Timeline Sweden
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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)
1361 Jul 27, The Battle of
Wisby (Visby) was fought near the town of Visby on the Swedish
island of Gotland, between the forces of the Danish king and the
Gotland peasants. The Danish force was victorious.
(Econ, 12/18/10,
p.111)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Visby)
1373 Jul 23, Birgitta of
Sweden, Swedish saint, died.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1375-1412 Queen Margaret I (b.1353) ruled over
Denmark. In 1388 her rule extended over Norway and in 1389 extended
to include Sweden.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_I_of_Denmark)
1397 Jun 17, 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 Kalmar Union is a historiographical term meaning
a series of personal unions (1397–1523) that united the three
kingdoms of Denmark, Norway (with Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe
Islands and, prior to their annexation by Scotland in 1471, Shetland
and Orkney), and Sweden (including Finland) under a single monarch.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmar_Union)
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)
1523 Sweden became independent
and dropped out of the Kalmar Union, formed in 1397 with Denmark and
Norway.
(www.emersonkent.com/historic_documents/kalmar_union.htm)
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)
1605 Sep 27, Jan Karol
Chodkiewicz (1560-1621), Lithuanian Hetman (Jonas Karolis
Katkevičius-Katkus), led Lithuanian and Polish forces to victory
against a Swedish army at Kircholm, Latvia. Chodkiewicz carried the
day in a victory that, taking into account the disparity of power
and strategic result, was huge. It is estimated that 6000 Swedes
died. Sweden’s King Charles IX was wounded.
(www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/images/kircholm_27_sept.htm)
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)
1676 Jun 1, The Swedish ship
Svardet, armed with 86 bronze canons and under command of Claes
Uggla, went under when Sweden was defeated by a Danish-Dutch fleet
in the Battle of Öland. In 2011 Deep Sea Productions said it
believed it had found the ship off the island of Oland.
(AP,
11/16/11)(www.ocean-discovery.org/thesword.htm)
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)
1707 Aug 31, The Treaty or
Convention of Altranstädt was signed between Charles XII of
Sweden and Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor. It settled the rights of
Protestants in Silesia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Altranst%C3%A4dt_%281707%29)
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)
1854 Nov 8, Johannes Robert
Rydberg (d.1919), Swedish physicist, was born. He is mainly known
for devising the Rydberg formula, in 1888, which is used to predict
the wavelengths of photons (of light and other electromagnetic
radiation) emitted by changes in the energy level of an
electron in an hydrogen atom.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Rydberg)
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)
1885 A Swedish “Treskilling
Yellow” postage stamp was printed with a one-of-kind error. In 1996
it sold for a record $2.3 million. In 2010 it was again sold but the
price was not revealed.
(SSFC, 5/23/10, p.A6)
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)
1891 In Sweden the Skansen folk
museum opened in Stockholm by Artur Hazelius (1833-1901) to show the
way of life in the different parts of the country before the
industrial era.
(SSFC, 12/18/11,
p.H5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skansen)
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 (d.1948), statesman (Red Cross, UN), was born in Sweden.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte)
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." Nobel wished the Peace Prize to be administered in
Norway.
(HNPD, 10/21/98)(AP,
12/10/06)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize)
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)
1919 Dec 28, Johannes Robert
Rydberg (b.1854), Swedish physicist, died. He is mainly known for
devising the Rydberg formula, in 1888, which is used to predict the
wavelengths of photons (of light and other electromagnetic
radiation) emitted by changes in the energy level of an
electron in an hydrogen atom.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Rydberg)
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.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A24)(SFC, 3/10/00,
p.B2)(http://tinyurl.com/4r88f4z)
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. In 2010 Russian Security Services archives said a man
identified as Prisoner No. 7, who was interrogated 6 days after the
diplomat’s reported execution on July 17, was likely Wallenberg.
(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)(SFC, 4/2/10, p.A4)
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)
1949 Dec 12, Saab, a Swedish
aircraft maker, began full-scale production of the Saab 92
automobile based on the prototype Saab 92001.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_92)
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)
1951 Sweden’s Kiki Hakansson
became the first Miss World.
