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)

1373        Jul 23, Birgitta of Sweden, Swedish saint, died.
    (MC, 7/23/02)

1397        Jun 20, The Union of Kalmar united Denmark, Sweden, and Norway under one monarch. The alliance grew out of the dynastic ties of the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in response to rising German influence in the Baltic. The union lasted from 1397 to 1523.
    (HN, 6/20/98)(HNQ, 7/22/00)

1489        A sculpture St. George and the Dragon, created by Bernt Notke, was unveiled in Stockholm, Sweden. He composed the dragon entirely of elk horns.
    (SSFC, 8/19/07, p.G4)

1500s        The popularity of surströmming, a Swedish fermented herring with a noxious stench, surged in the early 1500s and again in the early 1700s.
    (WSJ, 8/13/02, p.A1)

1520        Nov 4, Danish-Norwegian king Christian II was crowned king of Sweden.
    (MC, 11/4/01)

1520        Nov 9, Swedish King Christian II executed 600 nobles.
    (MC, 11/9/01)

1522        Gustavus Vasa became administrator of Sweden and pledged to free his country from Danish control.
    (TL-MB, p.12)

1523        Jun 6, [Gustav] Gustavus Vasa was elected Gustavus I of Sweden.
    (HFA, '96, p.32)(TL-MB, 1988, p.12)(HN, 6/6/98))

1524        Denmark confirmed Swedish independence under Gustavus Vasa in the Treaty of Malmo.
    (TL-MB, p.12)

1527        Jun 24, Gustaaf I began Reformation in Sweden, taking RC possessions.
    (MC, 6/24/02)

1544        Gustavus I of Sweden signed an alliance with France.
    (TL-MB, 1988, p.16)

1550        Helsinki was founded by the Swedes.
    (SFEM, 8/8/99, p.44)

1552        Apr 14, Laurentius Andreae, [Lars Andersson], Swedish church reformer, died.
    (MC, 4/14/02)

1557        Olaus Magnus (b.1490), Swedish mapmaker, died. He guessed at the location of the northern land of Thule mentioned by Greek explorer Pytheas (c380-310BC).
    (WSJ, 3/4/06, p.P9)

1561        Poland-Lithuania gaining control over Livonia. In response Sweden seized the territory of Estonia with the major port of Reval.  Denmark, also invested in the war, seized the Livonian Islands.
    (http://tinyurl.com/bngyy)

1568        Sep 30, Eric XIV, king of Sweden, was deposed after showing signs of madness. The Swedes declared Eric XIV unfit to reign and proclaimed John III king.
    (TL-MB, 1988, p.21)(HN, 9/30/98)

1570        Dec 15, The Peace of Stettin was concluded in Livonia. Denmark recognized the independence of Sweden in the Peace of Stettin. Sweden gave up her claim to Norway.
    (TL-MB, p.22)(http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/papers/livonianwar.htm)

1577        Feb 26, Erik XIV Wasa (43), King of Sweden (1560-69), died.
    (SC, 2/26/02)

1581        Sweden and Poland overran Livonia (a territory that included southern Latvia and northern Estonia).
    (TL-MB, p.23)

1594        Dec 9, Gustavus II Adolphus (d.1632), king who made Sweden a major power (1611-32), was born.
    (MC, 12/9/01)

1598        Sep 25, King Sigismund was defeated at Stangebro by his Uncle Charles.
    (HN, 9/25/98)

1610        Jul 4, Battle at Klushino: King Sigismund III of Poland beat Russia & Sweden.
    (Maggio)

1617        Mar 9, The Treaty of Stolbovo ended the occupation of Northern Russia by Swedish troops.
    (HN, 3/9/99)

1626        Dec 8, Christina (d.1689), queen of Sweden, was born. She negotiated the Peace of Westphalia, ending the Thirty Years' War. "Fools are more to be feared than the wicked. "Dignity is like a perfume; those who use it are scarcely conscious of it."
    (AP, 7/8/97)(AP, 1/14/99)(HN, 12/8/99)

1628        Aug 10, The Swedish 228-foot warship Vasa capsized and sank in Stockholm harbor on her maiden voyage because the ballast was insufficient to counterweight the 64 guns and ballast. The wreckage was found in 1956. It opened as part of a the Vasa museum in 1990. Twenty-five men and women drowned when the ship sank. Vasa was the most expensive and richly ornamented warship of its time in Sweden. She was recovered in 1961 and the skeletal remains were exhumed in 1989.
    (NG, 5/95, Geographica)(WSJ, 7/21/00, p.W12)(HN, 8/10/00)

1631        Jul 23, Sweden's King Gustavus II Adolfus repulsed an imperialist force at Werben, Russia.
    (AP, 7/23/97)

1631        Sep 17, At the Battle of Breitenfeld (Leipzig) Sweden’s King Gustaaf Adolf led a Saxon-Swedish army and defeated Gen. Tilly.
    (MC, 9/17/01)(PCh, 1992, p.231)

1632        Apr 15, Swedish and Saxon army beat Earl Tilly.
    (MC, 4/15/02)

1632        Sep 3, Battle at Nuremberg: Duke Wallenstein beat Sweden.
    (MC, 9/3/01)

1632        Nov 6, Gustavus II Adolphus (37), king of Sweden, died in battle.
    (MC, 11/6/01)

1632        Nov 16, Battle at Lutzen: Sweden beat the imperial armies under Wallenstein.
    (MC, 11/16/01)

1634        Sep 5, Battle at Nordlingen: King Ferdinand III & Catholic Spain beat Sweden & German protestants.
    (MC, 9/5/01)

1634-1644    Hugo Grotius (d.1645) of Holland, father of international law, served the Swedish government as ambassador to France.
    (HN, 4/10/98)(HNQ, 3/15/00)

1637        Nov 20, Peter Minuit & 1st Dutch and Swedish immigrants to Delaware sailed from Sweden. Peter later purchased Manhattan Island for 60 guilders.
    (MC, 11/20/01)

1638        Mar 29, The first permanent white settlement was established in Delaware. Swedish Lutherans who came to Delaware were the first to build log cabins in America. The first English colonists did not know how to build houses from logs but those who lived in the forests of Scandinavia, Germany and Switzerland did. German pioneers who settled in Pennsylvania built the first log cabins there in the early 1700s. The Scotch-Irish immigrants who settled in the Appalachian highlands after 1720 made the widest use of log cabins and by the time of the American Revolution, log cabins were the mainstay among settlers all along the western frontier.
    (HNQ, 9/15/99)(AP, 3/29/08)

1640s        The violin was introduced, possibly by French musicians at the court of Queen Christina.
    (NH, 4/97, p.32)

1645        In Sweden the Post Och Inrikes Tidningar began daily publication for bankruptcies, corporate and government announcements. On Jan 1, 2007, the world’s oldest newspaper stopped publishing on paper and moved to the Internet.
    (WSJ, 1/2/07, p.B4)

1648        At the end of the Thirty years’ War the Swedes got to Prague and picked up the remains of works collected by Rudolf II and Albrecht von Wallenstein, leader of the Hapsburg armies.
    (WSJ, 7/10/97, p.A13)(WSJ, 12/7/99, p.A24)

1650        Feb 11, Rene Descartes (b.1596), French mathematician and philosopher: "I think therefore I am", died in Stockholm. In 1666 his bones were exhumed for transfer to France. In 2008 Russell Shorto authored “Descartes’ Bones: A Skeletal History of the conflict Between Faith and Reason.”
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes)(SFC, 11/5/08, p.E3)

1654        Jun 6, Queen Christina of Sweden resigned and converted to Catholicism.
    (MC, 6/6/02)

1655        Aug 29, Swedish king Karel X Gustaaf occupied Warsaw.
    (MC, 8/29/01)

1655        Sep 26, Peter Stuyvesant recaptured Dutch Ft. Casimir from Swedish in Delaware.
    (MC, 9/26/01)

1656        Jan 17, Prussian Duke Frederick Wilhelm withdrew ties with Lithuania and Poland and acknowledged vassal status with Sweden.
    (LHC, 1/17/03)

1656        Oct 24, Treaty of Vilnius (Lithuania): Russia and Poland signed an anti-Swedish covenant.
    (MC, 10/24/01)

1668        Feb 7, The Netherlands, England and Sweden concluded an alliance directed against Louis XIV of France.
    (HN, 2/7/99)

1675        Jun 28, Frederick William of Brandenburg crushed the Swedes.
    (HN, 6/28/98)

1676        Apr 17, Frederick I, king of Sweden, was born.
    (HN, 4/17/98)

1682        Jun 27, Charles XII (d.1718), King of Sweden (1697-1718), was born.
    (WUD, 1994, p.249)(SFC, 8/17/96, p.E5)(HN, 6/27/98)

1685        Dec 3, Charles II barred Jews from settling in Stockholm, Sweden.
    (MC, 12/3/01)

1689        Apr 19, Christina (b.1626), Queen of Sweden (1644-54), died. In 2004 Veronica Buckley authored “Christina: Queen of Sweden.”
    (www.sweden.se)(WSJ, 10/29/04, p.W10)

