court of Queen Christina.
(NH, 4/97, p.32)
1645 In Sweden the Post Och
Inrikes Tidningar began daily publication for bankruptcies, corporate
and government announcements. On Jan 1, 2007, the world’s oldest
newspaper stopped publishing on paper and moved to the Internet.
(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.B4)
1648 At the end of the Thirty
years’ War the Swedes got to Prague and picked up the remains of works
collected by Rudolf II and Albrecht von Wallenstein, leader of the
Hapsburg armies.
(WSJ, 7/10/97, p.A13)(WSJ, 12/7/99, p.A24)
1650 Feb 11, Rene Descartes
(b.1596), French mathematician and philosopher: "I think therefore I
am", died in Stockholm. In 1666 his bones were exhumed for transfer to
France. In 2008 Russell Shorto authored “Descartes’ Bones: A Skeletal
History of the conflict Between Faith and Reason.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes)(SFC, 11/5/08, p.E3)
1654 Jun 6, Queen Christina of
Sweden resigned and converted to Catholicism.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1655 Aug 29, Swedish king Karel X
Gustaaf occupied Warsaw.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1655 Sep 26, Peter Stuyvesant
recaptured Dutch Ft. Casimir from Swedish in Delaware.
(MC, 9/26/01)
1656 Jan 17, Prussian Duke
Frederick Wilhelm withdrew ties with Lithuania and Poland and
acknowledged vassal status with Sweden.
(LHC, 1/17/03)
1656 Oct 24, Treaty of Vilnius
(Lithuania): Russia and Poland signed an anti-Swedish covenant.
(MC, 10/24/01)
1668 Feb 7, The Netherlands,
England and Sweden concluded an alliance directed against Louis XIV of
France.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1675 Jun 28, Frederick William of
Brandenburg crushed the Swedes.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1676 Apr 17, Frederick I, king of
Sweden, was born.
(HN, 4/17/98)
1682 Jun 27, Charles XII (d.1718),
King of Sweden (1697-1718), was born.
(WUD, 1994, p.249)(SFC, 8/17/96, p.E5)(HN, 6/27/98)
1685 Dec 3, Charles II barred Jews
from settling in Stockholm, Sweden.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1689 Apr 19, Christina (b.1626),
Queen of Sweden (1644-54), died. In 2004 Veronica Buckley authored
“Christina: Queen of Sweden.”
(www.sweden.se)(WSJ, 10/29/04, p.W10)
1697 The Royal Palace in
Stockholm, Sweden, burned down. It was rebuilt in Italian Baroque style
with 608 rooms.
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.G4)
1697-1718 Charles XII ruled Sweden.
(WUD, 1994, p.249)(SFC, 8/17/96, p.E5)
1698 Aug 18, After invading
Denmark and capturing Sweden, Charles XII of Sweden forced Frederick IV
of Denmark to sign the Peace of Travendal.
(HN, 8/18/98)
1700 Feb 22, Augustus II
with the help of the Saxon army attacked Swedish controlled Riga. This
began the Northern War (1700-1721).
(LHC, 2/22/03)
1700 Nov 20, Sweden's 17-year-old
King Charles XII defeated the Russians at Narva.
(HN, 11/20/98)
1701 Nov 27, Anders Celsius
(d.1744), Swedish astronomer who devised the centigrade temperature
scale, was born in Uppsala.
(WUD, 1994, p.238)(AP, 11/27/06)
1707 May 23, Carolus Linnaeus
[Carl von Linné, d.1778], Swedish botanist, was born.
(HN, 5/23/01)(WUD, 1994 p.834)
1708 Jul 4, Swedish King Karel XII
beat Russians.
(Maggio)
1708 Sep 28, At the Battle at
Lesnaya the Russian army captured a Swedish convoy.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1709 Jun 28, Russians defeated the
Swedes and Cossacks at the Battle of Poltava. [see July 8]
(HN, 6/28/98)
1709 Jul 8, Peter the Great
defeated Charles XII at Poltava, in the Ukraine, effectively ending the
Swedish empire. [see June 28]
(HN, 7/8/98)
1718 Dec 11, Charles XII, King of
Sweden (1697-1718), was shot dead.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1721 Aug 30, The Peace of Nystad
ended the Second Northern War between Sweden and Russia, giving Russia
considerably more power in the Baltic region.
(HN, 8/30/98)
1722 Mar 29, Emanuel Swedenborg
(b.1688), Swedish scientist and clairvoyant, died in London. In 1744 he
entered into a spiritual phase in which he experienced dreams and
visions. The foundation of Swedenborg's theology was laid down in
“Arcana Cœlestia” (Heavenly Secrets), published in eight volumes from
1749 to 1756.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Swedenborg)
1741 Anders Berch became the first
professor of economics in Uppsala.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1742 Dec 9, Carl W. Scheele,
Swedish pharmacist and chemist (lemon acid), was born.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1743 Aug 17, By the Treaty of Abo,
Sweden ceded southeast Finland to Russia, ending Sweden's failed war
with Russia.
(HN, 8/17/98)
1746 Jan 24, Gustav III, king
during Swedish Enlightenment (1771-92), was born.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1753 In Sweden Linnaeus
(1707-1778), father of systematics, authored “Species Plantarum,” a
compilation of some 6,000 plants from around the world.
(NH, 4/1/04, p.39)
1753 Peter Kalm, Swedish-born
naturalist, published the first of his 3 volumes of “Travels in North
America,” which described his 1748-1751 trip there. Kalm later spent
much of his life as a professor at Turku, Finland. In 2007 Paula Ivaska
Robbins authored “The Travels of Peter Kalm.
(WSJ, 11/17/07, p.W11)
1756-1763 The Seven Years War. France and Great
Britain clashed both in Europe and in North America. In 2000 "Crucible
of War" by Fred Anderson was published. France, Russia, Austria,
Saxony, Sweden and Spain stood against Britain, Prussia and Hanover.
Britain financed Prussia to block France in Europe while her manpower
was occupied in America.
(V.D.-H.K.p.223)(SFC, 7/7/96, BR p.7)(WSJ, 2/10/00,
p.A16)
1758 Linnaeus (1707-1778), father
of systematics, worked on his wasp specimens.
(PacDis, Winter/’96, p.43)
1772 Aug 19, Gustavus III of
Sweden eliminated the rule of parties and establishes an absolute
monarchy. It had been subordinate to parliament since 1720.
(HN, 8/19/98)(MC, 8/19/02)
1773 The Royal Swedish Ballet was
founded.
(WSJ, 6/25/99, p.W7)
1778 Jan 10, Carolus Linnaeus
[Carl von Linné, b.1707], Swedish botanist, died. His system for
classifying living organisms in a hierarchy placed kingdoms at the top
and species at the bottom.
(HN,
5/23/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolus_Linnaeus)
1783 Feb 5, Sweden recognized the
independence of the United States.
(AP, 2/5/97)(HN, 2/5/99)
1785 The first Illis Quorum
Meruere Labores (For Those Whose Labors Have Deserved It), a gold
medal, was awarded.
(NH, 4/97, p.31)
1786 May 21, Carl W. Scheele (43),
Swedish pharmacist, chemist, died.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1790 Jul 9, The Swedish navy
captured one third of the Russian fleet at the naval battle of
Svensksund in the Baltic Sea.
(HN, 7/9/98)
1792 Mar 16, Sweden's King Gustav
III was shot and mortally wounded during a masquerade party by a former
member of his regiment. He was murdered by Count Ankarstrom at an
opera. It became the inspiration for Giuseppe Verdi's Un Ballo in
Maschera. Gustav died 13 days later.
(AP, 3/16/06)(WSJ, 1/28/07, p.P10)
1792 Mar 29, Gustav III, King of
Sweden (1771-92), died of wounds inflicted by an assassin on March 16.
(AP, 3/16/06)
1796 Jul 23, Franz Adolf Berwald,
Sweden, composer, was born.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1800 Count Baltazar Von Platen
started the Göta Canal.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.T8)
1805 Aug 9, Austria joined
Britain, Russia, Sweden and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in the
Third Coalition against Napoleonic France and Spain.
(HN, 8/9/98)(HNQ, 10/19/98)
1809 Jun 6, Sweden declared
independence and a constitutional monarchy was established.
(MC, 6/6/02)
1809 Finland broke free of Sweden
to become a Grand Duchy of Russia.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, p.T4)
1809 Russia took the Aland island
group from the Swedes and held it until the Russian Revolution.
(WSJ, 12/5/97, p.A1)
1810 Aug 21, Sweden’s Riksdag
elected Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France under Napoleon, as
heir apparent to the Swedish throne.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadotte)(Econ,
10/14/06, p.73)
1810-1832 The 54-mile Göta Canal was built to
connect Sweden's east and west coasts to circumvent Danish shipping
controls between the Baltic and North Seas. The project was conceived
and led by Count Baltzar von Platen (d.1830).
(SSFC, 4/18/04, p.D12)
1812 Mar 9, Swedish Pomerania was
seized by Napoleon.
(HN, 3/9/98)
1812 Jul 18, Great Britain signed
the Treaty of Orebro, making peace with Russia and Sweden.
(HN, 7/18/98)
1814 May 17, Norway's constitution
was signed, providing for a limited monarchy. Denmark ceded Norway to
Sweden.
(AP, 5/17/97)(HN, 5/17/98)
1820 Oct 6, Jenny Lind (d.1887),
soprano, was born. She was known as the “Swedish Nightingale.”
(HN, 10/6/00)
1832 King Karl XIV Johan
inaugurated the Göta Canal.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.T8)
1833 Oct 21, 1833, Alfred Bernhard
Nobel was born. The Swedish-born chemist, engineer and industrialist
who invented dynamite, later established the prestigious Nobel prizes
to honor the world’s greatest scientists, writers and peacemakers. In
1859, after four years in the United States, Nobel returned to Sweden
and built a factory to manufacture the explosive nitroglycerin. In 1864
the factory accidentally blew up, killing Nobel’s youngest brother and
four others. Two years later, Nobel invented dynamite, a safe and
manageable form of nitroglycerin. A pacifist by nature, Nobel hoped
that the destructive power of his invention would bring an end to
wars. By the time of his death on December 10, 1897, Nobel had
acquired a massive fortune. In his will, he left instructions that the
bulk of his estate should endow the annual Nobel prizes for those who
had most contributed to the areas of physics, chemistry, medicine,
literature and peace. In 1968, a sixth award for economics was
established.
(WUD, 1994, p.969)(SFEC,12/797, Par p.28)(HNPD,
10/21/98) (HNPD, 10/21/99)
1846-1920s A major immigration of Swedes to the US
brought in 1.2 million people.
(FB, 9/12/96, p.A2)
1849 Johan August Strindberg
(d.1912), novelist, dramatist, essayist and photographer, was born. In
1985 Michael Meyer authored a Strindberg biography.
(WUD, 1994 p.1407)(SFC, 8/10/00, p.D2)(WSJ,
12/11/01, p.A17)
1850 Sep 11, Jenny Lind, the
“Swedish Nightingale,” gave her first concert in the United
States, at Castle Garden in New York.
(AP, 9/11/00)
1852 Sep 3, Anti Jewish riots
broke out in Stockholm.
(MC, 9/3/01)
1856 In Sweden Andre Wallenberg
founded Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB). By 2006 it was one of the
Nordic region’s biggest banks.
(Econ, 10/14/06, p.73)
1858 Nov 20, Selma Lagerdorf,
Swedish novelist, was born. Her work included “The Story of Gosta
Berling.”
(HN, 11/20/00)
1859 Feb 19, Svante Arrhenius,
Swedish chemist, founder of physical chemistry, was born.