(AFP, 12/12/09)
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 luxury
liner Andrea Doria sank after colliding with the Swedish ship
Stockholm in 200 feet of water 50 miles southeast of Nantucket
Island, Mass. 46 people of its 1,706 passengers and crew were
killed. The Dorea was headed from Genoa, Italy, to NY, and sank
eleven hours after the crash.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A1)(AP, 7/25/97)(SFC, 1/1/99,
p.A16)(SFC, 7/30/99, p.D5)(AP, 1/14/12)
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)
1961 Westerlund 1, one of the
biggest cluster of superstars in the Milky Way, was discovered by a
Swedish astronomer and became a favored observation site in stellar
physics. It is located 16,000 light years away in the constellation
of Ara, the Altar. It contained a neutron star with a mighty
magnetic field. The stars were all born from a single event just
three and a half to five million years ago.
(AFP, 8/18/10)
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 Memorial Prize
in Economic Sciences was first 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)
1971 Sweden’s Saab become the
first car to have heated seating.
(AP, 12/19/11)
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. When state-subsidized
parental leave was introduced this year, women took nearly all of
the parental leave. Men would wash dishes and fold the laundry, but
child-rearing was considered a female domain. A milestone was
crossed in 1995 when the government started earmarking one month of
parental leave benefits for each parent. Seven years later it was
increased to two months. Then came the equality bonus that further
encouraged men to take daddy leave.
(Econ, 1/10/04, p.46)(AP, 10/23/11)
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 and
teenagers. By 2010 twenty five countries had anti-spanking
statutes.
(Econ, 9/4/04, p.54)(Econ, 5/31/08, p.62)(AP,
7/14/10)
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 Apr 30, William Eugene Cox
and Annika Oestberg Deasy (27) robbed and killed Joseph Torre (58),
a restaurant owner, in Stockton, Ca. A few days later they killed
Sgt. Richard Helbush and stole his patrol car. They were both caught
and sentenced to long jail terms. Cox later hanged himself in jail.
In 1999 Sweden called for the transfer of Deasy to Sweden under the
1983 Strasbourg Treaty, which provided for prisoner transfers. In
2009 a Swedish court ruled that Annika Ostberg (55) would be
released in 2011.
(SFC, 11/9/99, p.A13)(AP, 11/16/09)
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)
1986 Mar 24, A $15 billion
contract between the Indian government and Swedish arms company AB
Bofors was signed for supply of over 400 155mm Howitzer field guns.
(AP, 3/21/11)
1987 Apr 16, Swedish Radio
claimed that Swedish arms company AB Bofors paid kickbacks to top
Indian politicians and key defense officials to secure a deal.
(http://tinyurl.com/47jy7dp)
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)
1990 Sweden adopted legislation
that lowered the blood alcohol limit for all drivers to .02%. The US
standard was .08%.
(AP, 12/22/09)
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)
1991 Sweden’s right-wing
government passed a law allowing charities, religious organizations,
groups of parents and businesses to open schools and get as much
state money per student as state-run schools.
(Econ, 4/24/10, p.24)
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)
1999 South Africa signed a deal
with Saab for 26 JAS Gripen fighter jets for 1.6 billion euros. The
deal was later trimmed to 26 planes. Allegations of fraud later
arose after Saab disclosed that bribes had been paid in the form of
bonuses and salaries between 2003 and 2005 by its South African
subsidiary Sanip, which was then controlled by BAE Systems.
(AP, 7/31/11)
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 Nov 9, Stieg Larsson
(b.1954), Swedish novelist, died of a heart attack. By 2009 his “The
Millennium Trilogy,” published posthumously, had sold more than 12
million copies around the world. The books centered on the heroine
Lisbeth Salander, a tattooed bisexual waif with autistic tendencies,
a profound distrust of authority, as well as astonishing computer
skills and physical courage. The first book in the trilogy, “The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” was released as a film in 2010.
(Econ, 10/31/09,
p.98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stieg_Larsson)(Econ, 3/13/10,
p.85)
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 Feb 25, Gapminder was
founded in Stockholm by Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund and
Hans Rosling. It is a non-profit venture promoting sustainable
global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics
and other information about social, economic and environmental
development at local, national and global levels.
(www.gapminder.org/about-gapminder/)(Econ,
12/11/10, TQ p.26)
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 Jun 24, Denmark's Post
Danmark A/S and Sweden's Posten AB merged to form the new holding
company Posten Norden AB in the industry’s first-ever cross border
tie up.