1697        The Royal Palace in Stockholm, Sweden, burned down. It was rebuilt in Italian Baroque style with 608 rooms.
    (SSFC, 8/19/07, p.G4)

1697-1718    Charles XII ruled Sweden.
    (WUD, 1994, p.249)(SFC, 8/17/96, p.E5)

1698        Aug 18, After invading Denmark and capturing Sweden, Charles XII of Sweden forced Frederick IV of Denmark to sign the Peace of Travendal.
    (HN, 8/18/98)

1700          Feb 22, Augustus II with the help of the Saxon army attacked Swedish controlled Riga. This began the Northern War (1700-1721).
    (LHC, 2/22/03)

1700        Nov 20, Sweden's 17-year-old King Charles XII defeated the Russians at Narva.
    (HN, 11/20/98)

1701        Nov 27, Anders Celsius (d.1744), Swedish astronomer who devised the centigrade temperature scale, was born in Uppsala.
    (WUD, 1994, p.238)(AP, 11/27/06)

1707        May 23, Carolus Linnaeus [Carl von Linné, d.1778], Swedish botanist, was born.
    (HN, 5/23/01)(WUD, 1994 p.834)

1708        Jul 4, Swedish King Karel XII beat Russians.
    (Maggio)

1708        Sep 28, At the Battle at Lesnaya the Russian army captured a Swedish convoy.
    (MC, 9/28/01)

1709        Jun 28, Russians defeated the Swedes and Cossacks at the Battle of Poltava. [see July 8]
    (HN, 6/28/98)

1709        Jul 8, Peter the Great defeated Charles XII at Poltava, in the Ukraine, effectively ending the Swedish empire. [see June 28]
    (HN, 7/8/98)

1718        Dec 11, Charles XII, King of Sweden (1697-1718), was shot dead.
    (MC, 12/11/01)

1721        Aug 30, The Peace of Nystad ended the Second Northern War between Sweden and Russia, giving Russia considerably more power in the Baltic region.
    (HN, 8/30/98)

1722        Mar 29, Emanuel Swedenborg (b.1688), Swedish scientist and clairvoyant, died in London. In 1744 he entered into a spiritual phase in which he experienced dreams and visions. The foundation of Swedenborg's theology was laid down in “Arcana Cœlestia” (Heavenly Secrets), published in eight volumes from 1749 to 1756.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Swedenborg)

1741        Anders Berch became the first professor of economics in Uppsala.
    (WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)

1742        Dec 9, Carl W. Scheele, Swedish pharmacist and chemist (lemon acid), was born.
    (MC, 12/9/01)

1743        Aug 17, By the Treaty of Abo, Sweden ceded southeast Finland to Russia, ending Sweden's failed war with Russia.
    (HN, 8/17/98)

1746        Jan 24, Gustav III, king during Swedish Enlightenment (1771-92), was born.
    (MC, 1/24/02)

1753        In Sweden Linnaeus (1707-1778), father of systematics, authored “Species Plantarum,” a compilation of some 6,000 plants from around the world.
    (NH, 4/1/04, p.39)
1753        Peter Kalm, Swedish-born naturalist, published the first of his 3 volumes of “Travels in North America,” which described his 1748-1751 trip there. Kalm later spent much of his life as a professor at Turku, Finland. In 2007 Paula Ivaska Robbins authored “The Travels of Peter Kalm.
    (WSJ, 11/17/07, p.W11)

1756-1763    The Seven Years War. France and Great Britain clashed both in Europe and in North America. In 2000 "Crucible of War" by Fred Anderson was published. France, Russia, Austria, Saxony, Sweden and Spain stood against Britain, Prussia and Hanover. Britain financed Prussia to block France in Europe while her manpower was occupied in America.
    (V.D.-H.K.p.223)(SFC, 7/7/96, BR p.7)(WSJ, 2/10/00, p.A16)

1758        Linnaeus (1707-1778), father of systematics, worked on his wasp specimens.
    (PacDis, Winter/’96, p.43)

1772        Aug 19, Gustavus III of Sweden eliminated the rule of parties and establishes an absolute monarchy. It had been subordinate to parliament since 1720.
    (HN, 8/19/98)(MC, 8/19/02)

1773        The Royal Swedish Ballet was founded.
    (WSJ, 6/25/99, p.W7)

1778        Jan 10, Carolus Linnaeus [Carl von Linné, b.1707], Swedish botanist, died. His system for classifying living organisms in a hierarchy placed kingdoms at the top and species at the bottom.
    (HN, 5/23/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolus_Linnaeus)

1783        Feb 5, Sweden recognized the independence of the United States.
    (AP, 2/5/97)(HN, 2/5/99)

1785        The first Illis Quorum Meruere Labores (For Those Whose Labors Have Deserved It), a gold medal, was awarded.
    (NH, 4/97, p.31)

1786        May 21, Carl W. Scheele (43), Swedish pharmacist, chemist, died.
    (MC, 5/21/02)

1790        Jul 9, The Swedish navy captured one third of the Russian fleet at the naval battle of Svensksund in the Baltic Sea.
    (HN, 7/9/98)

1792        Mar 16, Sweden's King Gustav III was shot and mortally wounded during a masquerade party by a former member of his regiment. He was murdered by Count Ankarstrom at an opera. It became the inspiration for Giuseppe Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera. Gustav died 13 days later.
    (AP, 3/16/06)(WSJ, 1/28/07, p.P10)

1792        Mar 29, Gustav III, King of Sweden (1771-92), died of wounds inflicted by an assassin on March 16.
    (AP, 3/16/06)

1796        Jul 23, Franz Adolf Berwald, Sweden, composer, was born.
    (MC, 7/23/02)

1800        Count Baltazar Von Platen started the Göta Canal.
    (SFEC, 4/20/97, p.T8)

1805        Aug 9, Austria joined Britain, Russia, Sweden and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in the Third Coalition against Napoleonic France and Spain.
    (HN, 8/9/98)(HNQ, 10/19/98)

1809        Jun 6, Sweden declared independence and a constitutional monarchy was established.
    (MC, 6/6/02)

1809        Finland broke free of Sweden to become a Grand Duchy of Russia.
    (SFEC, 4/11/99, p.T4)

1809        Russia took the Aland island group from the Swedes and held it until the Russian Revolution.
    (WSJ, 12/5/97, p.A1)

1810        Aug 21, Sweden’s Riksdag elected Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France under Napoleon, as heir apparent to the Swedish throne.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernadotte)(Econ, 10/14/06, p.73)

1810-1832    The 54-mile Göta Canal was built to connect Sweden's east and west coasts to circumvent Danish shipping controls between the Baltic and North Seas. The project was conceived and led by Count Baltzar von Platen (d.1830).
    (SSFC, 4/18/04, p.D12)

1812        Mar 9, Swedish Pomerania was seized by Napoleon.
    (HN, 3/9/98)

1812        Jul 18, Great Britain signed the Treaty of Orebro, making peace with Russia and Sweden.
    (HN, 7/18/98)

1814        May 17, Norway's constitution was signed, providing for a limited monarchy. Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden.
    (AP, 5/17/97)(HN, 5/17/98)

1820        Oct 6, Jenny Lind (d.1887), soprano, was born. She was known as the “Swedish Nightingale.”
    (HN, 10/6/00)

1832        King Karl XIV Johan inaugurated the Göta Canal.
    (SFEC, 4/20/97, p.T8)

1833        Oct 21, 1833, Alfred Bernhard Nobel was born. The Swedish-born chemist, engineer and industrialist who invented dynamite, later established the prestigious Nobel prizes to honor the world’s greatest scientists, writers and peacemakers. In 1859, after four years in the United States, Nobel returned to Sweden and built a factory to manufacture the explosive nitroglycerin. In 1864 the factory accidentally blew up, killing Nobel’s youngest brother and four others. Two years later, Nobel invented dynamite, a safe and manageable form of nitroglycerin. A pacifist by nature, Nobel hoped that the destructive power of his invention would bring an end to wars.  By the time of his death on December 10, 1897, Nobel had acquired a massive fortune. In his will, he left instructions that the bulk of his estate should endow the annual Nobel prizes for those who had most contributed to the areas of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. In 1968, a sixth award for economics was established.
    (WUD, 1994, p.969)(SFEC,12/797, Par p.28)(HNPD, 10/21/98) (HNPD, 10/21/99)

1846-1920s    A major immigration of Swedes to the US brought in 1.2 million people.
    (FB, 9/12/96, p.A2)

1849        Johan August Strindberg (d.1912), novelist, dramatist, essayist and photographer, was born. In 1985 Michael Meyer authored a Strindberg biography.
    (WUD, 1994 p.1407)(SFC, 8/10/00, p.D2)(WSJ, 12/11/01, p.A17)

1850        Sep 11, Jenny Lind, the “Swedish Nightingale,” gave her first  concert in the United States, at Castle Garden in New York.
    (AP, 9/11/00)