(HN, 2/19/01)
1859 After four years in the
United States, Alfred Nobel returned to Sweden and built a factory to
manufacture the explosive nitroglycerin.
(HNPD, 10/21/98)
1864 The Alfred Nobel factory for
the manufacture of nitroglycerin accidentally blew up, killing Nobel's
youngest brother and four others.
(HNPD, 10/21/98)
1866 Alfred Nobel invented
dynamite, a safe and manageable form of nitroglycerin. A pacifist by
nature, Nobel hoped that the destructive power of his invention would
bring an end to wars.
(HNPD, 10/21/98)
1867 Nov 25, Alfred Nobel patented
dynamite.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1868 Apr 3, Franz Adolf Berwald
(71), Swedish composer, died.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1872 May 1, Hugo Alfvjen, composer
(Midsommarvaka), was born in Stockholm, Sweden.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1873-1924 The Scandinavian Monetary Union established
a common currency for its members.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)
1880 Swedish Egyptologist Karl
Piehl uncovered the tomb of Amenhotep, the deputy seal-bearer of the
Pharaoh King Tuthmosis III (1504BC-1452BC), in the city of Luxor, about
600 km (375 miles) to the south of the capital Cairo. It later
disappeared under the sand and was rediscovered in 2009.
(Reuters, 3/1/09)
1887 Nov 2, Jenny Lind
(b.1820), known as the Swedish Nightingale, soprano, died in London,
England.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Lind)
1887 Skanska was founded in Sweden
and started by manufacturing cement products. It quickly diversified
into a construction company and within 10 years the company received
its first international order.
(www.skanska.com/)
1889 Mar 8, Jens/John Ericsson
(85), Swedish-US, engineer (fire extinguisher), died.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1891 May 23, Par Lagerkvist,
Swedish writer (The Dwarf, Barabbas), was born.
(HN, 5/23/01)
1893 Johan August Strindberg (43)
married Frida Uhl (20), the daughter of a renowned Viennese theater
critic and newspaper editor. The marriage lasted 4 years. In 2000
Monica Strauss authored “Cruel Banquet: The Life and Loves of Frida
Strindberg.”
(SFEC, 8/13/00, BR p.3)
1895 Jan 2, Count Folke
Bernadotte, statesman (Red Cross, UN), was born in Sweden.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1895 Nov 26, Bertil Lindblad,
Swedish astronomer (Milky Way system), was born.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1895 Nov 27, Alfred Nobel,
explosives magnate, signed his last will and testament at the
Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, setting aside his estate to establish
the Nobel Prize after his death (see Dec 10, 1896). He named Ragnar
Sohlman (25), his favorite lab assistant, as his executor and Rudolf
Lilljequist as co-executor.
(http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/will/will-full.html)(ON, 4/07, p.6)
1896 Dec 10, Alfred Nobel (63),
Swedish Nobel Prize ceremony on this date, died. By the time of his
death Nobel had acquired a massive fortune. In his will, he left
instructions that the bulk of his estate should endow the annual Nobel
prizes for those who had most contributed to the areas of physics,
chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. In 1968, a sixth award for
economics was established [see Nov 27, 1895]. The Nobel Peace Prize is
therefore awarded on December 10. The first of the Nobel Prizes was
presented in 1901 according to instructions in his will. At his death
he was one of the richest men in the world, he also felt it would be
wrong to leave his fortune to relatives. "Inherited wealth is a
misfortune which merely serves to dull man's faculties."
(WUD, 1994 p.969)(HNPD, 10/21/98)(AP, 12/10/06)
1897 Jul 14, Swede Saloman
Andrée (43) and 2 accomplices, Knute Fraenkle and Nils
Strindberg, in the Ornen balloon were forced down after 64 hours in the
first expedition to fly by balloon across the North Pole. Their attempt
to return ended on White Island. Their fate was only discovered Aug
5-6, 1930, by Norwegian whalers.
(HNQ, 5/22/01)(ON, 11/01, p.11)
1897 Ragnar Sohlman, executor of
Alfred Nobel’s will, moved Nobel’s stock certificates and papers out of
France to Sweden, and thus beyond the jurisdiction of French courts.
(ON, 4/07, p.7)
1898 Dec 6, Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish
economist and sociologist, was born.
(HN, 12/6/00)
1900 The Nobel Foundation was
established in Sweden in accord with the will of Alfred Nobel.
(ON, 4/07, p.7)
1901 Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff
won the first Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on the relationship
of volume, pressure and temperature in gases which became known as
van't Hoff's Law. The 1st Nobel Banquet was held at the Grand Hotel in
Stockholm for 118 male guests. In 2000 Burton Feldman authored “The
Nobel Prize: A History of Genius, Controversy and Prestige.”
(SFC, 6/30/99, p.C2)(WSJ, 12/8/00, p.W11)
1903 Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927),
Swedish scientist, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
(http://tinyurl.com/lxu4w)
1904 Sep 2, Set Svanholm, tenor
(Met Opera and London Convent Garden), was born in Vesteras, Sweden.
(MC, 9/2/01)
1904 Denmark and Sweden issued the
first Christmas seals to raise money to fight tuberculosis.
(SFEC, 12/13/98, Z1 p.10)
1905 Feb 7, Ulf Svante von
Euler-Chelpin, Swedish physiologist, was born.
(HN, 2/7/01)
1905 Jun 7, Norway declared
independence from Sweden. Their union had been in effect in since 1814.
(SC, 6/7/02)(SSFC, 6/5/05, p.F7)
1905 Jul 29, Dag Hammerarskjold,
Nobel Peace Prize (1961) winning secretary-general of the United
Nations (1953-1961), was born in Sweden.
(HN, 7/29/98)
1905 Sep 18, Greta Garbo (d.1990),
actress nominated for Oscars for her roles in "Anna Christie" and
"Ninotchka," was born in Stockholm.
(HN, 9/18/98)(MC, 9/18/01)
1907 Nov 14, Astrid Lindgren
(d.2002), children's writer, was born near Vimmerby, Sweden. Her books
included “Pippi Longstocking.”
(SFC, 1/29/02, p.A17)(AP, 11/14/07)
1907 Dec 8, Oscar II (78), the
king of Sweden and former king of Norway, died in Stockholm.
(AP, 12/8/07)
1907 August Strindberg completed
his anti-naturalistic play “The Ghost Sonata.”
(WS, 6/27/01, p.A12)
1908 May 30, Hannes Alfvén,
Swedish, Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist.
(HN, 5/30/01)
1908 Svante Arrhennius, Swedish
chemist, proposed the idea of “panspermia,” the idea that our solar
system was inoculated with living organisms from outside the galaxy.
(PacDis, Winter ’97, p.34)
1909 Mar 26, August Strindberg's
"Bjalb-jarle-ti" premiered in Stockholm.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1910 Oct 15, Torbjorn Oskar
Caspersson, Swedish cytologist and geneticist, was born.
(HN, 10/15/00)
1911 Feb 2, Johan J. "Jussi"
Bjorling, great Swedish tenor, was born. Now regarded by many as the
greatest opera tenor of the middle 20th Century.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1911 In Stockholm, Sweden,
construction began on a new city hall. The design was a mix of Italian
Renaissance, Moorish and Byzantine style and was completed in
1923.
(SSFC, 8/19/07, p.G4)
1912 May 14, Johan August
Strindberg (b.1849), Swedish novelist, dramatist and essayist, died. In
1985 Michael Meyer authored a Strindberg biography.
(WUD, 1994 p.1407)(SFC, 8/10/00, p.D2)(MC, 5/14/02)
1914 The Swedish firm Kreuger
& Toll, a construction and engineering firm co-founded by Ivar
Kreuger (1880-1932) and a partner, went public.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.116)
1915 Aug 15, Signe Larsson
(d.2002), film actress later known as Signe Hasso, was born in
Stockholm.
(SFC, 6/10/02, p.B6)
1915 Aug 29, Ingrid Bergman
(d.1982), Oscar winning actress famous for her role in "Casablanca" and
"Anastasia," was born in Stockholm, Sweden. "Happiness is good health
and a bad memory."
(HN, 8/29/98)(AP, 7/21/97)
1916 Oct 19, Karl-Birger Blomdahl,
Sweden, opera composer (Herr von Hancken), was born.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1916 Nov 3, On the Baltic off of
Finland a German U-boat under Captain Bruno Hoppe ordered Captain E.B.
Eriksson of the Swedish schooner Jonkoping to halt for an inspection.
Beverages headed for the Russians were discovered and the ship was
evacuated and sunk. In 1998 some 1,000 bottles of 1907 Heidsieck
Monopole champagne were recovered, of which 500 were preserved in
drinking condition. Hoppe later sank the schooner Akir. The 66-ton
Joenkoeping was sunk in the Baltic Sea by a German U-boat. It carried
44 creates of champagne, 67 barrels of cognac, and 17 barrels of port
wine intended for the Russian army. Divers planned to recover the cargo
in 1998.
(SFC, 7/11/98, p.A14)(SFC, 9/21/98, p.A19)(AP,
9/21/98)
1917 Mar 20, Gideon Sundback,
Swedish-born engineer, patented an all-purpose zipper while working for
the Automatic Hook and Eye Co. of Hoboken, New Jersey. The zipper name
was coined by B.F. Goodrich in 1923, who used it to fasten rubber
galoshes. In 1994 Robert Friedel authored “Zipper: An Exploration in
Novelty.”
(ON, 7/04, p.5)(www.inventors.about.com)
1917 In Sweden Knut Wallenberg set
up a foundation as a tax saving way to keep the family together.
(Econ, 10/14/06, p.73)
1917 Ivar Kreuger (1880-1932)
exited his construction and engineering business and founded the
Swedish Match Company, which he used to monopolize the match industry
and swindle numerous investors up to his suicide in 1932.
(Econ, 12/22/07, p.116)
1918 Apr 3, Sixten Ehrling,
conductor (Royal Opera of Stockholm), was born in Malmo, Sweden.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1918 Apr 25, Astrid Varnay,
soprano (Met Opera 1941-56), was born in Stockholm, Sweden.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1918 May 17, Birgit Nilsson,
operatic soprano (Isolde, Turandot, Elektra, Salome), was born in
Karup, Sweden.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1918 Jul 14, Ingmar Bergman,
Swedish film director (The Seventh Seal, Fanny and Alexander), was born
in Uppsala, Sweden.
(HN, 7/14/01)(MC, 7/14/02)
1920 Oscar Swahn (72) of Sweden
won a silver medal for shooting in the Antwerp Olympics.
(WSJ, 3/31/08, p.A1)
1921 May 8, Sweden abolished
capital punishment.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1921 The League of Nations granted
the Aland Island group to the new Finnish Republic.
(WSJ, 12/5/97, p.A1)
1922 Dec 3, Sven Nykvist, Swedish
cinematographer, was born.
(HN, 12/3/00)
1922 Jean Borlin, Swedish dancer,
choreographed the ballet "Skating Rink." The décor and costumes
were designed by Ferdnand Leger. The music was by Atrhur Honneger.
(WSJ, 6/25/99, p.W7)
1922 Total prohibition of alcohol
was narrowly defeated in a Swedish referendum.
(Econ, 11/15/03, p.49)
1923 A new City Hall was built in
Stockholm, Sweden, in an amazing mix of bricks and gilt mosaic.
(SSFC, 10/18/09, p.M4)
1924 Mar 15, Sweden recognized the
U.S.S.R.
(HN, 3/15/98)
1927 Jan 30, Olof Palme, PM of
Sweden (1969-76, 1982-86), was born in Stockholm.