(Econ, 10/31/09,
p.74)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Danmark)
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. On
August 2, 2010, ten men accused of stealing nearly 40 million kronor
($5 million) pleaded innocent as prosecutors opened their trial with
surveillance video of the brazen helicopter heist.
(Reuters, 9/23/09)(AP, 8/2/10)
2009 Oct 15, Colleen R. LaRose
(46), a self-described "Jihad Jane," was arrested in Philadelphia.
LaRose was later accused, in an indictment filed March 9, 2010, of
actively recruiting fighters, as well as agreeing to murder Swedish
artist Lars Vilks, marry a terrorism suspect so he could move to
Europe and martyr herself if necessary.
(AP, 3/10/10)
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)
2009 Nov 4, Morocco ordered the
immediate departure of a Swedish diplomat accused of handing
official Moroccan documents to Western Sahara-linked "separatists."
(AFP, 11/4/09)
2009 Nov 5, Finland and Sweden
approved a Baltic Sea pipeline project that would ship Russian
natural gas to Germany, clearing two key obstacles for construction
to begin next year.
(AP, 11/5/09)
2009 Nov 14, Sweden held a
solemn ceremony at Stockholm's Museum of National Antiquities for
the return of 23 skulls taken from the native Hawaiian community.
Five of the skulls will be returned by the museum. They were brought
to Sweden by a Swedish scientist in the 1880s after he took part in
a trip around the world. The other 17 skulls will be returned by
Stockholm's medical university Karolinska Institutet.
(AP, 11/14/09)
2009 Nov 18, Swedish museum
officials returned the remains of five indigenous Maori people to
New Zealand as part of a broader move in Europe to repatriate
remains taken from burial grounds.
(AP, 11/18/09)
2009 Dec 4, North Korea made an
unlikely foray into designer denim as the "Noko Jeans" label was
launched in Sweden. The brand is Swedish but the black jeans are
manufactured in North Korea, an experiment its creators described as
a way to open doors to the reclusive communist country. The next day
Stockholm’s PUB department store removed the new line of designer
jeans from its shelves, saying it wants to avoid courting
controversy through ties with the isolated communist nation. Noko
Jeans founders said they will continue to sell the jeans on their
Web site and that retailer Aplace will continue to sell them on
their Web site.
(AP, 12/4/09)(AP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 8, Swedish telecom
giant Ericsson said it would cut 946 jobs in Sweden in an effort to
downsize its production staff as it strives to improve efficiency.
(AFP, 12/8/09)
2009 Dec 18, General Motors Co.
said it will shut down Saab after talks to sell the brand to a Dutch
carmaker collapsed, marking the third time this year that a deal by
GM to sell an unwanted brand has fallen
through.
(AP, 12/18/09)
2009 Dec 18, In Poland the
Nazis' infamous iron sign declaring "Arbeit Macht Frei," German for
"Work Sets You Free," was stolen from the entrance of the former
Auschwitz death camp. On Feb 2, 2010, a Polish court issued a
European arrest warrant for former neo-Nazi leader Anders Hogstrom
(34) of Sweden, on suspicion of incitement to commit theft of a
cultural treasure. Hogstrom was arrested in Stockholm on Feb 11.
(AP, 12/18/09)(SFC, 2/3/10, p.A2)(AP, 2/11/10)
2009 Dec 20, Dutch sports
carmaker Spyker said it has made a new bid for Sweden's Saab
Automobile, two days after General Motors said it would close the
loss-making unit.
(AFP, 12/20/09)
2009 Dec 23, US auto giant Ford
said it had agreed the main terms for selling its Swedish brand
Volvo Cars to Chinese carmaker Geely, in a deal set to underline
China's growing economic clout.
(AFP, 12/23/09)
2009 Swedish doctors created a
virtual autopsy system using computed tomography.
(Econ, 12/12/09, p.90)
2009 Germany’s Hamburg theater
staged an opera about IKEA, “Wunder von Schweden” (Miracle from
Sweden), a biography of IKEA set to Swedish folk tunes.
(Econ, 2/26/11, p.67)
2010 Jan 21, Sweden's Royal
Academy of Sciences awarded Austria-born American scientist Walter
Munk (92) the 2010 Crafoord Prize in Geosciences for his research on
ocean circulation. The Crafoord award has been given annually since
1982 for scientific research in areas not covered by the Nobel
Prizes.