1852        Sep 3, Anti Jewish riots broke out in Stockholm.
    (MC, 9/3/01)

1856        In Sweden Andre Wallenberg founded Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB). By 2006 it was one of the Nordic region’s biggest banks.
    (Econ, 10/14/06, p.73)

1858        Nov 20, Selma Lagerdorf, Swedish novelist, was born. Her work included “The Story of Gosta Berling.”
    (HN, 11/20/00)

1859        Feb 19, Svante Arrhenius, Swedish chemist, founder of physical chemistry, was born.
    (HN, 2/19/01)

1859        After four years in the United States, Alfred Nobel returned to Sweden and built a factory to manufacture the explosive nitroglycerin.
    (HNPD, 10/21/98)

1864        The Alfred Nobel factory for the manufacture of nitroglycerin accidentally blew up, killing Nobel's youngest brother and four others.
    (HNPD, 10/21/98)

1866        Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, a safe and manageable form of nitroglycerin. A pacifist by nature, Nobel hoped that the destructive power of his invention would bring an end to wars.
    (HNPD, 10/21/98)

1867        Nov 25, Alfred Nobel patented dynamite.
    (MC, 11/25/01)

1868        Apr 3, Franz Adolf Berwald (71), Swedish composer, died.
    (MC, 4/3/02)

1872        May 1, Hugo Alfvjen, composer (Midsommarvaka), was born in Stockholm, Sweden.
    (MC, 5/1/02)

1873-1924    The Scandinavian Monetary Union established a common currency for its members.
    (WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)

1880        Swedish Egyptologist Karl Piehl uncovered the tomb of Amenhotep, the deputy seal-bearer of the Pharaoh King Tuthmosis III (1504BC-1452BC), in the city of Luxor, about 600 km (375 miles) to the south of the capital Cairo. It later disappeared under the sand and was rediscovered in 2009.
    (Reuters, 3/1/09)

1887          Nov 2, Jenny Lind (b.1820), known as the Swedish Nightingale, soprano, died in London, England.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Lind)

1887        Skanska was founded in Sweden and started by manufacturing cement products. It quickly diversified into a construction company and within 10 years the company received its first international order.
    (www.skanska.com/)

1889        Mar 8, Jens/John Ericsson (85), Swedish-US, engineer (fire extinguisher), died.
    (MC, 3/8/02)

1891        May 23, Par Lagerkvist, Swedish writer (The Dwarf, Barabbas), was born.
    (HN, 5/23/01)

1893        Johan August Strindberg (43) married Frida Uhl (20), the daughter of a renowned Viennese theater critic and newspaper editor. The marriage lasted 4 years. In 2000 Monica Strauss authored “Cruel Banquet: The Life and Loves of Frida Strindberg.”
    (SFEC, 8/13/00, BR p.3)

1895        Jan 2, Count Folke Bernadotte, statesman (Red Cross, UN), was born in Sweden.
    (MC, 1/2/02)

1895        Nov 26, Bertil Lindblad, Swedish astronomer (Milky Way system), was born.
    (MC, 11/26/01)

1895        Nov 27, Alfred Nobel, explosives magnate, signed his last will and testament at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris, setting aside his estate to establish the Nobel Prize after his death (see Dec 10, 1896). He named Ragnar Sohlman (25), his favorite lab assistant, as his executor and Rudolf Lilljequist as co-executor.
    (http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/will/will-full.html)(ON, 4/07, p.6)

1896        Dec 10, Alfred Nobel (63), Swedish Nobel Prize ceremony on this date, died. By the time of his death Nobel had acquired a massive fortune. In his will, he left instructions that the bulk of his estate should endow the annual Nobel prizes for those who had most contributed to the areas of physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. In 1968, a sixth award for economics was established [see Nov 27, 1895]. The Nobel Peace Prize is therefore awarded on December 10. The first of the Nobel Prizes was presented in 1901 according to instructions in his will. At his death he was one of the richest men in the world, he also felt it would be wrong to leave his fortune to relatives. "Inherited wealth is a misfortune which merely serves to dull man's faculties."
    (WUD, 1994 p.969)(HNPD, 10/21/98)(AP, 12/10/06)

1897        Jul 14, Swede Saloman Andrée (43) and 2 accomplices, Knute Fraenkle and Nils Strindberg, in the Ornen balloon were forced down after 64 hours in the first expedition to fly by balloon across the North Pole. Their attempt to return ended on White Island. Their fate was only discovered Aug 5-6, 1930, by Norwegian whalers.
    (HNQ, 5/22/01)(ON, 11/01, p.11)

1897        Ragnar Sohlman, executor of Alfred Nobel’s will, moved Nobel’s stock certificates and papers out of France to Sweden, and thus beyond the jurisdiction of French courts.
    (ON, 4/07, p.7)

1898        Dec 6, Gunnar Myrdal, Swedish economist and sociologist, was born.
    (HN, 12/6/00)

1900        The Nobel Foundation was established in Sweden in accord with the will of Alfred Nobel.
    (ON, 4/07, p.7)

1901        Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff won the first Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on the relationship of volume, pressure and temperature in gases which became known as van't Hoff's Law. The 1st Nobel Banquet was held at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm for 118 male guests. In 2000 Burton Feldman authored “The Nobel Prize: A History of Genius, Controversy and Prestige.”
    (SFC, 6/30/99, p.C2)(WSJ, 12/8/00, p.W11)

1903        Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927), Swedish scientist, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
    (http://tinyurl.com/lxu4w)

1904        Sep 2, Set Svanholm, tenor (Met Opera and London Convent Garden), was born in Vesteras, Sweden.
    (MC, 9/2/01)

1904        Denmark and Sweden issued the first Christmas seals to raise money to fight tuberculosis.
    (SFEC, 12/13/98, Z1 p.10)

1905        Feb 7, Ulf Svante von Euler-Chelpin, Swedish physiologist, was born.
    (HN, 2/7/01)

1905        Jun 7, Norway declared independence from Sweden. Their union had been in effect in since 1814.
    (SC, 6/7/02)(SSFC, 6/5/05, p.F7)

1905        Jul 29, Dag Hammerarskjold, Nobel Peace Prize (1961) winning secretary-general of the United Nations (1953-1961), was born in Sweden.
    (HN, 7/29/98)

1905        Sep 18, Greta Garbo (d.1990), actress nominated for Oscars for her roles in "Anna Christie" and "Ninotchka," was born in Stockholm.
    (HN, 9/18/98)(MC, 9/18/01)

1907        Nov 14, Astrid Lindgren (d.2002), children's writer, was born near Vimmerby, Sweden. Her books included “Pippi Longstocking.”
    (SFC, 1/29/02, p.A17)(AP, 11/14/07)

1907        Dec 8, Oscar II (78), the king of Sweden and former king of Norway, died in Stockholm.
    (AP, 12/8/07)

1907        August Strindberg completed his anti-naturalistic play “The Ghost Sonata.”
    (WS, 6/27/01, p.A12)

1908        May 30, Hannes Alfvén, Swedish, Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist.
    (HN, 5/30/01)

1908        Svante Arrhennius, Swedish chemist, proposed the idea of “panspermia,” the idea that our solar system was inoculated with living organisms from outside the galaxy.
    (PacDis, Winter ’97, p.34)

1909        Mar 26, August Strindberg's "Bjalb-jarle-ti" premiered in Stockholm.
    (SS, 3/26/02)

1910        Oct 15, Torbjorn Oskar Caspersson, Swedish cytologist and geneticist, was born.
    (HN, 10/15/00)

1911        Feb 2, Johan J. "Jussi" Bjorling, great Swedish tenor, was born. Now regarded by many as the greatest opera tenor of the middle 20th Century.
    (MC, 2/2/02)

1911        In Stockholm, Sweden, construction began on a new city hall. The design was a mix of Italian Renaissance, Moorish and Byzantine style and was  completed in 1923.
    (SSFC, 8/19/07, p.G4)

1912        May 14, Johan August Strindberg (b.1849), Swedish novelist, dramatist and essayist, died. In 1985 Michael Meyer authored a Strindberg biography.
    (WUD, 1994 p.1407)(SFC, 8/10/00, p.D2)(MC, 5/14/02)

1914        The Swedish firm Kreuger & Toll, a construction and engineering firm co-founded by Ivar Kreuger (1880-1932) and a partner, went public.
    (Econ, 12/22/07, p.116)

1915        Aug 15, Signe Larsson (d.2002), film actress later known as Signe Hasso, was born in Stockholm.
    (SFC, 6/10/02, p.B6)

1915        Aug 29, Ingrid Bergman (d.1982), Oscar winning actress famous for her role in "Casablanca" and "Anastasia," was born in Stockholm, Sweden. "Happiness is good health and a bad memory."
    (HN, 8/29/98)(AP, 7/21/97)