(MC, 1/30/02)
1927 Jul 19, Jan Myrdal, Swedish
writer, journalist (Albania Defiant), was born.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1927 Oct 2, Svante Arrhenius
(b.1859), Swedish scientist and Nobel Prize winner in chemistry (1903),
died in Uppsala. At the turn of the century, Svante Arrhenius had
calculated that emissions from human industry might someday bring a
global warming.
(http://tinyurl.com/lxu4w)(www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm)
1929 Jan 28, Claus Oldenburg, US
pop artist (Alphabet/Good Humor), was born in Stockholm, Sweden. He
worked in Chicago as a newspaper reporter and then went to New York in
1956. He opened his “Store” in 1961, which was a storefront stocked
with painted plaster replicas of food, clothing, and inexpensive
household goods.
(WSJ, 10/11/95, p. A-12)(MC, 1/28/02)
1929 Apr 10, Max Von Sydow, actor
(Hawaii, Exorcist, Dune, Seventh Seal, Dreamscape), was born in Lund,
Sweden.
(MC, 4/10/02)
1932 Mar 12, Ivar Kreuger
(b.1880), the so-called "Swedish Match King," committed suicide in
Paris, leaving behind a financial empire that turned out to be
worthless. The “Kreuger crash’ shook Wall Street and led to a 1933
Securities Act, which strengthened disclosure requirements for all
companies selling stock. In 1961 Robert Shaplen authored “Kreuger,
Genius and Swindler.” In 2009 Frank Partnoy authored “The Match King.”
(AP, 3/12/99)(Econ, 12/22/07, p.115)(WSJ, 4/17/09,
p.A11)
1935-1976 An involuntary sterilization program was
conducted over this period during which some 63,000 people were deemed
genetically inferior and involuntarily sterilized. In 1999 a commission
recommended that victims, 90% women, be paid $21,000 each. Checks for
over $22,000 were soon mailed out to some 200 victims.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)(SFC, 1/27/99, p.C10)(SFEC,
11/14/99, p.A26)
1936 Mar 22, May Britt, actress
(Young Lions), wife of Sammy Davis Jr., was born in Sweden.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1936 Ragnar Sohlman (1870-1948)
became managing director of Sweden’s Nobel Foundation and served to
1946.
(ON, 4/07, p.7)
1937 Apr 25, Bo Brundin, actress
(Rhinemann Exchange), was born in Stockholm, Sweden.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1937 Saab was founded as an
aviation and defense company in Linkoping, Sweden. Its name was an
acronym for "Svenska Aeroplan AB," where "AB" stands for "aktiebolaget"
("limited company"), thus written as 'SAAB'.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab)
1937 Edvin Ohrstrom (1906-1994),
artist and sculptor, and 2 others developed the Ariel technique at
Orrefors in Orrefors, Sweden. This technique created a design by
trapping air bubbles between two layers of glass. In 1990 Orrefors
merged with Kosta Boda AB, which in turn became part of the New Wave
Group in 2005.
(SFC, 11/19/08, p.G6)
1938 Jun 16, Torgny Lindgren,
Swedish writer, was born.
(HN, 6/16/01)
1938 Sweden’s collective wage deal
system began. The system set wages through sector-wide deals with
employers. In 2005 the system faced problems as cheaper workers arrived
from other EU countries.
(AP, 8/23/05)
1939-1945 A 1997 report said that Sweden received
some 38 tons of gold from the Nazis in payment for exports.
(SFC, 1/22/96, p.A9)
1941 Apr 28, Ann-Margret, actress
(Bye Bye Birdie, Tommy), was born in Valsjobya, Sweden.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1941-1943 Over 200 mentally ill people were starved
to death at the Vipeholm hospital in Lund.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A26)
1941-1945 Sweden maintained neutrality during the war
but allowed German troops to cross its territory to invade the Soviet
Union. It also allowed 250,000 German troops to use the railroad system
to travel between occupied Norway and Germany. The Swedish navy
provided escort service for German military supply ships and Swedish
industry helped make up for German losses in their ball-bearing
industry due to Allied bombing raids.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.A13)
1943 Feb-Nov ‘44, Sweden received
about 12.8 tons of gold from Germany.
(SFC, 1/22/96, p.A9)
1943 The Riksbank director Ivar
Rooth wrote a memorandum that said he and Trade Minister Hermann
Eriksson discussed the risk that the gold Sweden received from Germany
was looted.
(SFC, 1/22/96, p.A9)
1943 Ingvar Kamprad (b.1926) of
Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd, began selling farm implements by mail order under
the name IKEA. The first deliveries were made by milk truck. The 1st
catalog was published in 1951 and the 1st showroom opened in Almhult in
1953. By 1996 the Swedish firm had grown to $6.5 billion in sales. In
1999 it had 152 stores in 28 countries. See Ikea timeline @
http://tinyurl.com/ej5h4.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A24)(SFC, 3/10/00, p.B2)
1943 Over 7,000 Danish Jews
crossed to Sweden to escape the Nazis.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.46)
1944 Jul 9, Raoul Wallenberg, a
Swedish National Guardsman, arrived in Budapest to head the local
office of the US-sponsored War Refugee Board. He had been recruited in
June by a US Embassy official in Stockholm and sent to Nazi-controlled
Budapest under Swedish diplomatic cover. He used US funds to bribe Nazi
officials and saved over 20,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps.
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-7)(MT, Spg. ‘99, p.18)(WSJ,
2/28/09, p.A7)
1944 Jul 19, Swedish diplomat
Raoul Wallenberg 1st met SS ober Sturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1944 Oct 30, Sweden announced its
intention to stay neutral and refused sanctuary in WW II.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1945 Jan 17, Swedish diplomat
Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews,
disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody. Raoul Wallenberg was
jailed by the Soviets who believed that he was an American spy. He had
saved more than 20,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps. Wallenberg
was a graduate of the Univ. of Michigan and studied there from
1931-1935. In 2000 a Kremlin commission believed that he was shot in a
KGB prison.
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-7)(AP, 1/17/98)(MT, Spg. ‘99,
p.18)(SFC, 11/28/00, p.A18)
1945 Apr 25, Bjorn Ulvaeus, rock
vocalist, guitarist (ABBA-Waterloo, Dancing Queen), was born.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1945 Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002)
authored her novel “Pippi Longstocking.”
(SFC, 1/29/02, p.A17)
c1945 Sweden returned about 14
tons of presumably looted gold to Belgium and the Netherlands that it
had received from the Nazis in payment for exports.
(SFC, 1/22/96, p.A9)
1945 Gundeer Haag (1919-2004),
Swedish runner, set the world record for the mile and held it until
1954.
(SFC, 12/3/04, p.B7)
1946 In Sweden Marcus Wallenberg
Jr. (1899-1982), tennis champion, sold out of railways to concentrate
on airplanes. Marcus Wallenberg helped to establish the Scandinavian
Airlines System and controlled companies that employed one of every
eight working Swedes.
(www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925746-2,00.html)(Econ,
10/14/06, p.73)
1947 Jul 16, Raoul Wallenberg,
Swedish diplomat jailed by the Soviets who believed that he was an
American spy, reportedly died at the Lubyanka prison in Moscow of an
alleged heart attack. He had saved more than 20,000 Hungarian Jews from
Nazi death camps. A 2001 Swedish report failed to confirm his death.
(SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-7)(SFC, 12/23/00, p.A12)(SFC,
1/13/01, p.A14)(WSJ, 2/28/09, p.A7)
1947 The Illis Quorum Meruere
Labores (For Those Whose Labors Have Deserved It) award was first given
to the folk-musician, Hjort Anders Olsson.
(NH, 4/97, p.31)
1947 Apparel retailer H&M was
established in Sweden. The company expanded into Europe and opened its
1st US stores in 2000. Its 1st SF store opened in 2005.
(SFC, 11/19/05, p.C1)
1947 The first Saab automobile, a
prototype, was produced.
(Sky, 9/97, p.97)
1948 Sep 17, Count Folke
Bernadotte (b.1895) of Sweden, the UN mediator for Palestine, was
assassinated in Jerusalem by members of the extreme Zionist Stern
Group. Yehoshua Zettler (d.2009 at 91), one of the founding members of
the group, masterminded the assassination.
(AP,
9/17/98)(www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Bernadotte.html)(AP,
5/25/09)
1950 The ballet "Miss Julie,"
based on the play by August Strindberg, premiered with
choreography by Birgit Cullberg.
(SFC, 9/10/99, p.D6)
1950 The film “Waiting Women”
featured Jarl Kulle (d. 1997 at 70) and was directed by Ingmar Bergman.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A20)
1951 Jun 27, Ulf Andersson,
International Chess Grandmaster (1972), was born in Sweden.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1952 Jun 16, Soviet Fighters shot
down a Swedish Catalina reconnaissance flight.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1953-1961 Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden served as the
Secretary-General of the UN.
(SFC, 12/14/96, p.A1)
1955 The film “Smiles of a Summer
Night” featured Jarl Kulle (d. 1997 at 70) and was directed by Ingmar
Bergman.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A20)
1955 Alcohol in Sweden was
rationed until this year.
(Econ, 11/15/03, p.49)
1956 Jul 25, The Italian liner
Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish passenger ship Stockholm off the
New England coast late at night and began sinking in 200 feet of water
50 miles southeast of Nantucket Island, Mass. 51 people died as a
result of the impact. The Dorea was headed from Genoa, Italy, to NY.
The Andrea Doria sank eleven hours after the crash.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A1)(SFC, 1/1/99, p.A16)(SFC,
7/30/99, p.D5)(AP, 7/25/07)
1956 The Eugene O’Neill play “Long
Day’s Journey Into Night” premiered at the Royal Dramatic Theater in
Stockholm with Jarl Kulle as Edmond.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A20)
1957 Dec 26, The Ingmar Bergman
film "Wild Strawberries," starring Victor Sjostrom, opened in Sweden.
(AP, 12/26/07)
1957 The Academy Chamber Choir of
Uppsala was founded by Folke Bohlin and Eric Ericson.
(SFC, 10/26/01, p.C15)
1958 Oct 8, Dr. Ake Senning
installed the 1st pacemaker in Stockholm.
(MC, 10/8/01)
1958 The first IKEA retail store
opened in Almhult.
(Hem., 2/97, p.31)
1959 Nov 20, Seven European
nations (Austria, Britain, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden,
Switzerland) signed the Stockholm Convention to form the European Free
Trade Association (EFTA). The organization becoming operative on May 3
1960.
(www.iceland.org/efta/the-mission/int-organizations/efta/)
1959 In boxing American Floyd
Patterson was knocked out by Sweden’s Ingemar Johansson.
(SFC, 6/28/97, p.B1)
1960 Sep 8, Jussi Bjorling,
Swedish epic tenor (Manrico, Cavaradossi, Faust, Rodolfo, Riccardo,
Romeo), died of heart failure at 49.
(MC, 9/8/01)
1960 Nov 13, Sammy Davis Jr.
married Swedish actress May Britt.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1963 The film “Now About These
Women” featured Jarl Kulle (d. 1997 at 70) and was directed by Ingmar
Bergman.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A20)
1965 Apr 8, Erik A. Blomberg (70),
Swedish art historian, poet, author, died.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1965 IKEA opened its first retail
store in Stockholm.
(Hem., 2/97, p.31)
1966 S.Y. Agnon (1888-1970),
Jewish writer, shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with Nelly Sachs, a
German-born Swede.
(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/agnon.htm)(AP, 10/8/09)
1967 May 2, The Stockholm Vietnam
Tribunal opened and continued to May 10. The formation of this
investigative body immediately followed the 1966 publication of
Bertrand Russell's book, “War Crimes in Vietnam.” It condemned US
aggression in Vietnam and Cambodia. A 2nd session of the tribunal was
held at Roskilde, Denmark, Nov 20 – Dec 1, 1967.