(AP, 1/21/10)
2010 Jan 25, Sweden’s Ericsson,
the world leader in phone network equipment, announced an extra
1,500 job cuts under restructuring which bit deeply into 4th-quarter
net profit.
(AFP, 1/25/10)
2010 Jan 26, General Motors
agreed to sell Saab, its Swedish subsidiary, to Spyker Cars, a Dutch
maker of sports cars, for $74 million in cash and preference shares
worth $326 million.
(Econ, 1/30/10, p.76)
2010 Feb 8, Sweden's
unemployment agency was found guilty of discrimination for expelling
a Muslim man from a job training program because he refused to shake
hands with a woman.
(AP, 2/8/10)
2010 Mar 10, At least three
Swedish newspapers published a cartoon depicting the Prophet
Muhammad with the body of a dog after an alleged plot to murder
Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who created it, was uncovered in Ireland.
Irish police said those arrested were two Algerians, two Libyans, a
Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the
Algerian suspects. They were not identified by name. On March 13
Irish police said they had released three of the arrested Muslims
and American Jamie Paulin-Ramirez (31) without charges.
(AP, 3/10/10)(AP, 3/13/10)
2010 Mar 11, Sweden's
parliament narrowly approved a resolution recognizing the 1915 mass
killing of Armenians in Turkey as genocide, prompting the Turkish
government to recall its ambassador in protest.
(AP, 3/11/10)
2010 Mar 22, US scientist Rita
Colwell (76) won the $150,000 Stockholm Water Prize for her research
on the prevention of cholera and other waterborne diseases.
(AP, 3/22/10)
2010 Mar 28, Zhejiang Geely
Holding Group signed a binding deal to buy Ford Motor Co.'s Volvo
Cars unit for $1.8 billion, representing a coup for the independent
Chinese automaker which is aiming to expand in Europe.
(AP, 3/28/10)
2010 May 11, In Sweden a
maritime museum said a "giant herring" measuring 3.5 meters (11.4
feet) had been discovered off Sweden's western coast -- the first
such fish found in the Scandinavian country in more than 130 years.
(AFP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 14, In Sweden the home
of cartoonist Lars Vilks, who once drew a cartoon of the Prophet
Muhammad as a dog, was hit by a suspected arson attack.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 Jun 2, The Stockholm
Int’l. Peace Research Institute said that world military spending
grew 5.9% from 2008-2009 and that the US accounted for some 54% of
the increase.
(SFC, 6/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jun 8, A report by the
European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS) charged that a consortium
led by Swedish Lundin Petroleum is partly to blame for war
crimes committed in Sudan between 1997 and 2003.
(AFP, 6/8/10)
2010 Jun 21, Sweden's public
prosecutor opened a criminal investigation into allegations that
Swedes working for a consortium of oil companies during the Sudanese
civil war may have been complicit in human rights abuses.
(Reuters, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 23, The Swedish Dock
Workers Union launched a week-long blockade of cargo to and from
Israel to protest the Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last
month.
(AFP, 6/23/10)
2010 Jul 1, Sweden abolished
compulsory military service for men during peacetime.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A1)
2010 Jul 13, Divers found
bottles of champagne in a wreck near the Aland Islands between
Finland and Sweden. 5 bottles of dark, foamy beer wee later
recovered while salvaging the champagne. The shipwreck was believed
to be from the early 19th century. In 2011 Finnish scientists said
they hoped to re-brew an old ale after studying the ancient beer
found in the shipwreck.
(http://tinyurl.com/4kawd2n)(AP, 2/8/11)
2010 Aug 6, In Sweden a gang of
thieves staged a remarkable break-in near the Swedish royal family's
residence in Stockholm, smashing display cases at a historic
18th-century Chinese-style landmark and getting away with artifacts
that police called potentially priceless.
(AP, 8/6/10)
2010 Aug 20, In Sweden a
prosecutor in Stockholm issued an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange (39) on suspicion of rape. The move means
police are ordered to seek his arrest as part of an investigation
but doesn't necessarily mean that criminal charges will be filed.
Authorities the next day revoked the arrest warrant saying a rape
accusation against him lacked substance.
(AP, 8/21/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Tehran, Iran,
the headquarters of Sweden-based Oriflame, a direct-sales cosmetics
firm, were "searched and sealed" and "four top managers were
arrested on accusations of 250,000 cases of fraud" linked to a
70-million-dollar (55-million-euro) pyramid scheme.