1916        Oct 19, Karl-Birger Blomdahl, Sweden, opera composer (Herr von Hancken), was born.
    (MC, 10/19/01)

1916        Nov 3, On the Baltic off of Finland a German U-boat under Captain Bruno Hoppe ordered Captain E.B. Eriksson of the Swedish schooner Jonkoping to halt for an inspection. Beverages headed for the Russians were discovered and the ship was evacuated and sunk. In 1998 some 1,000 bottles of 1907 Heidsieck Monopole champagne were recovered, of which 500 were preserved in drinking condition. Hoppe later sank the schooner Akir. The 66-ton Joenkoeping was sunk in the Baltic Sea by a German U-boat. It carried 44 creates of champagne, 67 barrels of cognac, and 17 barrels of port wine intended for the Russian army. Divers planned to recover the cargo in 1998.
    (SFC, 7/11/98, p.A14)(SFC, 9/21/98, p.A19)(AP, 9/21/98)

1917        Mar 20, Gideon Sundback, Swedish-born engineer, patented an all-purpose zipper while working for the Automatic Hook and Eye Co. of Hoboken, New Jersey. The zipper name was coined by B.F. Goodrich in 1923, who used it to fasten rubber galoshes. In 1994 Robert Friedel authored “Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty.”
    (ON, 7/04, p.5)(www.inventors.about.com)

1917        In Sweden Knut Wallenberg set up a foundation as a tax saving way to keep the family together.
    (Econ, 10/14/06, p.73)
1917        Ivar Kreuger (1880-1932) exited his construction and engineering business and founded the Swedish Match Company, which he used to monopolize the match industry and swindle numerous investors up to his suicide in 1932.
    (Econ, 12/22/07, p.116)

1918        Apr 3, Sixten Ehrling, conductor (Royal Opera of Stockholm), was born in Malmo, Sweden.
    (MC, 4/3/02)

1918        Apr 25, Astrid Varnay, soprano (Met Opera 1941-56), was born in Stockholm, Sweden.
    (SS, 4/25/02)

1918        May 17, Birgit Nilsson, operatic soprano (Isolde, Turandot, Elektra, Salome), was born in Karup, Sweden.
    (MC, 5/17/02)

1918        Jul 14, Ingmar Bergman, Swedish film director (The Seventh Seal, Fanny and Alexander), was born in Uppsala, Sweden.
    (HN, 7/14/01)(MC, 7/14/02)

1920        Oscar Swahn (72) of Sweden won a silver medal for shooting in the Antwerp Olympics.
    (WSJ, 3/31/08, p.A1)

1921        May 8, Sweden abolished capital punishment.
    (MC, 5/8/02)

1921        The League of Nations granted the Aland Island group to the new Finnish Republic.
    (WSJ, 12/5/97, p.A1)

1922        Dec 3, Sven Nykvist, Swedish cinematographer, was born.
    (HN, 12/3/00)

1922        Jean Borlin, Swedish dancer, choreographed the ballet "Skating Rink." The décor and costumes were designed by Ferdnand Leger. The music was by Atrhur Honneger.
    (WSJ, 6/25/99, p.W7)

1922        Total prohibition of alcohol was narrowly defeated in a Swedish referendum.
    (Econ, 11/15/03, p.49)

1923        A new City Hall was built in Stockholm, Sweden, in an amazing mix of bricks and gilt mosaic.
    (SSFC, 10/18/09, p.M4)

1924        Mar 15, Sweden recognized the U.S.S.R.
    (HN, 3/15/98)

1927        Jan 30, Olof Palme, PM of Sweden (1969-76, 1982-86), was born in Stockholm.
    (MC, 1/30/02)

1927        Jul 19, Jan Myrdal, Swedish writer, journalist (Albania Defiant), was born.
    (MC, 7/19/02)

1927        Oct 2, Svante Arrhenius (b.1859), Swedish scientist and Nobel Prize winner in chemistry (1903), died in Uppsala. At the turn of the century, Svante Arrhenius had calculated that emissions from human industry might someday bring a global warming.
    (http://tinyurl.com/lxu4w)(www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm)

1929        Jan 28, Claus Oldenburg, US pop artist (Alphabet/Good Humor), was born in Stockholm, Sweden. He worked in Chicago as a newspaper reporter and then went to New York in 1956. He opened his “Store” in 1961, which was a storefront stocked with painted plaster replicas of food, clothing, and inexpensive household goods.
    (WSJ, 10/11/95, p. A-12)(MC, 1/28/02)

1929        Apr 10, Max Von Sydow, actor (Hawaii, Exorcist, Dune, Seventh Seal, Dreamscape), was born in Lund, Sweden.
    (MC, 4/10/02)

1932        Mar 12, Ivar Kreuger (b.1880), the so-called "Swedish Match King," committed suicide in Paris, leaving behind a financial empire that turned out to be worthless. The “Kreuger crash’ shook Wall Street and led to a 1933 Securities Act, which strengthened disclosure requirements for all companies selling stock. In 1961 Robert Shaplen authored “Kreuger, Genius and Swindler.” In 2009 Frank Partnoy authored “The Match King.”
    (AP, 3/12/99)(Econ, 12/22/07, p.115)(WSJ, 4/17/09, p.A11)

1935-1976    An involuntary sterilization program was conducted over this period during which some 63,000 people were deemed genetically inferior and involuntarily sterilized. In 1999 a commission recommended that victims, 90% women, be paid $21,000 each. Checks for over $22,000 were soon mailed out to some 200 victims.
    (SFC, 8/26/97, p.C3)(SFC, 1/27/99, p.C10)(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A26)

1936        Mar 22, May Britt, actress (Young Lions), wife of Sammy Davis Jr., was born in Sweden.
    (MC, 3/22/02)

1936        Ragnar Sohlman (1870-1948) became managing director of Sweden’s Nobel Foundation and served to 1946.
    (ON, 4/07, p.7)

1937        Apr 25, Bo Brundin, actress (Rhinemann Exchange), was born in Stockholm, Sweden.
    (SS, 4/25/02)

1937        Saab was founded as an aviation and defense company in Linkoping, Sweden. Its name was an acronym for "Svenska Aeroplan AB," where "AB" stands for "aktiebolaget" ("limited company"), thus written as 'SAAB'.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab)

1937        Edvin Ohrstrom (1906-1994), artist and sculptor, and 2 others developed the Ariel technique at Orrefors in Orrefors, Sweden. This technique created a design by trapping air bubbles between two layers of glass. In 1990 Orrefors merged with Kosta Boda AB, which in turn became part of the New Wave Group in 2005.
    (SFC, 11/19/08, p.G6)

1938        Jun 16, Torgny Lindgren, Swedish writer, was born.
    (HN, 6/16/01)

1938        Sweden’s collective wage deal system began. The system set wages through sector-wide deals with employers. In 2005 the system faced problems as cheaper workers arrived from other EU countries.
    (AP, 8/23/05)

1939-1945    A 1997 report said that Sweden received some 38 tons of gold from the Nazis in payment for exports.
    (SFC, 1/22/96, p.A9)

1941        Apr 28, Ann-Margret, actress (Bye Bye Birdie, Tommy), was born in Valsjobya, Sweden.
    (MC, 4/28/02)

1941-1943    Over 200 mentally ill people were starved to death at the Vipeholm hospital in Lund.
    (SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A26)

1941-1945    Sweden maintained neutrality during the war but allowed German troops to cross its territory to invade the Soviet Union. It also allowed 250,000 German troops to use the railroad system to travel between occupied Norway and Germany. The Swedish navy provided escort service for German military supply ships and Swedish industry helped make up for German losses in their ball-bearing industry due to Allied bombing raids.
    (SFEC, 6/21/98, p.A13)

1943        Feb-Nov ‘44, Sweden received about 12.8 tons of gold from Germany.
    (SFC, 1/22/96, p.A9)

1943        The Riksbank director Ivar Rooth wrote a memorandum that said he and Trade Minister Hermann Eriksson discussed the risk that the gold Sweden received from Germany was looted.
    (SFC, 1/22/96, p.A9)

1943        Ingvar Kamprad (b.1926) of Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd, began selling farm implements by mail order under the name IKEA. The first deliveries were made by milk truck. The 1st catalog was published in 1951 and the 1st showroom opened in Almhult in 1953. By 1996 the Swedish firm had grown to $6.5 billion in sales. In 1999 it had 152 stores in 28 countries. See Ikea timeline @ http://tinyurl.com/ej5h4.
    (WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A24)(SFC, 3/10/00, p.B2)

1943        Over 7,000 Danish Jews crossed to Sweden to escape the Nazis.
    (Econ, 7/10/04, p.46)

1944        Jul 9, Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish National Guardsman, arrived in Budapest to head the local office of the US-sponsored War Refugee Board. He had been recruited in June by a US Embassy official in Stockholm and sent to Nazi-controlled Budapest under Swedish diplomatic cover. He used US funds to bribe Nazi officials and saved over 20,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps.
    (SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-7)(MT, Spg. ‘99, p.18)(WSJ, 2/28/09, p.A7)

1944        Jul 19, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg 1st met SS ober Sturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann.
    (MC, 7/19/02)