(www.vietnamese-american.org/contents.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Tribunal)
1967 Jul 14, The Convention
Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO
Convention, was signed at Stockholm, Sweden, and entered into force on
April 26, 1970. As its name suggests, it established the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). WIPO Convention has 184
Contracting Parties. The Convention is written in English, French,
Russian and Spanish, all texts being equally authentic. The Convention
was amended on September 28, 1979.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Organization)
1967 Sep. 3, Motorists in Sweden
began driving on the right-hand side of the road instead of the left.
(AP, 9/3/97)
1967 Birgit Cullberg (d.1999 at
91) founded the Cullberg Ballet.
(SFC, 9/10/99, p.D6)
1967 Växjö University
was founded in southern Sweden. In 2005 the rapidly developing
knowledge centre had about 15,500 students enrolled in undergraduate
studies with 900 people employed as researchers, teachers or
administrators.
(www.msi.vxu.se/)
1968 The first gathering of
folk-musicians at Bingsjö was held.
(NH, 4/97, p.31)
1968 The Nobel Prize in Economics
was endowed by Sweden’s central bank. It is the only Nobel Prize that
was not created by Alfred Nobel in 1901.
(WSJ, 10/11/95, p. A-16)(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.A22)
1970 Oct, Sir Bernard Katz (d.2003
at 92) shared the Nobel Prize (medicine or physiology) for his
discovery of how nerve cells communicate with each other and with the
muscles they control. Ulf von Euler of Sweden and Julius Axelrod of the
US shared the prize for their work on neuro-transmitters.
(SFC, 5/1/03, A21)
1970 Oct, The Nobel Prize for
Physics was won by Louis Neel (d.2000 at 95) of France for discoveries
about magnetic fields and Hanes Alfven of Sweden for work on
interactions between plasmas and magnetic fields.
(SFC, 11/25/00, p.A23)
1971 Oct, Earl W. Sutherland Jr.
(1915-1974), US pharmacologist, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his
discoveries concerning the mechanisms of the action of hormones.
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1971/press.html)
1971 Sweden moved to keep out
foreign shoes on the grounds of national security.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)
1973 Aug 23, A bank
robbery-turned-hostage standoff began in Stockholm, Sweden; by the time
the crisis ended, the four hostages had come to empathize with their
captors, an occurrence that came to be known as "Stockholm Syndrome."
(AP, 8/23/07)
1974 The group Abba of Sweden won
the Eurovision song contest with their song “Waterloo.”
(Econ, 5/14/05, p.57)
1974 Eyvind Johnson and Harry
Martinson of Sweden shared the Nobel Prize in Literature.
(AP, 10/8/09)
1974 Sweden established a parental
leave program for new fathers.
(Econ, 1/10/04, p.46)
1975 Apr 24, Hanna Krabbe
(b.1945), a German Red Army faction guerrilla, took part in a
Baader-Meinhof gang attack on the German embassy in Stockholm in which
two German diplomats died. German chancellor Helmut Schmidt approved
the storming of the building by Swedish police. Krabbe was
arrested and sentenced to 21 years confinement and was released in 1996.
(SFC, 5/11/96,
p.A-9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_German_embassy_siege)
1975 Sweden established one of the
world’s first national biobanks.
(Econ, 12/10/05, TQ p.28)
1976 Apr 22, Director Ingmar
Bergman left Sweden due to taxation.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1976-1982 A center-right government led Sweden.
(Econ, 9/15/07, p.66)
1978 The opera "Le Grande Macabre"
by Gyorgi Ligeti (1923-2006) premiered in Stockholm.
(WSJ, 7/31/97,
p.A16)(www.naxos.com/composerinfo/bio22120.htm)
1979 Sweden became the first
country to outlaw all violence by adults on children.
(Econ, 9/4/04, p.54)(Econ, 5/31/08, p.62)
1980 Dec 10, Czeslaw Milosz of UC
Berkeley, a Polish-born American, received the Nobel Prize in
literature from King Carl Gustaf in Sweden.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.F2)(AP, 10/8/09)
1980 Sweden passed a referendum to
wean itself off nuclear power. By 2006 10 nuclear plants remained in
operation.
(Econ, 8/12/06, p.44)
1980 Swedish-German philanthropist
Jakob von Uexkull founded the Right Livelihood Awards to
recognize work he felt was being ignored by the Nobel Prizes.
(AP, 10/13/09)
1981 Oct 5, President Ronald
Reagan signed a resolution granting honorary American citizenship to
Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving about 100,000
Hungarians, most of them Jews, from the Nazis during WW II. He became
the second honorary American. Winston Churchill was the first.
(AP, 10/5/01)
1982 Aug 29, Ingrid Bergman
(b.1915), Swedish film star, died in England. In 1997 Donald Spoto
wrote a biography of Ingrid Bergman: "Notorious, The Life of Ingrid
Bergman." Bergman’s own autobiography was titled "My Story."
(SFEC, 7/20/97, BR p.6)(SFC, 5/31/00,
p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Bergman)
1982 Sep 13, In Sweden Marcus
Wallenberg Jr. (b.1899), former tennis champion and banker, died.
(http://tinyurl.com/yebq39)
1982 Oct 7, Olaf Palme was sworn
in as Sweden’s prime minister.
(www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/swedhis/swed1980.htm)
1982 The film “Fanny and
Alexander” featured Jarl Kulle (d. 1997 at 70) and was directed by
Ingmar Bergman. The part of innkeeper and seducer Gustav Adolf Ekdahl
was especially written for Mr. Kulle. The film won 4 Academy Awards.
(SFC, 10/4/97, p.A20)
1982 Swedish scientists Dr. Sune
Karl Bergstrom (d.2004), Bengt Samuelsson and John R. Vane of Britain
shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or medicine for their work on
natural chemicals involved in birth, blood clotting and pain control.
Samuelson received the Nobel Prize for his work in 1979 when he
identified a natural chemical produced in the body that helps spawn the
severe, breath shortening attacks that are the hallmark of asthma.
(WSJ, 4/5/96, p.B-1)(SFC, 8/19/04, p.B7)
1982 The Stichting Ingka
Foundation, a Dutch-registered, tax-exempt, non-profit legal entity,
was given the shares of Ingvar Kamprad (b.1926), the Swedish founder of
IKEA. In 2006 Ingka Holding, a private Dutch-registered company, was
the parent of 207 of 235 worldwide IKEA companies, and it belonged to
the Stichting Ingka Foundation.
(Econ, 5/13/06, p.69)(SFC, 4/6/04, p.C3)
1985 Sep 15, In Sweden Olof Palme
(1927-1986) formed a minority government.
(www.brandt21forum.info/Bio-Palme.htm)
1985 Nov 17, Olaf Palme stopped,
as he should have since he was mediating an end of the Iran-Iraq war
for the UN, an illegal shipment of 80 HAWK missiles through Sweden from
Israel to Teheran.
(http://www.skog.de/writers/e040831.htm)
1986 Feb 28, Olaf Palme, Swedish
Prime Minister (1969-76, 82-86), was shot to death in central
Stockholm. In 1996 South African former police officer Eugene de Kock
said that Craig Williamson, a South African spy, was involved in the
murder. In 1997 lawyer Pelle Svensson said that his client, Lars
Tingstrom, wrote a statement on his deathbed in prison in 1993 that he
committed the killing. the family was convinced that Christer
Pettersson, a drug addict and alcoholic, was the killer. In 1999
Abdullah Ocalan in Turkey suggested that a rival PKK organization
killed Olaf Palme.
(SFC, 9/27/96, p.A12)(SFC, 3/26/97, p.A12)(AP,
2/28/98)(SFEC, 8/23/98, p.A26)(SFC, 6/2/99, p.C2)
1986 Mar 1, In Sweden Social
Democrat Ingvar Carlsson became prime minister. He served until October
1991. Under his administration Sweden made the decision to apply to
join the EU.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Sweden)(Econ, 3/3/07,
p.57)
1987 May 17, Gunnar Myrdal
(b.1898), Swedish economist (Nobel 1974), died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunnar_Myrdal)
1988 Apr 5, Alf Kjellin, Swedish
actor, director (Juggler), died.
(www.tv.com/alf-kjellin/person/24487/summary.html)
1988 Sep 11, Mats Wilander of
Sweden won the men's U.S. Open title in New York.
(AP, 9/11/98)
1988 Dec 6, Arafat met prominent
American Jews in Stockholm, Sweden.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1988-12/1988-12-06-NBC-15.html)
1988 The Swedish film “Pelle the
Conqueror” with Max von Sydow won the Cannes Festival Palme d’Or.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, DB p.47)
1988 Max von Sydow wrote and
directed the film “Katinka” based on the Danish book by Herman Bang.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, DB p.47)
1989 Sep, Werner Aspenstrom
(1919-1997), Swedish poet, resigned from the Nobel Academy for
literature, along with novelists Kerstin Ekman and Lars Gyllensten, for
the academy’s weak response to the Salmon Rushdie controversy.
Aspenstrom’s work included "Snolegend" (1949) and "Varelser" (1989).
(http://tinyurl.com/nw7gr)
1989 Nov 1, A Scandinavian
Airlines System (SAS) and Finnair ban on smoking took effect for all
Nordic flights.
(http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/13/suppl_1/i20)
1989 Dec 15, GM and SAAB agreed to
form a 50-50 joint auto-making company, called Saab Automobile A.B. GM
acquired the rest of SAAB a decade later.
(http://tinyurl.com/oktgl)(Econ, 1/31/09, p.72)
1989 Mohammed Abu Talb was
arrested in Sweden for the 1985 bombing in Copenhagen that killed one
person and injured 16. He was also implicated in the 1988 bombing of
the Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
(SFC, 11/25/99, p.A14)
1990 Mar, GM and SAAB completed
setting up a joint auto-making venture in Europe. They had agreed on
Dec. 15, 1989, to form a 50-50 joint auto-making company, called Saab
Automobile A.B.
(http://tinyurl.com/oktgl)
1990 Jul 8, Sweden’s Stefan Edberg
beat Boris Becker of West Germany to capture his second men’s tennis
championship at Wimbledon.
(AP, 7/8/00)
c1990 The Ishotellet, or Ice
Hotel, in Jukkasjaervi began annual operations. The one-story hotel was
rebuilt every December and lasted to May.
(SFC, 2/11/98, p.B3)
1991 Oct 4, Carl Bildt (b.1949),
leader of the Moderates, began serving PM of Sweden and continued to
Oct 7, 1994. His center-right government was blighted by a deep
recession followed by a huge row over whether to build the Oresund
Bridge to Denmark.
(SFC, 9/20/98, p.A12)(Econ, 9/23/06,
p.60)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Bildt)
1992 Mar 5, In Copenhagen the
Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany,
Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden, in the presence
of the representative from the European Commission, opened a 2-day
meeting and decided to establish a Council of the Baltic Sea States to
serve as a forum for guidance and overall coordination among the
participating states. Iceland joined the CBSS in 1995
(Econ, 6/7/08,
p.63)(www.bmwi.de/English/Navigation/European-policy/baltic-market.html)
1992 Sweden rescued its banking
system pushing it gross public debt up to 73% of its GDP from 55% a
year earlier. Sweden set up 2 bad banks to handle the crummier assets
of Nordbanken and Gota Bank, which were nationalized. The eventual cost
of the bailout was kept under 2% of GDP. Nordbanken became Nordea and
was partly refloated in 1995, but the state remained its largest
shareholder.
(Econ, 10/11/08, p.100)(Econ, 11/29/08, p.76)(Econ,
5/16/09, SR p.5)
1993 Sep 6, Automakers Renault of
France and Volvo of Sweden announced they would merge; however, Volvo
canceled the deal the following December.