(AFP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 28, Sweden's financial
supervisory authority said has revoked the license of investment
bank HQ Bank AB, saying it breached Swedish legislation and
demonstrated serious deficiencies in its trading operations.
(AFP, 8/29/10)
2010 Sep 1, A senior Swedish
prosecutor reopened a rape investigation against WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange, the latest twist to a puzzling case in which
prosecutors of different ranks have overruled each other.
(AP, 9/1/10)
2010 Sep 3, Finland and Sweden
urged the European Union to create an independent peace institute to
broaden the scope of the bloc's peacekeeping efforts around the
world.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 8, Belgian police say
10 people have been arrested in raids across Europe against hackers
who put illegal copies of movies and television series on the
Internet. Police said 5 arrests were in Belgium and the other
arrests were made in Poland, Norway and Sweden, where the alleged
leaders of four computer piracy networks were being held.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 19, Swedes voted for a
new parliament. Polls showed the center-right government heading for
a historic second term unless an Islam-bashing far-right group
spoils its majority. The ruling center-right coalition faced the
prospect of forming a minority government after losing its majority
in the election because of a surge in support for Sweden Democrats,
an anti-immigrant party. PM Fredrik Reinfeldt was re-elected by
moving his Moderate party to the center, vowing to overhaul but not
dismantle the state.
(AP, 9/19/10)(Reuters, 9/20/10)(Econ, 1/29/11,
p.56)
2010 Sep 30, In Sweden
activists from Nepal, Nigeria, Brazil and Israel were named the
winners of this year's Right Livelihood Award, also known as the
"alternative Nobel," for work that included fighting to save the
Amazon rain forest and bringing health care to Palestinians cut off
from services. The recipients included Nigeria's Nnimmo Bassey (42),
Catholic Bishop Erwin Kraeutler (71) of Brazil, Shrikrishna Upadhyay
(65) of Nepal, and the organization Physicians for Human Rights
Israel.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Oct 22, World Wildlife
spokeswoman Marie von Zeipel, speaking at a seminar in Sweden,
estimated that only 3,200 tigers remain in the wild and that this
population would shrink 97% over the next 100 years.
(SFC, 10/23/10, p.A2)
2010 Oct 30, Police in
Goteborg, Sweden, were on high alert over the weekend after
receiving reports about a bomb threat and arrested the two men in
early morning raids. Both men were soon released due to lack of
evidence.
(AP, 11/1/10)
2010 Nov 6, Swedish police
arrested Peter Mangs (38) on suspicion of shooting at people with
immigrant backgrounds in a yearlong rampage in Malmo, Sweden's third
largest city. The first shooting was Oct. 10, 2009, when a
21-year-old convicted drug smuggler on furlough from prison was shot
in the head in a parked car. Swedish media said he was hospitalized
for a month with a bullet in his brain but survived. A 20-year-old
woman sitting next to him was also hit in the head and died.
(AP, 11/7/10)(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 18, Swedish
prosecutors was permission to seek an int’l. arrest warrant for
Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks, on allegations of rape
and other sexual offenses.
(SFC, 11/19/10, p.A4)
2010 Dec 7, WikiLeaks' founder
Julian Assange was remanded in custody until December 14 by a London
court after he said he would fight extradition to Sweden where he
faces rape allegations.
(AFP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 8, Cyber attacks
apparently organized by Internet activists sympathetic to WikiLeaks
founder Julian Assange shut down the website of credit card company
Mastercard and two Swedish sites. WikiLeaks published a new set of
cables, and in a defiant message posted online the secret-spilling
website promised that the leaks would keep on flowing despite the
arrest and jailing of its founder on sex allegations.
(Reuters, 12/8/10)(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 10, In Sweden a court
convicted two men linked to the al Shabaab militant group for
conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and sentenced them to four
years jail.
(AP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 11, In Sweden two
blasts rocked central Stockholm, killing the suspected bomber, later
identified as Taymour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly (b.1981). Two people were
wounded. Police had good leads into what they said were "terror
crimes." On March 8, 2011, police in Scotland arrested Ezedden
Khalid Ahmed Al Khaledi (30) on suspicion of aiding the suicide
bomber who had targeted the Stockholm Christmas shoppers.