1944        Oct 30, Sweden announced its intention to stay neutral and refused sanctuary in WW II.
    (MC, 10/30/01)

1945        Jan 17, Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews, disappeared in Hungary while in Soviet custody. Raoul Wallenberg was jailed by the Soviets who believed that he was an American spy. He had saved more than 20,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps. Wallenberg was a graduate of the Univ. of Michigan and studied there from 1931-1935. In 2000 a Kremlin commission believed that he was shot in a KGB prison.
    (SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-7)(AP, 1/17/98)(MT, Spg. ‘99, p.18)(SFC, 11/28/00, p.A18)

1945        Apr 25, Bjorn Ulvaeus, rock vocalist, guitarist (ABBA-Waterloo, Dancing Queen), was born.
    (SS, 4/25/02)

1945        Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002) authored her novel “Pippi Longstocking.”
    (SFC, 1/29/02, p.A17)

c1945        Sweden returned about 14 tons of presumably looted gold to Belgium and the Netherlands that it had received from the Nazis in payment for exports.
    (SFC, 1/22/96, p.A9)

1945        Gundeer Haag (1919-2004), Swedish runner, set the world record for the mile and held it until 1954.
    (SFC, 12/3/04, p.B7)

1946        In Sweden Marcus Wallenberg Jr. (1899-1982), tennis champion, sold out of railways to concentrate on airplanes. Marcus Wallenberg helped to establish the Scandinavian Airlines System and controlled companies that employed one of every eight working Swedes.
    (www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,925746-2,00.html)(Econ, 10/14/06, p.73)

1947        Jul 16, Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat jailed by the Soviets who believed that he was an American spy, reportedly died at the Lubyanka prison in Moscow of an alleged heart attack. He had saved more than 20,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps. A 2001 Swedish report failed to confirm his death.
    (SFC, 5/5/96, p.A-7)(SFC, 12/23/00, p.A12)(SFC, 1/13/01, p.A14)(WSJ, 2/28/09, p.A7)

1947        The Illis Quorum Meruere Labores (For Those Whose Labors Have Deserved It) award was first given to the folk-musician, Hjort Anders Olsson.
    (NH, 4/97, p.31)

1947        Apparel retailer H&M was established in Sweden. The company expanded into Europe and opened its 1st US stores in 2000. Its 1st SF store opened in 2005.
    (SFC, 11/19/05, p.C1)

1947        The first Saab automobile, a prototype, was produced.
    (Sky, 9/97, p.97)

1948        Sep 17, Count Folke Bernadotte (b.1895) of Sweden, the UN mediator for Palestine, was assassinated in Jerusalem by members of the extreme Zionist Stern Group. Yehoshua Zettler (d.2009 at 91), one of the founding members of the group, masterminded the assassination.
    (AP, 9/17/98)(www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Bernadotte.html)(AP, 5/25/09)

1950        The ballet "Miss Julie," based on the play by August Strindberg, premiered  with choreography by Birgit Cullberg.
    (SFC, 9/10/99, p.D6)

1950        The film “Waiting Women” featured Jarl Kulle (d. 1997 at 70) and was directed by Ingmar Bergman.
    (SFC, 10/4/97, p.A20)

1951        Jun 27, Ulf Andersson, International Chess Grandmaster (1972), was born in Sweden.
    (SC, 6/27/02)

1952        Jun 16, Soviet Fighters shot down a Swedish Catalina reconnaissance flight.
    (MC, 6/16/02)

1953-1961    Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden served as the Secretary-General of the UN.
    (SFC, 12/14/96, p.A1)

1955        The film “Smiles of a Summer Night” featured Jarl Kulle (d. 1997 at 70) and was directed by Ingmar Bergman.
    (SFC, 10/4/97, p.A20)

1955        Alcohol in Sweden was rationed until this year.
    (Econ, 11/15/03, p.49)

1956        Jul 25, The Italian liner Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish passenger ship Stockholm off the New England coast late at night and began sinking in 200 feet of water 50 miles southeast of Nantucket Island, Mass. 51 people died as a result of the impact. The Dorea was headed from Genoa, Italy, to NY. The Andrea Doria sank eleven hours after the crash.
    (WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A1)(SFC, 1/1/99, p.A16)(SFC, 7/30/99, p.D5)(AP, 7/25/07)

1956        The Eugene O’Neill play “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” premiered at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm with Jarl Kulle as Edmond.
    (SFC, 10/4/97, p.A20)

1957        Dec 26, The Ingmar Bergman film "Wild Strawberries," starring Victor Sjostrom, opened in Sweden.
    (AP, 12/26/07)

1957        The Academy Chamber Choir of Uppsala was founded by Folke Bohlin and Eric Ericson.
    (SFC, 10/26/01, p.C15)

1958        Oct 8, Dr. Ake Senning installed the 1st pacemaker in Stockholm.
    (MC, 10/8/01)

1958        The first IKEA retail store opened in Almhult.
    (Hem., 2/97, p.31)

1959        Nov 20, Seven European nations (Austria, Britain, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland) signed the Stockholm Convention to form the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). The organization becoming operative on May 3 1960.
    (www.iceland.org/efta/the-mission/int-organizations/efta/)

1959        In boxing American Floyd Patterson was knocked out by Sweden’s Ingemar Johansson.
    (SFC, 6/28/97, p.B1)

1960        Sep 8, Jussi Bjorling, Swedish epic tenor (Manrico, Cavaradossi, Faust, Rodolfo, Riccardo, Romeo), died of heart failure at 49.
    (MC, 9/8/01)

1960        Nov 13, Sammy Davis Jr. married Swedish actress May Britt.
    (MC, 11/13/01)

1963        The film “Now About These Women” featured Jarl Kulle (d. 1997 at 70) and was directed by Ingmar Bergman.
    (SFC, 10/4/97, p.A20)

1965        Apr 8, Erik A. Blomberg (70), Swedish art historian, poet, author, died.
    (MC, 4/8/02)

1965        IKEA opened its first retail store in Stockholm.
    (Hem., 2/97, p.31)

1966        S.Y. Agnon (1888-1970), Jewish writer, shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with Nelly Sachs, a German-born Swede.
    (www.kirjasto.sci.fi/agnon.htm)(AP, 10/8/09)

1967        May 2, The Stockholm Vietnam Tribunal opened and continued to May 10. The formation of this investigative body immediately followed the 1966 publication of Bertrand Russell's book, “War Crimes in Vietnam.” It condemned US aggression in Vietnam and Cambodia. A 2nd session of the tribunal was held at Roskilde, Denmark, Nov 20 – Dec 1, 1967.
    (www.vietnamese-american.org/contents.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Tribunal)

1967        Jul 14, The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO Convention, was signed at Stockholm, Sweden, and entered into force on April 26, 1970. As its name suggests, it established the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). WIPO Convention has 184 Contracting Parties. The Convention is written in English, French, Russian and Spanish, all texts being equally authentic. The Convention was amended on September 28, 1979.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Organization)

1967        Sep. 3, Motorists in Sweden began driving on the right-hand side of the road instead of the left.
    (AP, 9/3/97)

1967        Birgit Cullberg (d.1999 at 91) founded the Cullberg Ballet.
    (SFC, 9/10/99, p.D6)

1967        Växjö University was founded in southern Sweden. In 2005 the rapidly developing knowledge centre had about 15,500 students enrolled in undergraduate studies with 900 people employed as researchers, teachers or administrators.
    (www.msi.vxu.se/)

1968        The first gathering of folk-musicians at Bingsjö was held.
    (NH, 4/97, p.31)

1968        The Nobel Prize in Economics was endowed by Sweden’s central bank. It is the only Nobel Prize that was not created by Alfred Nobel in 1901.
    (WSJ, 10/11/95, p. A-16)(WSJ, 10/15/98, p.A22)

1970        Oct, Sir Bernard Katz (d.2003 at 92) shared the Nobel Prize (medicine or physiology) for his discovery of how nerve cells communicate with each other and with the muscles they control. Ulf von Euler of Sweden and Julius Axelrod of the US shared the prize for their work on neuro-transmitters.
    (SFC, 5/1/03, A21)

1970        Oct, The Nobel Prize for Physics was won by Louis Neel (d.2000 at 95) of France for discoveries about magnetic fields and Hanes Alfven of Sweden for work on interactions between plasmas and magnetic fields.
    (SFC, 11/25/00, p.A23)

1971        Oct, Earl W. Sutherland Jr. (1915-1974), US pharmacologist, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discoveries concerning the mechanisms of the action of hormones.
    (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1971/press.html)

1971        Sweden moved to keep out foreign shoes on the grounds of national security.
    (WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R50)

1973        Aug 23, A bank robbery-turned-hostage standoff began in Stockholm, Sweden; by the time the crisis ended, the four hostages had come to empathize with their captors, an occurrence that came to be known as "Stockholm Syndrome."
    (AP, 8/23/07)

1974        The group Abba of Sweden won the Eurovision song contest with their song “Waterloo.”
    (Econ, 5/14/05, p.57)

1974        Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson of Sweden shared the Nobel Prize in Literature.
    (AP, 10/8/09)