(AP, 9/6/98)
1993 Fredrik Reinfeldt (28)
authored “The Sleeping People,” in which he said that Swedes were
mentally handicapped and indoctrinated to believe that politicians can
create and guarantee welfare. In 2006 he led a 4-party center right
alliance to oust the Social Democrats.
(Econ, 9/23/06, p.61)
1993 Sweden privatized Posten AB,
its postal network.
(Econ, 1/20/07, p.76)
1994 Mar 17, Mae Zetterling
(b.1925), Swedish director and actress (Night Games), died.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0955195/)
1994 Jun 11, Mattias Flink
(b.1970), a Swedish army lieutenant went berserk and killed 7 people.
Flink was placed in the Norrköping prison but was subsequently
moved to Beateberg prison outside of Stockholm.
(SFEC, 8/23/98,
p.A26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattias_Flink)
1994 Nov 13, Sweden voted to join
the European Union.
(AP, 11/13/99)
1994 Anders Isaksson wrote “Always
More, Never Enough,” a critique of the welfare system.
(WSJ, 9/25/96, p.A1)
1994 In Sweden reforms came into
force that allowed pretty much anyone, who satisfies basic standards,
to open a new school and take in children at the state’s expense.
(Econ, 6/14/08, p.83)
1995 Jan 1, Austria, Finland and
Sweden joined the European Union. Sweden held their elections to the
parliament later that year on 17 September. Austria held its elections
on 13 October, 1996 and Finland on 20 October, 1996.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_European_Union)(Econ,
5/1/04, p.26)
1995 Gay marriages were legalized.
(SFC, 6/28/96, p.A14)
1995 Esstar Corp., sold Milwaukee
Electric Tool to Sweden’s Atlas Copco and changed its name to Essex
Industries. In Dec., Essex agreed to be acquired by Assa Abloy, a
Swedish lock maker. It had begun in 1891 as American Sugar Refining Co.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-45)
1995 Metro Int’l., a Swedish firm,
pioneered free daily newspapers supported by advertising.
(Econ, 8/26/06, p.54)
1995 Upjohn Co. of Kalamazoo
merged with Pharmacia AB of Sweden to form Pharmacia & Upjohn. Fred
Hassan was called in to lead the new company.
(WSJ, 2/2/99, p.B1)
1995 In Sweden a young man killed
4 people and wounded 20 with an assault rifle after he was denied
admittance to a discotheque.
(SFEC, 8/24/98, p.A26)
1996 Jun 9, The latest
unemployment rate was 9.6%.
(SFC, 6/9/96, Parade, p.9)
1996 Jul 7, The average cost of a
Big Mac in Sweden was $3.87.
(SFC, 7/7/96, Parade, p.17)
1997 Jan 5, Prince Bertil (84),
son of King Gustof Adolf VI, died.
(SFC, 1/7/97, p.A17)
1997 Jul 4, Ritt Goldstein, a
businessman from Danbury, Conn., arrived and sought political asylum.
He claimed to be persecuted in the US for his crusade for civilian
oversight of the police.
(SFC, 10/14/98, p.A10)
1997 Oct 25, In Norway it was
reported that a new 8-mile tunnel outside of Oslo was draining water
from nearby lakes at the rate of 10,000 gallons a minute. The sealing
compound Rhoca-Gil was supposed to stop the leaks, but its use in
Sweden had already caused water to be contaminated with acrylamide, an
agent that causes nerve damage. In Sweden construction of a
controversial tunnel was halted when water draining from the tunnel was
found to be contaminated by the sealing compound, Rhoca-Gil.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A11)
1998 May 12, Singer Ray Charles
and sitar master Ravi Shankar received the Polar Music Prize, $133,000,
from King Carl Gustav XVI in Sweden. The award was established by Stig
Anderson, manager of the Abba pop group.
(SFC, 5/15/98, p.C5)
1998 Jul 15, It was reported that
Sweden’s highest administrative court ruled that anyone can read
“sacred documents” of the Church of Scientology. 150 confidential pages
of the “sacred documents” were restricted to only some 350 of 8 million
Scientologists. Copies were given to the Swedish parliament by a Church
enemy and made public. Scientology asserts, and the US agrees, that
copyright was violated. The case may wind up in the European Court of
Justice.
(SFC, 7/15/98, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/oq3lr)
1998 Sep 20, The Social Democrats
led by Prime Minister Goran Persson won the elections with 36.5% of the
vote vs. 22.7% for the opposition Moderates led by Carl Bildt.
(SFC, 9/20/98, p.A12)
1998 Oct 5, Prime Minister Goran
Persson of the Social Democrats reached a 3-party agreement with the
Left and the Greens.
(SFC, 10/6/98, p.A12)
1998 Oct 12, Canada planned to
begin discussion with Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Liechtenstein for the
first trans-Atlantic free-trade pact.
(WSJ, 10/12/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 29, In Goteberg a fire
burned a discotheque with hundreds of teenagers and 63 people were
killed. In 2000 four young men were sentenced to prison terms of 3-8
years.
(SFC, 10/30/98, p.A15)(WSJ, 11/4/98, p.A1)(SFC,
6/9/00, p.A15)
1998 Nov 18, The Swedish bank
Skandinavska Enskilda acquired a 32% stake in Eesti Uhispank of
Estonia, as well as a 36% stake in Latvia’s Latvijas Unibanka.
Skandinavska Enskilda, controlled by the Wallenberg family, was also
negotiating a deal to acquire interest in Vilniaus Bank of Lithuania.
(WSJ, 11/19/98, p.A16)
1998 Dec, In Sweden a Latvian team
won the first European championships in Fire Sculpture.
(SFC, 1/7/99, p.D5)
1998 Walter Galenson (d.2000 at
85), American labor economist, authored "The World's Strongest Trade
Unions," a work about Scandinavian unions.
(SFC, 1/800, p.A19)
1998 IKEA purchased a stake in
Skanska, a large Swedish construction firm.
(http://tinyurl.com/ghmco)
1998 Sweden declared prostitution
a form of male violence and changed policies so that men buying sex
were charged with committing a criminal offence.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.86)
1999 Jan 28, Ford Motor Co,
confirmed the acquisition of the passenger car division of Volvo AB.
(SFC, 1/28/99, p.B1)
1999 Jan, Norway and Sweden
announced a plan to merge their state-owned phone carriers.
(WSJ, 3/29/99, p.A21)
1999 Feb 22, The Pinkerton
detective agency was sold to the Swedish company Securitas AB for $384
million.
(SFC, 2/23/99, p.C4)
1999 Aug 8, AB Volvo reached a
deal to acquire Scania AB for $7.3 billion.
(WSJ, 8/9/99, p.A13)
1999 Sep 30, A spot currency
trader in Germany for Electrolux of Sweden amassed losses that totaled
some $28.3 million by this date.
(WSJ, 1/4/00, p.A17)
1999 Oct 12, Bjorn Soderberg
(b.1958), a member of a Swedish far-left union, was shot and killed.
Prosecutors said the killing was revenge for the Soderberg's public
denouncement of a co-worker who belonged to a neo-Nazi organization. In
2000 three men, including Hampus Hellekant, were convicted in the fatal
shooting. Hellekant served 7 years in prison and in 2007 was admitted
to the medical school of the Karolinska institute under the name Karl
Svensson. He was expelled after 4 months when his former identity was
revealed.
(AP,
1/25/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_S%C3%B6derberg)
1999 The musical “Mamma Mia!”
opened in London based on the music by Abba. The songs were written by
founders Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus.
(WSJ, 10/24/01, p.A20)
1999 The Swedish film “Lucky
People Center International” was a patchwork film by the Lucky People
Center collective.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, DB p.35)
1999 Sweden established its
so-called "Sex Purchase Law," where paying for sex is punished by fines
or up to six months in prison, plus the humiliation of public exposure.
(AP, 3/16/08)
2000 Jul 1, The Oeresund Fixed
Link (Oresund Bridge), the centerpiece of a $3.5 billion, 10-mile rail,
motorway, bridge and tunnel project between Copenhagen and southern
Sweden was scheduled for completion. Danish Queen Margrethe II met with
Swedish King Carl Gustaf XVI on the artificial isle of Peberholm, half
way across.
(WSJ, 5/26/00, p.A20)(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T3)
2000 Dec 22, Three armed robbers
stormed into Stockholm's National Museum and made off with a Rembrandt
self-portrait and two masterpieces by Renoir. 10 people were later
sentenced to prison for their roles in the theft; all three paintings
have been recovered.
(AP, 12/22/05)
2000 In Sweden, in the first round
of pension fund choice, individuals had to choose from a staggering
array of 465 funds.
(www.brookings.edu/papers/2005/06saving_weaver.aspx)
2000 In Sweden Kunskapsskolan
(Knowledge Schools), a private education provider, opened its first 6
schools. By 2008 it had 30 schools.
(Econ, 6/14/08, p.83)
2000 GM took full control of Saab.
(www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0501/19/C01-63842.htm)
2001 Jan 1, Sweden took over the
6-month rotating presidency of the EU. Its priorities centered on
enlargement of the union, along with environment and employment
concerns.
(WSJ, 1/04/00, p.A15)
2001 May 22, In Sweden delegates
from 127 countries formally adopted a global treaty banning 12 toxic
chemicals called persistent organic pollutants (POPS).
(SFC, 5/23/01, p.C4)
2001 May 23, The Stockholm
Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPS) opened for signature
in Stockholm, Sweden. The convention entered into force on May 17th,
2004 with ratification by an initial 128 parties and 151 signatories.
(http://tinyurl.com/5exstm)(SSFC, 7/6/08, p.A2)
2001 Jun 15, In Goteborg some
12,000 demonstrators demonstrated and set up flaming barricades to
protest globalization. Police cordons had kept them away from Pres.
Bush and EU leaders.
(SFC, 6/16/01, p.A6)
2001 Jun 16, In Goteborg 15 EU
leaders ended a 3-day summit and agreed to a firm timetable to admit
new members by 2004.
(SSFC, 6/17/01, p.A12)
2001 Nov 27, Olaf Stromberg, a
Swedish TV journalist, was killed while sleeping in northern
Afghanistan during a suspected robbery attempt. He was the 8th
journalist slain in the conflict.
(SFC, 11/27/01, p.A10)(SFC, 11/28/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec, Vebjorn Sand, Norwegian
artist, completed a 330-foot bridge linking Norway and Sweden at Aas,
16 miles south of Oslo. The design was based on plans drawn up by
Leonardo da Vinci in 1502.
(SSFC, 12/9/01, p.C2)
2001 KaZaA, an internet
file-sharing program, was founded in Amsterdam by Niklas Zennstrom of
Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark.
(Econ, 7/3/04, p.54)
2001 At Washington’s request the
UN Security Council ordered that the assets of Yassin Qadi, a Saudi
businessman and multimillionaire, be frozen soon after the Sep 11
attacks in NYC. He was alleged to be a financier of Islamic terrorism
with close links to al-Qaida. The European Union governments froze the
assets of the assets of Yasin al-Qadi, a Saudi businessman, and
the Al-Barakaat International Foundation, a Sweden-based charity
suspected of funding al-Qaida terror groups. In 2008 the European
Union's highest court overturned the decision saying the order failed
to offer those on a terror blacklist any legal rights to a judicial
review under European law.
(WSJ, 8/29/07, p.A1)(AP, 9/3/08)
2002 Jan 28, In Sweden Astrid
Lindgren (b.1907), author of “Pippi Longstocking” (1945), died in
Stockholm.