(Reuters, 12/12/10)(Reuters, 12/13/10)(SFC,
12/14/10, p.A3)(AP, 3/8/11)(AP, 3/14/11)
2010 Dec 15, Sweden deported 5
Iraqi Christians, part of a group of at least 20 Iraqis, who failed
to gain asylum and were flown out of the country. On Dec 17 the UN
refugee agency called itself "dismayed" over the deportation and
called on countries to take in Iraqis from Baghdad, Kirkuk and three
northern provinces that the UN considers unsafe because of repeated
attacks, sectarian tensions and human rights violations.
(AP, 12/17/10)
2010 Dec 29, In Denmark 4 men
planning to shoot as many people as possible in a building housing
the newsroom of a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet
Muhammad were arrested in an operation that halted an imminent
attack. The 4 were Swedish residents, a Tunisian (44), a
Lebanese-born man (29), an Iraqi asylum seeker, and a 30-year-old
whose national origin was not released. Police in Stockholm arrested
a Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin, suspected of being linked to
the plot. Denmark freed the Iraqi suspect the next day due to an
apparent lack of evidence.
(AP, 12/29/10)(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Gunnar Wetterberg, Swedish
historian, authored “The Nordic Federal State,” which proposed a
pan-Nordic federation to unite Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway,
and Sweden under a single monarch: Denmark’s Queen Margrethe.
(Econ, 11/6/10, p.66)
2010 Sweden’s population stood
at about 9.4 million, of whom 14 percent was foreign-born. Some 71
percent of Swedes nominally are members of the Lutheran Church of
Sweden, although few attend church regularly. Literacy is virtually
100 percent. Life expectancy is among the world's highest, 79 years
for men, 83 for women.
(AP, 9/18/10)
2011 Jan 5, Swedish officials
said 50 to 100 jackdaw birds, a type of crow. were found lying in a
snow-covered street in the southwestern town of Falkoeping.
(AFP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 27, The European
Commission launched legal action against Sweden for allowing hunters
to shoot 20 wolves this year even though the species is threatened
with extinction.
(AFP, 1/27/11)
2011 Mar 1, Swedish carmaker
SAAB, now owned by Spyker Cars, showed off its new PhoeniX prototype
at the Geneva motor show.
(Econ, 4/9/11, p.72)(http://tinyurl.com/3bmnxnx)
2011 Apr 2, Swedish wireless
equipment maker LM Ericsson said it is suing Chinese rival ZTE Corp.
for alleged infringement of several of its patents in handset and
network technology.
(AP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 26, Congolese
children's rights activist Murhabazi Namegabe was named winner of
the $100,000 World Children's Prize for his efforts to protect
children exploited by armed groups in the African country. The award
foundation based in Mariefred, Sweden, cited Murhabazi's "dangerous
struggle to free children forced to be child soldiers or sex slaves"
in Congo.
(AP, 4/26/11)
2011 May 12, Sweden’s
struggling car maker Saab Automobile faced renewed uncertainty
Thursday as the financing deal with China's Hawtai Motor Group fell
apart, raising fresh concerns about the company's future. Spyker
Cars NV, which bought Saab from General Motors Corp. in 2010, said
it was "forced to terminate" the $223 million (euro150 million)
agreement with Hawtai since the Chinese company was not able to
obtain all the necessary consents, including approvals from
different shareholders.
(AP, 5/12/11)
2011 May 20, In Sweden a
43-year old man was charged with having provided 23 women with 510
films and photos of children being exploited in "especially
ruthless" manner. The 23 women from across Sweden were charged with
involvement in what investigators call a unique child pornography
case.
(AP, 5/20/11)
2011 May 20, Swedish defense
group Saab said an ongoing probe into reports it had secretly paid
millions of euros to ensure South Africa did not back out of a deal
to buy 26 fighter jets had turned up no evidence of wrongdoing.
(AP, 5/20/11)
2011 Jun 27, Two Swedish
freelancer journalists, Johan Persson and Martin Schibbye, entered
Ethiopia from Somalia to report about allegations of human rights
violations in the region including torture and rape.
(AP, 7/4/11)
2011 Jul 7, Swedish officials
said a man (36) with tracheal cancer has received a new lab-made
wind pipe seeded with his own stem cells in the first successful
attempt of its kind.