1974        Sweden established a parental leave program for new fathers.
    (Econ, 1/10/04, p.46)

1975        Apr 24, Hanna Krabbe (b.1945), a German Red Army faction guerrilla, took part in a Baader-Meinhof gang attack on the German embassy in Stockholm in which two German diplomats died. German chancellor Helmut Schmidt approved the storming of the building by  Swedish police. Krabbe was arrested and sentenced to 21 years confinement and was released in 1996.
    (SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_German_embassy_siege)

1975        Sweden established one of the world’s first national biobanks.
    (Econ, 12/10/05, TQ p.28)

1976        Apr 22, Director Ingmar Bergman left Sweden due to taxation.
    (MC, 4/22/02)

1976-1982    A center-right government led Sweden.
    (Econ, 9/15/07, p.66)

1978        The opera "Le Grande Macabre" by Gyorgi Ligeti (1923-2006) premiered in Stockholm.
    (WSJ, 7/31/97, p.A16)(www.naxos.com/composerinfo/bio22120.htm)

1979        Sweden became the first country to outlaw all violence by adults on children.
    (Econ, 9/4/04, p.54)(Econ, 5/31/08, p.62)

1980        Dec 10, Czeslaw Milosz of UC Berkeley, a Polish-born American, received the Nobel Prize in literature from King Carl Gustaf in Sweden.
    (SFC, 12/9/05, p.F2)(AP, 10/8/09)

1980        Sweden passed a referendum to wean itself off nuclear power. By 2006 10 nuclear plants remained in operation.
    (Econ, 8/12/06, p.44)
1980        Swedish-German philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull founded the Right Livelihood Awards  to recognize work he felt was being ignored by the Nobel Prizes.
    (AP, 10/13/09)

1981        Oct 5, President Ronald Reagan signed a resolution granting honorary American citizenship to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving about 100,000 Hungarians, most of them Jews, from the Nazis during WW II. He became the second honorary American. Winston Churchill was the first.
    (AP, 10/5/01)

1982        Aug 29, Ingrid Bergman (b.1915), Swedish film star, died in England. In 1997 Donald Spoto wrote a biography of Ingrid Bergman: "Notorious, The Life of Ingrid Bergman." Bergman’s own autobiography was titled "My Story."
    (SFEC, 7/20/97, BR p.6)(SFC, 5/31/00, p.A22)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Bergman)

1982        Sep 13, In Sweden Marcus Wallenberg Jr. (b.1899), former tennis champion and banker, died.
    (http://tinyurl.com/yebq39)

1982        Oct 7, Olaf Palme was sworn in as Sweden’s prime minister.
    (www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/swedhis/swed1980.htm)

1982        The film “Fanny and Alexander” featured Jarl Kulle (d. 1997 at 70) and was directed by Ingmar Bergman. The part of innkeeper and seducer Gustav Adolf Ekdahl was especially written for Mr. Kulle. The film won 4 Academy Awards.
    (SFC, 10/4/97, p.A20)

1982        Swedish scientists Dr. Sune Karl Bergstrom (d.2004), Bengt Samuelsson and John R. Vane of Britain shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or medicine for their work on natural chemicals involved in birth, blood clotting and pain control. Samuelson received the Nobel Prize for his work in 1979 when he identified a natural chemical produced in the body that helps spawn the severe, breath shortening attacks that are the hallmark of asthma.
    (WSJ, 4/5/96, p.B-1)(SFC, 8/19/04, p.B7)

1982        The Stichting Ingka Foundation, a Dutch-registered, tax-exempt, non-profit legal entity, was given the shares of Ingvar Kamprad (b.1926), the Swedish founder of IKEA. In 2006 Ingka Holding, a private Dutch-registered company, was the parent of 207 of 235 worldwide IKEA companies, and it belonged to the Stichting Ingka Foundation.
    (Econ, 5/13/06, p.69)(SFC, 4/6/04, p.C3)

1985        Sep 15, In Sweden Olof Palme (1927-1986) formed a minority government.
    (www.brandt21forum.info/Bio-Palme.htm)

1985        Nov 17, Olaf Palme stopped, as he should have since he was mediating an end of the Iran-Iraq war for the UN, an illegal shipment of 80 HAWK missiles through Sweden from Israel to Teheran.
    (http://www.skog.de/writers/e040831.htm)

1986        Feb 28, Olaf Palme, Swedish Prime Minister (1969-76, 82-86), was shot to death in central Stockholm. In 1996 South African former police officer Eugene de Kock said that Craig Williamson, a South African spy, was involved in the murder. In 1997 lawyer Pelle Svensson said that his client, Lars Tingstrom, wrote a statement on his deathbed in prison in 1993 that he committed the killing. the family was convinced that Christer Pettersson, a drug addict and alcoholic, was the killer. In 1999 Abdullah Ocalan in Turkey suggested that a rival PKK organization killed Olaf Palme.
    (SFC, 9/27/96, p.A12)(SFC, 3/26/97, p.A12)(AP, 2/28/98)(SFEC, 8/23/98, p.A26)(SFC, 6/2/99, p.C2)

1986        Mar 1, In Sweden Social Democrat Ingvar Carlsson became prime minister. He served until October 1991. Under his administration Sweden made the decision to apply to join the EU.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Minister_of_Sweden)(Econ, 3/3/07, p.57)

1987        May 17, Gunnar Myrdal (b.1898), Swedish economist (Nobel 1974), died.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunnar_Myrdal)

1988        Apr 5, Alf Kjellin, Swedish actor, director (Juggler), died.
    (www.tv.com/alf-kjellin/person/24487/summary.html)

1988        Sep 11, Mats Wilander of Sweden won the men's U.S. Open title in New York.
    (AP, 9/11/98)

1988        Dec 6, Arafat met prominent American Jews in Stockholm, Sweden.
    (http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1988-12/1988-12-06-NBC-15.html)

1988        The Swedish film “Pelle the Conqueror” with Max von Sydow won the Cannes Festival Palme d’Or.
    (SFEC, 4/20/97, DB p.47)

1988        Max von Sydow wrote and directed the film “Katinka” based on the Danish book by Herman Bang.
    (SFEC, 4/20/97, DB p.47)

1989        Sep, Werner Aspenstrom (1919-1997), Swedish poet, resigned from the Nobel Academy for literature, along with novelists Kerstin Ekman and Lars Gyllensten, for the academy’s weak response to the Salmon Rushdie controversy. Aspenstrom’s work included "Snolegend" (1949) and "Varelser" (1989).
    (http://tinyurl.com/nw7gr)

1989        Nov 1, A Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) and Finnair ban on smoking took effect for all Nordic flights.
    (http://tc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/13/suppl_1/i20)

1989        Dec 15, GM and SAAB agreed to form a 50-50 joint auto-making company, called Saab Automobile A.B. GM acquired the rest of SAAB a decade later.
    (http://tinyurl.com/oktgl)(Econ, 1/31/09, p.72)

1989        Mohammed Abu Talb was arrested in Sweden for the 1985 bombing in Copenhagen that killed one person and injured 16. He was also implicated in the 1988 bombing of the Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
    (SFC, 11/25/99, p.A14)

1990        Mar, GM and SAAB completed setting up a joint auto-making venture in Europe. They had agreed on Dec. 15, 1989, to form a 50-50 joint auto-making company, called Saab Automobile A.B.
    (http://tinyurl.com/oktgl)

1990        Jul 8, Sweden’s Stefan Edberg beat Boris Becker of West Germany to capture his second men’s tennis championship at Wimbledon.
    (AP, 7/8/00)

c1990        The Ishotellet, or Ice Hotel, in Jukkasjaervi began annual operations. The one-story hotel was rebuilt every December and lasted to May.
    (SFC, 2/11/98, p.B3)

1991        Oct 4, Carl Bildt (b.1949), leader of the Moderates, began serving PM of Sweden and continued to Oct 7, 1994. His center-right government was blighted by a deep recession followed by a huge row over whether to build the Oresund Bridge to Denmark.
    (SFC, 9/20/98, p.A12)(Econ, 9/23/06, p.60)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Bildt)

1992        Mar 5, In Copenhagen the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden, in the presence of the representative from the European Commission, opened a 2-day meeting and decided to establish a Council of the Baltic Sea States to serve as a forum for guidance and overall coordination among the participating states. Iceland joined the CBSS in 1995
    (Econ, 6/7/08, p.63)(www.bmwi.de/English/Navigation/European-policy/baltic-market.html)

1992        Sweden rescued its banking system pushing it gross public debt up to 73% of its GDP from 55% a year earlier. Sweden set up 2 bad banks to handle the crummier assets of Nordbanken and Gota Bank, which were nationalized. The eventual cost of the bailout was kept under 2% of GDP. Nordbanken became Nordea and was partly refloated in 1995, but the state remained its largest shareholder.
    (Econ, 10/11/08, p.100)(Econ, 11/29/08, p.76)(Econ, 5/16/09, SR p.5)

1993        Sep 6, Automakers Renault of France and Volvo of Sweden announced they would merge; however, Volvo canceled the deal the following December.
    (AP, 9/6/98)