(SFC, 1/29/02, p.A17)
2002 Feb 21, It was reported that
Sweden had fallen to 17th place among the world’s wealthiest nations in
per capita income from 3rd or 4th in the 1970s.
(WSJ, 2/21/02, p.A14)
2002 Jun 5, Legislators voted to
let same-sex couples adopt children.
(SFC, 6/6/02, p.A10)
2002 Aug 19, Swedish financier Jan
Stenbeck (59), who developed an extensive network of media and
telecommunications companies, died in Paris.
(AP, 8/20/02)
2002 Aug 25, Former Swedish
diplomat Per Anger (88), who'd worked with Raoul Wallenberg in
shielding thousands of Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps, died in
Stockholm, Sweden.
(AP, 8/25/03)
2002 Aug 29, Kerim Sadok Chatty,
29, of Tunisian origin was arrested with a gun in his carry-on luggage
at a Swedish airport as he headed to an Islamic conference in
Birmingham, England. He had flunked out of a flight school in South
Carolina in 1996. Chatty was charged with attempted hijacking on Sep 2.
(AP, 9/1/02)(SFC, 9/3/02, p.A6)
2002 Sep 15, Sweden's voters
bucked the conservative trend in Europe, reaffirming support for the
country's generous welfare system. The ruling Social Democrats claimed
victory in the national elections.
(AP, 9/16/02)
2002 Dec 10, In Sweden King Carl
XIV Gustaf awarded the Nobel Prizes.
(AP, 12/10/02)
2002 In Sweden gunmen stole about
$5.6 million in foreign currency being unloaded from a plane at
Stockholm's Arlanda airport. Several suspects were arrested, but all
were released due to lack of evidence.
(AP, 3/8/06)
2002 Signe Hasso (b.1915), film
actress, died in LA.
(SFC, 6/10/02, p.B6)
2003 Jan 28, In Sweden Keith
Jarrett was named winner of the $117,000 Polar Music Prize, founded in
1989 by Stig Anderson, manager of ABBA.
(SFC, 1/29/03, p.D8)
2003 Jan 30, Sweden said it will
contribute $5.9 million to help Afghanistan repay debts to the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
(AP, 1/30/03)
2003 May 11, Anson Carter scored
at 13:49 of overtime to give Canada a 3-2 victory over Sweden and win
its first world ice hockey championship since 1997.
(AP, 5/11/03)
2003 Sep 10, Swedish Foreign
Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed in the stomach and wrist at an
exclusive department store in downtown Stockholm. She died the next
day. In 2003 Mijailo Mijailovic, a 25-year-old Swede of Yugoslav
origin, confessed to the murder. In 2004 Mijailovic was sentenced to
life in prison.
(AP, 9/10/03)(AP, 9/11/03)(AP, 1/7/04)(SFC, 3/24/04,
p.A8)
2003 Sep 11, Sweden's Foreign
Minister Anna Lindh died after being stabbed Sep 10 by a mystery
attacker.
(Reuters, 9/11/03)
2003 Sep 14, Sweden voted 56-42%
"No" in a referendum on whether to adopt the euro.
(Reuters, 9/15/03)
2003 Sep 23, A power outage struck
the capital of Denmark and southern Sweden, leaving nearly 4 million
people without electricity.
(AP, 9/23/03)
2003 Sep 24, Swedish police
arrested a new suspect in the murder of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh,
and released a man they had held for more than a week.
(AP, 9/24/03)
2003 Oct 8, The Bank of Sweden
Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to
American Robert F. Engle (60) of NY Univ. and Briton Clive W.G. Granger
(1934-2009) of visiting scholar at Canterbury Univ. in New Zealand for
their work in statistical techniques to measure investment risk and
track economic trends.
(WSJ, 10/9/03, p.A2)(USAT, 10/9/03, p.8B)(SFC,
6/3/09, p.B5)
2003 Dec 1, A report laid bare a
corporate scandal at Skandia, Sweden's largest insurer.
(Econ, 12/6/03, p.67)
2003 Dec 10, The Nobel Prize
awards ceremony were held in Sweden and Norway. Iranian democracy
activist Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace
Prize, accepted the award in Oslo, Norway.
(AP, 12/10/03)(AP, 12/10/08)
2003 Sweden passed legislation
requiring women to hold 30% of the seats in parliament.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.76)
2004 Jan 7, Ingrid Thulin
(b.1926), Swedish actress, died in Stockholm. Her films included
"Foreign Intrigue" (1956).
(SFC, 1/9/04, p.A21)
2004 Jan 6, Mijailo Mijailovic
confessed to the fatal stabbing of Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh
in September 2003.
(AP, 1/6/05)
2004 Feb 28, It was reported that
80% of Americans claim to believe in God, compared with 62% of the
French and 52% of Swedes.
(Econ, 2/28/04, p.34)
2004 Jul 8, A Swedish appeals
court threw out a life prison sentence for the convicted killer of
Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, ruling that Mijailo Mijailovic should
receive treatment for his "significant psychiatric problems."
(AP, 7/8/05)
2004 Aug 15, In Sweden Dr. Sune
Karl Bergstrom (88), 1982 Nobel laureate, died.
(SFC, 8/19/04, p.B7)
2004 Oct 4, Tiger Woods married
Swedish model Elin Nordegren in Barbados.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2004 Dec 26, Thousands of
Europeans died in the Asian tsunami disaster. The dead included 543
from Sweden.
(AP, 12/31/04)(Econ, 9/9/06, p.27)
2005 Jan 1, Sweden was forecast
for 2.7% annual GDP growth with a population at 9.1 million and GDP per
head at $43,480.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.89)
2005 Jan 8, Hurricane-force winds
swept across northern Europe, leaving at least 13 dead including 3 in
Carlisle, England, 4 in Denmark and 6 in Sweden.
(AP, 1/9/05)
2005 Jun 10, King Harald V of
Norway and King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden met in the middle of the
Svinesund bridge and opened the span over a fjord south of Oslo.
(AP, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 28, Swedish truck and bus
maker Volvo AB said it will close an assembly plant in Botswana and
open a new factory in Durban, South Africa.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Aug 25, In Sweden robbers
toting automatic weapons crashed a tractor through the wall of a
Securitas compound in a Stockholm suburb. Swedish media reported that
the robbers got away with 60 million kronor (euro6.4 million, US$7.86
million), which would make it one of the largest cash robberies ever in
the country. 2 men, aged 35 and 32, were arrested Sep 15 in northern
Stockholm on suspicion of involvement in the robbery.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Aug 29, A Swedish nuclear
power plant shut down one of its three reactors because of an abnormal
accumulation of jellyfish in the cooling system.
(AP, 8/29/05)
2005 Sep 6, Lars Erik Petersson,
former chief executive of Sweden's largest insurer, Skandia, was
charged with fraud for allegedly handing out large bonuses to other
executives without board approval.
(AP, 9/6/05)
2005 Sep 29, In Sweden Saab said
it plans to recall almost 300,000 cars worldwide because of a problem
with the ignition system.
(AP, 9/29/05)
2005 Oct 5, Americans Robert H.
Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock and Yves Chauvin of France won the Nobel
Prize in chemistry for discoveries that let industry create drugs and
advanced plastics in a more efficient and environmentally friendly way.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 10, Robert J. Aumann of
Israel and Thomas C. Schelling of the Univ. of Maryland won the 2005
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their work in game theory
that explains political and economic conflicts, arms races and even
preventing warfare.
(AP, 10/10/05)
2005 Oct 13, British playwright
Harold Pinter, who juxtaposed the brutal and the banal in such works as
"The Caretaker" and "The Birthday Party" and made an art form out of
spare language and unbearable silence, won the 2005 Nobel Prize in
literature.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 17, Abdi Hassan Awale,
who once served as Somalia's interior minister, was arrested on
suspicion of war crimes while attending a conference in Sweden. He is
suspected of being a militia leader during the Oct 3, 1993, "Black Hawk
Down" battle that left 18 Americans dead.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Dec 12, Swedish
home-appliance maker AB Electrolux said it will close its plant in
Nuremberg, Germany, by the end of 2007, transferring production to
Poland and Italy and eliminating 1,750 jobs.
(AP, 12/12/05)
2005 Dec 22, Sweden's immigration
authority was facing harsh criticism after media reported that
employees celebrated deportations of asylum-seekers with cakes and
champagne.
(AP, 12/22/05)
2005 Dec 25, Birgit Nilsson
(b.1918), Swedish opera singer, died. Her prodigious voice, unrivaled
stamina and thrilling high notes made her the greatest Wagnerian
soprano of the post-World War II era.
(AP, 1/11/06)(SFC, 1/12/06, p.A2)
2006 Jan 19, A Swedish man who
confessed to killing two women and drinking their blood was charged
with double murder. The 29-year-old man was arrested in October on
suspicion of stabbing the women to death in two separate attacks.
(AP, 1/19/06)
2006 Jan 20, German factory
workers at Swedish home-appliances maker AB Electrolux launched a
strike, demanding a better severance package when the plant shuts down
late next year.
(AP, 1/20/06)
2006 Feb 21, It was reported that
the Stockholm chapter of the biker gang Hell's Angels is being
investigated for fraud after police found 70 percent of members were
certified as depressed by the same doctor and were getting state
sickness benefits.
(Reuters, 2/21/06)
2006 Feb 26, On the final day of
the Turin Winter Olympics, Sweden beat Finland 3-2 to win the men's
hockey gold. Germany led the gold medal count with 29. The US won 25
medals including 9 gold, Canada won 24, Austria 23 and Russia 22. Drew
Lachey leaped to victory with professional partner Cheryl Burke on
ABC's "Dancing with the Stars." Shizuka Arakawa won a gold medal for
Japan in figure skating.
(SFC, 2/27/06, p.A1)(SFC, 2/27/06, p.A1)(AP, 2/26/07)
2006 Feb, In Sweden a painting by
Swedish writer and painter August Strindberg (1849-1912) was stolen
from a Stockholm museum. The 1893 painting "Svartsjukans Natt," or
"Jealousy's Night," was valued at $1.5 million. In 2008 police
recovered the work and arrested 2 suspects.
(AP, 3/8/08)
2006 Mar 3, An EU executive said
Sweden's first case of mad cow disease has been confirmed by the
European Union's central laboratory.
(AP, 3/3/06)
2006 Mar 7, In Sweden masked
gunmen crashed through an airport fence at the Landvetter airport
outside Goteborg, held up luggage handlers unloading crates of foreign
currency from an airliner, and left behind a suspicious package that
looked like a bomb.
(AP, 3/7/06)
2006 Mar 15, Sweden recorded its
first case of the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain, saying European
laboratory tests confirm two wild birds found dead in the southeast
were infected with the virus.
(AP, 3/15/06)
2006 Mar 21, Sweden's foreign
minister resigned, accused of lying about shutting down a far-right Web
site that solicited cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Apr 23, It was reported that
Sweden has allowed the letter 'W' into the mainstream of the Swedish
language. The Swedish language, according to the Swedish Academy, now
has 29 letters instead of 28.
(AP, 4/23/06)
2006 May 2, In Iran a court
sentenced two Swedes to three years in prison each for photographing
military installations. The two men, both in their 30s, were convicted
of photographing military buildings and telecommunications equipment on
Qeshm, an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz.
(AP, 5/2/06)
2006 Jun 1, Swedish lawmakers
approved a law that makes it possible for the Scandinavian country to
imprison former Liberian President Charles Taylor if a UN-backed
tribunal convicts him of war crimes.
(AP, 6/1/06)
2006 Jul 19, Sweden launched a
fresh effort to salvage Sri Lanka's troubled truce as ceasefire
monitors reported at least 900 people killed in a surge of ethnic
violence since December.