(SFC, 7/8/11, p.A2)
2011 Jun 16, Swedish
arms-maker Saab said that it had unwittingly paid over $3 million to
a South African ANC defense consultant. Saab said payments had been
made in 2003 through the British arms producer, BAE Systems.
(Econ, 7/23/11,
p.43)(www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13813281)
2011 Aug 3, Thai police
arrested a Swedish man wanted in Scandinavia for a $3 million
banking scam committed 1998-2001. Carl-Gustav Alexander Tartagni
(52) was detained in the seaside town of Hua Hin, where he had been
living for a year.
(AP, 8/4/11)
2011 Aug 12, Stockholm Film
Festival organizers say French actress Isabelle Huppert (53) will be
honored with its 2011 lifetime achievement award for a career in
movie and television spanning almost four decades.
(AP, 8/12/11)
2011 Sep 3, Around 50
expatriated Syrian Kurds gathered in Sweden for a two-day conference
on how to strengthen Kurds inside Syria and get them more involved
in efforts to overthrow Bashar al-Assad's regime.
(AFP, 9/3/11)
2011 Sep 10, Swedish police
arrested four people on suspicion of preparing a terror attack and
evacuated an arts center in Goteborg, Sweden's second largest city
on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary. In December three of the
suspects, of Somali and Iraqi origin, were charged with plotting to
stab to death artist Lars Vilks for depicting the Prophet Muhammad
as a dog in 2007. On Jan 20, 2012, a Swedish court acquitted three
men accused of plotting to murder Vilks.
(AP, 9/11/11)(AP, 12/6/11)(AP, 1/20/12)
2011 Sep 29, In Sweden the
winners of Right Livelihood Awards, sometimes referred to as the
alternative Nobel prizes, were announced. Human rights activist
Jacqueline Moudeina of Chad; Spanish-based nonprofit GRAIN; and
American midwifery educator Ina May Gaskin will share the
euro150,000 ($205,000) cash award. Chinese solar power pioneer Huang
Ming received an honorary award for developing "cutting-edge
technologies."
(AP, 9/29/11)
2011 Oct 3, Sweden’s Nobel
committee at Stockholm's Karolinska institute said three scientists
won the Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries about the immune
system that opened new avenues for the treatment and prevention of
infectious illnesses and cancer. American Bruce Beutler and French
scientist Jules Hoffmann shared the 10 million-kronor ($1.5 million)
award with Canadian-born Ralph Steinman.
(AP, 10/3/11)
2011 Oct 4, Three US-born
scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics for overturning a
fundamental assumption in their field by showing that the expansion
of the universe is constantly accelerating. During the 1990s, Saul
Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess found that the light from
more than 50 distant exploding stars was far weaker than they
expected, meaning that galaxies had to be racing away from each
other at increasing speed.
(AP, 10/4/11)
2011 Oct 5, Israeli scientist
Dan Shechtman was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for a
discovery that faced skepticism and mockery. While doing research in
the US in 1982, Shechtman discovered a new chemical structure,
quasicrystals, that researchers previously thought was impossible.
(AP, 10/5/11)
2011 Oct 10, The Nobel Memorial
Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded Americans Thomas Sargent and
Christopher Sims won for their research on cause and effect in the
macroeconomy.
(AP, 10/10/11)
2011 Dec 19, Sweden’s Saab
Automobile filed for bankruptcy, giving up a desperate struggle to
stay in business after previous owner General Motors Co. blocked
takeover attempts by Chinese investors.
(AP, 12/19/11)
2011 Dec 21, An Ethiopian court
convicted Swedish journalists Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson of
supporting a terrorist group and entering the country illegally,
with the prosecution calling for a maximum sentence of 18 years and
six months. On Dec 27 a court sentenced the two journalists to
11 years in prison on charges of supporting terrorism.
(AFP, 12/22/11)(AP, 12/27/11)
2012 Jan 5, In southern Sweden
dozens of police took to the streets of Malmo to try calm the public
and to collect tips about the attacks, which come only a year after
a suspected serial shooter was arrested in the city. In less than
six weeks, five people have been shot dead in this city of 250,000,
including a 15-year-old boy.
(AP, 1/5/12)
2012 Feb 2, The Anglo-Swedish
drugs giant AstraZeneca said that it would axe 7,300 jobs by the end
of 2014 in a new cost-cutting drive, despite delivering bumper
annual profits.
(AFP, 2/2/12)
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Subject = Sweden
End of file