1993        Fredrik Reinfeldt (28) authored “The Sleeping People,” in which he said that Swedes were mentally handicapped and indoctrinated to believe that politicians can create and guarantee welfare. In 2006 he led a 4-party center right alliance to oust the Social Democrats.
    (Econ, 9/23/06, p.61)

1993        Sweden privatized Posten AB, its postal network.
    (Econ, 1/20/07, p.76)

1994        Mar 17, Mae Zetterling (b.1925), Swedish director and actress (Night Games), died.
    (www.imdb.com/name/nm0955195/)

1994        Jun 11, Mattias Flink (b.1970), a Swedish army lieutenant went berserk and killed 7 people. Flink was placed in the Norrköping prison but was subsequently moved to Beateberg prison outside of Stockholm.
    (SFEC, 8/23/98, p.A26)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattias_Flink)

1994        Nov 13, Sweden voted to join the European Union.
    (AP, 11/13/99)

1994        Anders Isaksson wrote “Always More, Never Enough,” a critique of the welfare system.
    (WSJ, 9/25/96, p.A1)

1994        In Sweden reforms came into force that allowed pretty much anyone, who satisfies basic standards, to open a new school and take in children at the state’s expense.
    (Econ, 6/14/08, p.83)

1995        Jan 1, Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the European Union. Sweden held their elections to the parliament later that year on 17 September. Austria held its elections on 13 October, 1996 and Finland on 20 October, 1996.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_European_Union)(Econ, 5/1/04, p.26)

1995        Gay marriages were legalized.
    (SFC, 6/28/96, p.A14)

1995        Esstar Corp., sold Milwaukee Electric Tool to Sweden’s Atlas Copco and changed its name to Essex Industries. In Dec., Essex agreed to be acquired by Assa Abloy, a Swedish lock maker. It had begun in 1891 as American Sugar Refining Co.
    (WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-45)

1995        Metro Int’l., a Swedish firm, pioneered free daily newspapers supported by advertising.
    (Econ, 8/26/06, p.54)

1995        Upjohn Co. of Kalamazoo merged with Pharmacia AB of Sweden to form Pharmacia & Upjohn. Fred Hassan was called in to lead the new company.
    (WSJ, 2/2/99, p.B1)

1995        In Sweden a young man killed 4 people and wounded 20 with an assault rifle after he was denied admittance to a discotheque.
    (SFEC, 8/24/98, p.A26)

1996        Jun 9, The latest unemployment rate was 9.6%.
    (SFC, 6/9/96, Parade, p.9)

1996        Jul 7, The average cost of a Big Mac in Sweden was $3.87.
    (SFC, 7/7/96, Parade, p.17)

1997        Jan 5, Prince Bertil (84), son of King Gustof Adolf VI, died.
    (SFC, 1/7/97, p.A17)

1997        Jul 4, Ritt Goldstein, a businessman from Danbury, Conn., arrived and sought political asylum. He claimed to be persecuted in the US for his crusade for civilian oversight of the police.
    (SFC, 10/14/98, p.A10)

1997        Oct 25, In Norway it was reported that a new 8-mile tunnel outside of Oslo was draining water from nearby lakes at the rate of 10,000 gallons a minute. The sealing compound Rhoca-Gil was supposed to stop the leaks, but its use in Sweden had already caused water to be contaminated with acrylamide, an agent that causes nerve damage. In Sweden construction of a controversial tunnel was halted when water draining from the tunnel was found to be contaminated by the sealing compound, Rhoca-Gil.
    (SFC,10/24/97, p.A11)

1998        May 12, Singer Ray Charles and sitar master Ravi Shankar received the Polar Music Prize, $133,000, from King Carl Gustav XVI in Sweden. The award was established by Stig Anderson, manager of the Abba pop group.
    (SFC, 5/15/98, p.C5)

1998        Jul 15, It was reported that Sweden’s highest administrative court ruled that anyone can read “sacred documents” of the Church of Scientology. 150 confidential pages of the “sacred documents” were restricted to only some 350 of 8 million Scientologists. Copies were given to the Swedish parliament by a Church enemy and made public. Scientology asserts, and the US agrees, that copyright was violated. The case may wind up in the European Court of Justice.
    (SFC, 7/15/98, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/oq3lr)

1998        Sep 20, The Social Democrats led by Prime Minister Goran Persson won the elections with 36.5% of the vote vs. 22.7% for the opposition Moderates led by Carl Bildt.
    (SFC, 9/20/98, p.A12)

1998        Oct 5, Prime Minister Goran Persson of the Social Democrats reached a 3-party agreement with the Left and the Greens.
    (SFC, 10/6/98, p.A12)

1998        Oct 12, Canada planned to begin discussion with Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Liechtenstein for the first trans-Atlantic free-trade pact.
    (WSJ, 10/12/98, p.A1)

1998        Oct 29, In Goteberg a fire burned a discotheque with hundreds of teenagers and 63 people were killed. In 2000 four young men were sentenced to prison terms of 3-8 years.
    (SFC, 10/30/98, p.A15)(WSJ, 11/4/98, p.A1)(SFC, 6/9/00, p.A15)

1998        Nov 18, The Swedish bank Skandinavska Enskilda acquired a 32% stake in Eesti Uhispank of Estonia, as well as a 36% stake in Latvia’s Latvijas Unibanka. Skandinavska Enskilda, controlled by the Wallenberg family, was also negotiating a deal to acquire interest in Vilniaus Bank of Lithuania.
    (WSJ, 11/19/98, p.A16)

1998        Dec, In Sweden a Latvian team won the first European championships in Fire Sculpture.
    (SFC, 1/7/99, p.D5)

1998        Walter Galenson (d.2000 at 85), American labor economist, authored "The World's Strongest Trade Unions," a work about Scandinavian unions.
    (SFC, 1/800, p.A19)

1998        IKEA purchased a stake in Skanska, a large Swedish construction firm.
    (http://tinyurl.com/ghmco)

1998        Sweden declared prostitution a form of male violence and changed policies so that men buying sex were charged with committing a criminal offence.
    (Econ, 12/23/06, p.86)

1999        Jan 28, Ford Motor Co, confirmed the acquisition of the passenger car division of Volvo AB.
    (SFC, 1/28/99, p.B1)

1999        Jan, Norway and Sweden announced a plan to merge their state-owned phone carriers.
    (WSJ, 3/29/99, p.A21)

1999        Feb 22, The Pinkerton detective agency was sold to the Swedish company Securitas AB for $384 million.
    (SFC, 2/23/99, p.C4)

1999        Aug 8, AB Volvo reached a deal to acquire Scania AB for $7.3 billion.
    (WSJ, 8/9/99, p.A13)

1999        Sep 30, A spot currency trader in Germany for Electrolux of Sweden amassed losses that totaled some $28.3 million by this date.
    (WSJ, 1/4/00, p.A17)

1999        Oct 12, Bjorn Soderberg (b.1958), a member of a Swedish far-left union, was shot and killed. Prosecutors said the killing was revenge for the Soderberg's public denouncement of a co-worker who belonged to a neo-Nazi organization. In 2000 three men, including Hampus Hellekant, were convicted in the fatal shooting. Hellekant served 7 years in prison and in 2007 was admitted to the medical school of the Karolinska institute under the name Karl Svensson. He was expelled after 4 months when his former identity was revealed.
    (AP, 1/25/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_S%C3%B6derberg)

1999        The musical “Mamma Mia!” opened in London based on the music by Abba. The songs were written by founders Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus.
    (WSJ, 10/24/01, p.A20)

1999        The Swedish film “Lucky People Center International” was a patchwork film by the Lucky People Center collective.
    (SFEC, 4/11/99, DB p.35)

1999        Sweden established its so-called "Sex Purchase Law," where paying for sex is punished by fines or up to six months in prison, plus the humiliation of public exposure.
    (AP, 3/16/08)

2000        Jul 1, The Oeresund Fixed Link (Oresund Bridge), the centerpiece of a $3.5 billion, 10-mile rail, motorway, bridge and tunnel project between Copenhagen and southern Sweden was scheduled for completion. Danish Queen Margrethe II met with Swedish King Carl Gustaf XVI on the artificial isle of Peberholm, half way across.
    (WSJ, 5/26/00, p.A20)(SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T3)

2000        Dec 22, Three armed robbers stormed into Stockholm's National Museum and made off with a Rembrandt self-portrait and two masterpieces by Renoir. 10 people were later sentenced to prison for their roles in the theft; all three paintings have been recovered.
    (AP, 12/22/05)

2000        In Sweden, in the first round of pension fund choice, individuals had to choose from a staggering array of 465 funds.
    (www.brookings.edu/papers/2005/06saving_weaver.aspx)

2000        In Sweden Kunskapsskolan (Knowledge Schools), a private education provider, opened its first 6 schools. By 2008 it had 30 schools.
    (Econ, 6/14/08, p.83)

2000        GM took full control of Saab.
    (www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0501/19/C01-63842.htm)