(AP, 7/19/06)
2006 Jul 25, Officials and news
reports said the Swedish government knew in 2000 that Saddam Hussein's
government demanded kickbacks from companies participating in the UN
Oil-for-Food Program.
(AP, 7/25/06)
2006 Sep 1, World donors pledged
$500 million in aid for Palestinians, including $55 million for a UN
emergency appeal for humanitarian help. Carin Jamtin, Sweden's aid
minister and host of the donors' conference held in the Swedish
capital, said a total of $114 million of the money pledged will go
toward humanitarian aid, with the rest going to rebuilding
infrastructure and other projects.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2006 Sep 2, The former Stella
Polaris, a historic ocean liner (1927-1970), sank overnight off Japan's
southeastern coast. The Swedish company Petro-Fast AB had planned to
operate the ship, renamed the Scandinavia, as a hotel-restaurant in
Stockholm.
(AP, 9/2/06)
2006 Sep 16, Sten Andersson
(b.1923), a leading figure in Sweden's governing Social Democratic
Party and one-time mediator in the Middle East peace process, died. As
foreign minister from 1985 to 1991, Andersson helped start a dialogue
between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the US.
(AP, 9/17/06)
2006 Sep 17, In Sweden PM Goeran
Persson, head of the minority Social Democrat government for 10 years,
faced Fredrik Reinfeldt (41), who led the four-party Alliance for
Sweden, after a campaign focused on getting Swedes back into the job
market. The center-right opposition, vowing to streamline Sweden's
famed welfare state, ousted the Social Democratic government with 48.1%
of the vote, ending 12 years of leftist rule. Fredrik Reinfeldt (41),
head of the main opposition Moderate Party, became prime minister. He
authored the 1993 book "The Sleeping Nation," in which he criticized
the cradle-to-grave welfare state. Fredrik Reinfeldt renamed his party
the “New Moderates.”
(AP, 9/17/06)(Econ, 9/23/06, p.16)(Econ, 9/23/06,
p.60)
2006 Sep 20, Sven Nykvist
(b.1922), Swedish cinematographer, died. He began working with Ingmar
Bergman in 1953, eventually became his full-time cinematographer,
pushing the director's work in a new direction. Nykvist won the Academy
Award for Best Cinematography for two Bergman movies, Cries and
Whispers (1973), and Fanny and Alexander (1982).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Nykvist)
2006 Oct 14, Maria Borelius,
Sweden's trade minister, resigned over allegations of tax evasion after
just one week in office, saying media pressure has made her life
impossible.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6051220.stm)
2006 Oct 16, Sweden’s Culture
Minister Cecilia Stego Chilo issued a statement saying she could not
carry out her duties after it was revealed that she evaded taxes by
paying a nanny under the table and failed to pay her mandatory TV
license fee. Surveys showed about one-third of Swedes have bought
"black market services," mostly for cleaning, painting or carpentry
jobs. Hiring a cleaner legally costs around $40 an hour, including
taxes, while a black market hire will do the job for less than $14,
tax-free.
(AP, 10/16/06)(AP, 10/20/06)
2006 Nov 1, A Swedish freighter
capsized and sank in a storm on the Baltic Sea, forcing its 14-member
crew to jump overboard to save themselves. Rescue officials said
helicopters plucked all but one man from the high waves and chilly
waters. The 500-foot-long Finnbirch went down between the Swedish
islands of Gotland and Oland.
(AP, 11/1/06)
2007 Jan 14, Hurricane-strength
winds whipped across southwestern Sweden, leaving more than 100,000
households without power and causing major disruptions in train and
boat traffic across Scandinavia.
(AP, 1/14/07)
2007 Jan 22, Klas Bergenstrand
(61), the head of Sweden's intelligence agency, died from an apparent
heart attack.
(AP, 1/23/07)
2007 Jan 26, The Swedish
government announced an agreement with suborbital space-tourism company
Virgin Galactic that Swedish officials believe will lead to midsummer
and mid-winter flights of Virgin's SpaceshipTwo vehicle to observe the
Aurora Borealis from Sweden.
(www.space.com/news/070128_sweden_virgin.html)
2007 Jan 30, In Sweden former UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Darfur human rights activist Mossaad
Mohamed Ali won the Olof Palme Prize for their work to protect human
rights.
(AP, 1/30/07)’
2007 Feb 27, In central Sweden 2
crowded commuter buses collided on a slippery road, killing six people
and injuring nearly 50.
(AP, 2/27/07)
2007 Mar 6, Volkswagen's new chief
executive Martin Winterkorn has been nominated as chairman of Swedish
truck maker Scania in a new phase in the plans for a three-way tie-up
with German group MAN. VW is Scania's biggest shareholder with a voting
stake of 34 percent and traditionally holds the chair of the Swedish
truck maker's supervisory board.
(AFP, 3/6/07)
2007 Mar 20, Nyamko Sabuni (37), a
Congolese immigrant and Sweden's first black minister, said the
oppression of women and girls in the name of family honor has become an
urgent problem in Sweden with the arrival of growing numbers of
immigrants over the past few years.
(AP, 3/20/07)
2007 Mar 24, Swedish truck maker
Volvo said it has successfully acquired Japan's Nissan Diesel, the
latest merger in the industry as companies prepare for more stringent
emissions rules.
(AP, 3/24/07)
2007 Mar 27, Swedish artist Hans
Hedberg (89), known for his outsized fruit and egg ceramic sculptures
and, died.
(AP, 3/29/07)
2007 Apr 16, In Iran 2 Swedish
construction workers, who had been convicted of espionage and
imprisoned for taking photographs of military installations, were
released after being pardoned.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 May 8, In Argentina 7
managers of Skanska, a Swedish construction firm, were arrested for tax
evasion. Skanska sacked the managers and paid the tax authority almost
$5 million.
(Econ, 5/12/07, p.42)
2007 May 18, In Ethiopia 3 Swedish
citizens were released after spending five months in jail. The three
were among dozens of foreigners detained earlier this year as terror
suspects.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 19, Miroslav Deronjic
(52), Bosnian Serb war criminal, died in a hospital in Sweden.
Deronjic, the top authority in the eastern Bosnian city of Bratunac
during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, was convicted of ordering a 1992
attack on a Bosnian village in which 65 civilians were killed. He had
been serving a 10-year sentence for war crimes.
(AP, 5/20/07)
2007 May 21, Japanese Emperor
Akihito and Empress Michiko arrived in Sweden, kicking off a 10-day
tour of Europe that will take in the three Baltic nations and Britain,
where they have faced protests in the past.
(AP, 5/21/07)
2007 May 29, Sweden said it plans
to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020, bettering the EU's
proposal to cut emissions by at least 20%.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 Jun 10, Sweden’s telecoms
network firm Ericsson signed a framework agreement to provide $1
billion worth of networking equipment to China Mobile Communications
Corp.
(AP, 6/10/07)
2007 Jun 25, A Swedish court ruled
that convicted sex offenders are free to read pornography in their
cells. It said the country's prison system had no right to deny an
imprisoned rapist access to his porn magazines.
(www.thelocal.se/7699/20070625/)
2007 Jul 30, Ingmar Bergman
(b.1918), Swedish film and stage director, died. The iconoclastic
filmmaker was widely regarded as one of the great masters of modern
cinema. His 1987 autobiography was titled "The Magic Lantern."
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Aug 17, Borse Dubai made a
$3.95 billion takeover bid for OMX AB, challenging US-based NASDAQ
Stock Market Inc. for ownership of the Stockholm-based Nordic stock
exchange operator.
(AP, 8/17/07)
2007 Sep 15, An al-Qaida front
group warned it will hunt down and kill Sunni Arab tribal leaders who
cooperate with the US and its Iraqi partners, saying the assassination
of the leader of the revolt against the terror movement was just a
beginning. An Iraqi soldier was killed when gunmen attacked a
checkpoint in Baqouba. Police and army officials said eight civilians
also were killed and five others wounded in attacks in and around
Baqouba. The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq offered money for the murder of
a Swedish cartoonist and his editor who recently produced images deemed
insulting to Islam.
(AP, 9/15/07)
2007 Sep 17, Lars Vilks, a Swedish
cartoonist who depicted Islam's Prophet Muhammad with the body of a
dog, said that police have taken him to a secret location and told him
he cannot return home following a death threat from al-Qaida in Iraq.
(AP, 9/17/07)
2007 Nov 8, Nordic countries again
dominated the World Economic Forum's ranking of gender-equal countries.
New Zealand squeezed into the top five and the US fell to 31st place.
Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland retained the top four spots in the
2007 Gender Gap Index released by the Swiss-based think tank.
(Reuters, 11/8/07)
2007 Dec 30, Bert Bolin (82), a
Swedish climate scientist and co-founder of the Nobel Peace-winning UN
panel on climate change, died in Stockholm. His last book, "A History
of the Science and Politics of Climate Change: The Role of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" was published in November
2007.
(AP, 1/2/08)
2008 Jan 9, Norway and Sweden
dropped plans to send some 400 troops to the UN peacekeeping force in
Darfur because of opposition by Sudan.
(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A1)
2008 Jan 16, Sun Microsystems
agreed to buy MySQL AB, a Swedish-based database firm, for $1 billion.
(SFC, 1/17/08, p.C3)
2008 Feb 1, In Sweden Christer
Merrill Aggett (32), a British man, was sentenced to 14 years in prison
for infecting two young women with HIV and putting 13 more at risk of
infection. Six of them were under the age of 15, the legal age of
consent in Sweden, when the sexual encounters took place.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2008 Feb 1, Wireless equipment
maker LM Ericsson AB reported a sharp drop in fourth-quarter net
profits and said it would lay off around 1,000 employees in Sweden
because of costs cuts.
(AP, 2/1/08)
2008 Feb 28, Swedish and Norwegian
authorities cracked down on terror financing, arresting six people in
what Swedish investigators said were coordinated raids in Stockholm and
Oslo.
(AP, 2/28/08)
2008 Mar 5, Sweden’s Karolinska
Institute said researchers have discovered a protein that stimulates
the formation of fat cells, a finding that could potentially be used to
treat obesity.
(AP, 3/5/08)
2008 Mar 16, Ola Brunkert (62), a
former drummer for 1970s Swedish pop group ABBA, was found dead after
an apparent accident in his house in Mallorca. He first played with
ABBA on the group's first single, "People Need Love," and toured with
the band in 1977, 1979 and 1980.
(AP, 3/17/08)
2008 Mar 30, Pernod Ricard SA, a
French spirits company, agreed to pay the Swedish government 5.28
billion euros for Vin & Sprit, the maker of Absolut, outbidding
three competitors.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Apr 17, Umeaa University said
the world's oldest living tree on record is a 9,550 year-old spruce
discovered in central Sweden. That would mean it had taken root in
roughly the year 7,542 BC.
(AP, 4/17/08)
2008 Apr 19, In France the charred
body of Sussanna Zetterberg (19), a Swedish teenager, was discovered in
woods outside Paris just hours after she left a nightclub. A postmortem
showed she had been stabbed.
(Reuters, 4/24/08)
2008 May 21, Two Swedish
contractors were arrested suspected of preparing to sabotage The
Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in southern Sweden, after traces of
explosives were found on one of the men. Police released the 2 men the
next day as technical experts continued an investigation.
(AFP, 5/21/08)(Reuters, 5/22/08)
2008 Jun 3, In Sweden world chess
star turned political activist Garry Kasparov told world news industry
leaders that PM Vladimir Putin had assaulted press freedoms in Russia,
and urged them to challenge Kremlin leaders over the issue.
(AP, 6/4/08)
2008 Jun 14, Swedish jazz star
Esbjoern Svensson was killed at the weekend in a scuba diving accident
off Stockholm.
(AFP, 6/16/08)
2008 Jun 18, Sweden's Parliament
narrowly approved a contentious law that gives authorities sweeping
powers to eavesdrop on all e-mail and telephone traffic that crosses
the Nordic nation's borders. Outrage over the statute soon led to 2
million protests, filed by e-mail. In September the government
approved 15 changes following the widespread protests.
(AP, 6/18/08)(AP, 7/2/08)(SFC, 9/26/08, p.A4)
2008 Jun 25, Swedish car maker
Volvo, a unit of US auto giant Ford, said it planned to cut 2,000 jobs
worldwide, most of them in Sweden.
(AFP, 6/25/08)
2008 Aug 20, Swedish wireless
equipment maker LM Ericsson AB and Swiss chip-maker STMicroelectronics
NV unveiled plans to create a 50-50 joint venture that will make a key
component known as chipsets for mobile phones.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2008 Oct 6, Three European
scientists shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine for separate
discoveries of viruses that cause AIDS and cervical cancer,
breakthroughs that helped doctors fight the deadly diseases. French
researchers Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier were cited for
their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV; while
Germany's Harald zur Hausen was honored for finding human papilloma
viruses that cause cervical cancer.
(AP, 10/6/08)
2008 Oct 7, The Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences announced that two Japanese citizens and a
Japanese-born American won the 2008 Nobel Prize in physics for
discoveries in the world of subatomic physics.
(AP, 10/7/08)
2008 Oct 8, The Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences said two Americans and a US-based Japanese
scientist won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering and
developing a glowing jellyfish protein that revolutionized the ability
to study disease and normal development in living organisms. Japan's
Osamu Shimomura and Americans Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien shared the
prize for their work on green fluorescent protein, or GFP. Shimomura
discovered the jellyfish protein in 1961. In the early 1990s Douglas
Prasher conducted research on the jellyfish gene that made Chalfie’s
and Tsien’s work possible.
(AP, 10/8/08)(SFC, 10/21/08, p.A6)
2008 Oct 8, Six central banks
jolted markets by cutting interest rates together in an attempt to
shore up confidence in the world's crisis-stricken financial system.
The US Fed reduced its key rate from 2% to 1.5%. The Bank of England
unexpectedly slashed its key lending rate by a half-point to 4.5%. The
Bank of Canada cut its key interest rate by 50 basis points to 2.5%.
China also cut its key interest rates for a second time in less than
one month to 6.9%. The European Central Bank sliced its rate by half a
point to 3.75%. Sweden, and Switzerland also cut rates. Earlier in a
day Japan's Nikkei showed its biggest drop since the October, 1987
stock market crash. The IMF said the world economy is entering a major
downturn.
(AP, 10/8/08)(AFP, 10/8/08)(Econ, 10/11/08, p.100)
2008 Oct 9, The Swedish Academy
announced French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (b.1940) as the
2008 Nobel Prize in literature for his poetic adventure and "sensual
ecstasy." Le Clezio made his breakthrough as a novelist with "Desert,"
in 1980.
(AP, 10/9/08)
2008 Oct 9, In Tobago Anna
Sundsval (62) and Oke Olsoon (73) of Sweden were slashed to death at
their home in the Bon Accord area. A suspect was arrested the next day.
(AP, 10/11/08)
2008 Oct 10, A Swedish court
sentenced Chilean tenor Ernesto "Tito" Beltran (43) to two years and
six months in prison for raping an 18-year-old nanny and molesting a
7-year-old girl. The appeals court in Goteborg upheld a previous rape
conviction, but overturned an acquittal in the molestation case.
(AP, 10/10/08)
2008 Oct 13, Paul Krugman, the
Princeton University scholar and New York Times columnist, won the
Nobel prize in economics for his analysis of how economies of scale can
affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity. The Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences praised Krugman for formulating a new
theory to answer questions about free trade and said his theory has
inspired an enormous field of research.
(AP, 10/13/08)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.90)
2008 Nov 10, Sweden's financial
regulator says it has revoked the banking license from troubled
investment bank Carnegie and that Sweden's national debt office will
take control of the bank.
(AP, 11/10/08)
2008 Nov 11, Swedish truck and bus
maker Volvo AB said it will lay off nearly 1,000 staff at its
powertrain unit in Sweden and the United States as the global financial
crisis continues to weigh on the demand for heavy vehicles.
(AP, 11/11/08)
2008 Dec 4, Sweden’s central bank
cuts its benchmark interest rate from 3.75% to 2% saying monetary
policy was less effective than usual.
(Econ, 12/6/08, p.92)
2008 Dec 10, The Nobel Prizes were
awarded in twin ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo.
(AP, 12/10/08)
2008 Dec 16, The central banks of
Sweden and Denmark came to the aid of Latvia with currency swap
agreements. This enabled the Bank of Latvia, to borrow as much as €500
million.
(WSJ, 12/17/08, p.C2)
2009 Jan 6, Signs mounted that the
conflict in Gaza is starting to spill over into violence in Europe's
towns and cities, with assaults against Jews and arson attacks on
Jewish congregations in France, Sweden and Britain.
(AP, 1/6/09)
2009 Jan 13, Swedish truck maker
AB Volvo said it will lay off more than 1,600 employees in Sweden as it
slows production amid falling demand for trucks.
(AP, 1/13/09)
2009 Feb 5, The Swedish government
agreed to scrap a three-decade ban on building new nuclear reactors,
saying it needs to avoid producing more greenhouse gases.
(AP, 2/5/09)
2009 Feb 20, General Motors
Corp.'s Swedish-based subsidiary Saab went into bankruptcy protection
so the unit can be spun off or sold by its struggling US parent.
(AP, 2/20/09)
2009 Feb 23, Swedish power company
Vattenfall said it had made a friendly 8.5-billion-euro
(10.9-billion-dollar) offer for Nuon of the Netherlands in a takeover
aimed at creating one of Europe's biggest energy groups.
(AP, 2/23/09)
2009 Mar 9, In Sweden researchers
reported that a chimpanzee named Santino had collected a stash of rocks
and then hurled them at visitors at the Furuvik Zoo, confirming that
apes can plan ahead just like humans.
(SFC, 3/10/09, p.A3)
2009 Mar 17, In Colombia Erik
Roland Larsson (69), a partially paralyzed Swede, was released by
leftist rebels after nearly two years of captivity. He was the last
known foreign hostage held in Colombia by the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC).
(AP, 3/18/09)
2009 Apr 1, Sweden’s Parliament
adopted a new law giving same sex couples the same marriage rights as
heterosexuals, becoming the 5th European country to allow gay marriage.
(SFC, 4/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 1, In Sweden a new law
cracking down on online copyright violation went into force leading to
a sharp drop in internet traffic.
(AP, 4/3/09)(http://tinyurl.com/c96saw)
2009 Apr 17, A Swedish court found
four men guilty of promoting copyright infringement by running The
Pirate Bay, one of the world's top illegal file-sharing websites,
sentencing them to a year in prison in a landmark ruling.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 May 26, A Swedish Navy ship
detained seven suspected pirates after stopping them from capturing a
cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden.
(AP, 5/26/09)
2009 May 28, Swedish media
reported that a 16-year-old Iraqi immigrant living in Sweden has
cracked a maths puzzle that has stumped experts for more than 300
years. Mohamed Altoumaimi has found a formula to explain and simplify
the so-called Bernoulli numbers, a sequence of calculations named after
the 17th century Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 Jun 16, GM and Sweden's
Koenigsegg said they have struck a deal for Koenigsegg, a niche
manufacturer of some of the world's fastest and most expensive sports
cars, to buy loss-making Saab Automobile from General Motors.
(Reuters, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 21, In China the
Danish-Swedish comedy “Original,” about mental illness, won the best
picture at the 12th Shanghai International Film Festival. It also took
the best actor award for lead Sverrir Gudnason.
(AFP, 6/22/09)
2009 Jun 23, Swedish retailer IKEA
announced that it was suspending its investment in Russia because of
“the “unpredictable character of administrative procedures, a euphemism
for graft.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.63)
2009 Jul 1, Sweden took over the
rotating presidency of the EU.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.51)
2009 Jul 9, The Swedish government
said it will expel Sylvere Ahorugeze (53) within three weeks,
fulfilling a request from authorities in Rwanda and marking the first
time an EU nation has sent back a suspect to face charges in the 1994
genocide.
(AP, 7/10/09)
2009 Jul 25, Swedish wireless
equipment maker LM Ericsson said it had penned a deal to buy a majority
of Nortel Networks' North American wireless business for $1.13 billion.
(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jul 25, In Sweden a woman in
her 40s and her five daughters were killed when they tried to escape an
apartment fire in a Stockholm suburb.
(AP, 7/26/09)
2009 Jul 27, Sweden said it was
demanding an explanation as to why Swedish-made anti-tank rocket
launchers, sold to Venezuela years ago, were obtained by Colombia's
main rebel group. Three launchers were recovered in October in a FARC
arms cache belonging to a rebel commander known as "Jhon 40" and
Colombia only recently asked Sweden to confirm whether they had been
sold to Venezuela.
(AP, 7/27/09)
2009 Jul 30, A Hamburg court
ordered a German publisher to pay Sweden's Princess Madeleine
euro400,000 ($560,000) in damages for fabricating stories about her.
Sonnenverlag GmbH & Co KG magazines had carried false reports about
the 27-year-old princess being engaged and pregnant, among other
things. Sonnenverlag's parent company, Baden-Baden based KLAMBT media
group, confirmed the ruling.
(AP, 7/31/09)
2009 Aug 17, In Sweden the
Aftonbladet tabloid published an incendiary article claiming that
Israeli soldiers had harvested the organs of some Palestinians whom
they had shot. Israel quickly denounced the article, while Sweden
defended its freedom of expression.
(Econ, 8/29/09, p.44)
2009 Aug 24, The Stockholm
District Court threatened to fine Internet provider Black Internet
500,000 Swedish kronor (about $70,000) unless it stopped serving Pirate
Bay. Court documents showed the company has to comply with the order
until the ongoing case between Pirate Bay and the entertainment
industry is over.
(AP, 8/25/09)
2009 Aug 28, Mehdi-Muhammed
Ghezali, a Swedish national and former Guantanamo detainee, was
arrested on the outskirts of Dera Ghazi Khan in southern Pakistani town
along with a group of foreigners, including 7 Turks and 3 other Swedes,
who lacked proper immigration stamps. They were allegedly trying to
join al-Qaida in the lawless tribal areas.
(AP, 9/14/09)
2009 Sep 5, In Sweden Tesfaldet
Tesloy (28), an illegal Eritrean immigrant who has lived in Sweden for
six years, appeared on TV to collect a tax-free lottery prize of 1.2
million Swedish crown (101,654 pounds). Sweden's attempts to deport the
man have failed due to his country's refusal to take him back,
highlighting a common problem for immigration officials.
(Reuters, 9/5/09)
2009 Sep 19, Sweden's centre-right
government announced income tax cuts of 10 billion kronor to stimulate
the job market, its primary objective.
(AFP, 9/19/09)
2009 Sep 23, Swedish police held
one suspect after armed robbers used a helicopter to stage a
spectacular raid on the roof of a cash storage facility belonging to
Anglo-Danish firm G4S in Vastberga, just south of Stockholm.
(Reuters, 9/23/09)
2009 Oct 22, The Swedish
government approved the early release of former Bosnian Serb President
Biljana Plavsic (79), who was sentenced to 11 years in prison by a war
crimes tribunal. The Justice Ministry says she will be released on Oct
27 after serving two-thirds of her sentence for persecution.
(AP, 10/22/09)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Sweden
End of file