2001        Jan 1, Sweden took over the 6-month rotating presidency of the EU. Its priorities centered on enlargement of the union, along with environment and employment concerns.
    (WSJ, 1/04/00, p.A15)

2001        May 22, In Sweden delegates from 127 countries formally adopted a global treaty banning 12 toxic chemicals called persistent organic pollutants (POPS).
    (SFC, 5/23/01, p.C4)

2001        May 23, The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPS) opened for signature in Stockholm, Sweden. The convention entered into force on May 17th, 2004 with ratification by an initial 128 parties and 151 signatories.
    (http://tinyurl.com/5exstm)(SSFC, 7/6/08, p.A2)

2001        Jun 15, In Goteborg some 12,000 demonstrators demonstrated and set up flaming barricades to protest globalization. Police cordons had kept them away from Pres. Bush and EU leaders.
    (SFC, 6/16/01, p.A6)

2001        Jun 16, In Goteborg 15 EU leaders ended a 3-day summit and agreed to a firm timetable to admit new members by 2004.
    (SSFC, 6/17/01, p.A12)

2001        Nov 27, Olaf Stromberg, a Swedish TV journalist, was killed while sleeping in northern Afghanistan during a suspected robbery attempt. He was the 8th journalist slain in the conflict.
    (SFC, 11/27/01, p.A10)(SFC, 11/28/01, p.A1)

2001        Dec, Vebjorn Sand, Norwegian artist, completed a 330-foot bridge linking Norway and Sweden at Aas, 16 miles south of Oslo. The design was based on plans drawn up by Leonardo da Vinci in 1502.
    (SSFC, 12/9/01, p.C2)

2001        KaZaA, an internet file-sharing program, was founded in Amsterdam by Niklas Zennstrom of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark.
    (Econ, 7/3/04, p.54)

2001        At Washington’s request the UN Security Council ordered that the assets of Yassin Qadi, a Saudi businessman and multimillionaire, be frozen soon after the Sep 11 attacks in NYC. He was alleged to be a financier of Islamic terrorism with close links to al-Qaida. The European Union governments froze the assets of the assets of Yasin al-Qadi,  a Saudi businessman, and the Al-Barakaat International Foundation, a Sweden-based charity suspected of funding al-Qaida terror groups. In 2008 the European Union's highest court overturned the decision saying the order failed to offer those on a terror blacklist any legal rights to a judicial review under European law.
    (WSJ, 8/29/07, p.A1)(AP, 9/3/08)

2002        Jan 28, In Sweden Astrid Lindgren (b.1907), author of “Pippi Longstocking” (1945), died in Stockholm.
    (SFC, 1/29/02, p.A17)

2002        Feb 21, It was reported that Sweden had fallen to 17th place among the world’s wealthiest nations in per capita income from 3rd or 4th in the 1970s.
    (WSJ, 2/21/02, p.A14)

2002        Jun 5, Legislators voted to let same-sex couples adopt children.
    (SFC, 6/6/02, p.A10)

2002        Aug 19, Swedish financier Jan Stenbeck (59), who developed an extensive network of media and telecommunications companies, died in Paris.
    (AP, 8/20/02)

2002        Aug 25, Former Swedish diplomat Per Anger (88), who'd worked with Raoul Wallenberg in shielding thousands of Hungarian Jews from Nazi death camps, died in Stockholm, Sweden.
    (AP, 8/25/03)

2002        Aug 29, Kerim Sadok Chatty, 29, of Tunisian origin was arrested with a gun in his carry-on luggage at a Swedish airport as he headed to an Islamic conference in Birmingham, England. He had flunked out of a flight school in South Carolina in 1996. Chatty was charged with attempted hijacking on Sep 2.
    (AP, 9/1/02)(SFC, 9/3/02, p.A6)

2002        Sep 15, Sweden's voters bucked the conservative trend in Europe, reaffirming support for the country's generous welfare system. The ruling Social Democrats claimed victory in the national elections.
    (AP, 9/16/02)

2002        Dec 10, In Sweden King Carl XIV Gustaf awarded the Nobel Prizes.
    (AP, 12/10/02)

2002        In Sweden gunmen stole about $5.6 million in foreign currency being unloaded from a plane at Stockholm's Arlanda airport. Several suspects were arrested, but all were released due to lack of evidence.
    (AP, 3/8/06)

2002        Signe Hasso (b.1915), film actress, died in LA.
    (SFC, 6/10/02, p.B6)

2003        Jan 28, In Sweden Keith Jarrett was named winner of the $117,000 Polar Music Prize, founded in 1989 by Stig Anderson, manager of ABBA.
    (SFC, 1/29/03, p.D8)

2003        Jan 30, Sweden said it will contribute $5.9 million to help Afghanistan repay debts to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
    (AP, 1/30/03)

2003        May 11, Anson Carter scored at 13:49 of overtime to give Canada a 3-2 victory over Sweden and win its first world ice hockey championship since 1997.
    (AP, 5/11/03)

2003        Sep 10, Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed in the stomach and wrist at an exclusive department store in downtown Stockholm. She died the next day. In 2003 Mijailo Mijailovic, a 25-year-old Swede of Yugoslav origin, confessed to the murder. In 2004 Mijailovic was sentenced to life in prison.
    (AP, 9/10/03)(AP, 9/11/03)(AP, 1/7/04)(SFC, 3/24/04, p.A8)

2003        Sep 11, Sweden's Foreign Minister Anna Lindh died after being stabbed Sep 10 by a mystery attacker.
    (Reuters, 9/11/03)

2003        Sep 14, Sweden voted 56-42% "No" in a referendum on whether to adopt the euro.
    (Reuters, 9/15/03)

2003        Sep 23, A power outage struck the capital of Denmark and southern Sweden, leaving nearly 4 million people without electricity.
    (AP, 9/23/03)

2003        Sep 24, Swedish police arrested a new suspect in the murder of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, and released a man they had held for more than a week.
    (AP, 9/24/03)

2003        Oct 8, The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to American Robert F. Engle (60) of NY Univ. and Briton Clive W.G. Granger (1934-2009) of visiting scholar at Canterbury Univ. in New Zealand for their work in statistical techniques to measure investment risk and track economic trends.
    (WSJ, 10/9/03, p.A2)(USAT, 10/9/03, p.8B)(SFC, 6/3/09, p.B5)

2003        Dec 1, A report laid bare a corporate scandal at Skandia, Sweden's largest insurer.
    (Econ, 12/6/03, p.67)

2003        Dec 10, The Nobel Prize awards ceremony were held in Sweden and Norway. Iranian democracy activist Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, accepted the award in Oslo, Norway.
    (AP, 12/10/03)(AP, 12/10/08)

2003        Sweden passed legislation requiring women to hold 30% of the seats in parliament.
    (Econ, 9/20/08, p.76)

2004        Jan 7, Ingrid Thulin (b.1926), Swedish actress, died in Stockholm. Her films included "Foreign Intrigue" (1956).
    (SFC, 1/9/04, p.A21)

2004        Jan 6, Mijailo Mijailovic confessed to the fatal stabbing of Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh in September 2003.
    (AP, 1/6/05)

2004        Feb 28, It was reported that 80% of Americans claim to believe in God, compared with 62% of the French and 52% of Swedes.
    (Econ, 2/28/04, p.34)

2004        Jul 8, A Swedish appeals court threw out a life prison sentence for the convicted killer of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, ruling that Mijailo Mijailovic should receive treatment for his "significant psychiatric problems."
    (AP, 7/8/05)

2004        Aug 15, In Sweden Dr. Sune Karl Bergstrom (88), 1982 Nobel laureate, died.
    (SFC, 8/19/04, p.B7)

2004        Oct 4, Tiger Woods married Swedish model Elin Nordegren in Barbados.
    (AP, 10/5/05)

2004        Dec 26, Thousands of Europeans died in the Asian tsunami disaster. The dead included 543 from Sweden.
    (AP, 12/31/04)(Econ, 9/9/06, p.27)

2005        Jan 1, Sweden was forecast for 2.7% annual GDP growth with a population at 9.1 million and GDP per head at $43,480.
    (Econ, 1/8/05, p.89)

2005        Jan 8, Hurricane-force winds swept across northern Europe, leaving at least 13 dead including 3 in Carlisle, England, 4 in Denmark and 6 in Sweden.
    (AP, 1/9/05)

2005        Jun 10, King Harald V of Norway and King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden met in the middle of the Svinesund bridge and opened the span over a fjord south of Oslo.
    (AP, 6/10/05)

2005        Jun 28, Swedish truck and bus maker Volvo AB said it will close an assembly plant in Botswana and open a new factory in Durban, South Africa.
    (AP, 6/28/05)

2005        Aug 25, In Sweden robbers toting automatic weapons crashed a tractor through the wall of a Securitas compound in a Stockholm suburb. Swedish media reported that the robbers got away with 60 million kronor (euro6.4 million, US$7.86 million), which would make it one of the largest cash robberies ever in the country. 2 men, aged 35 and 32, were arrested Sep 15 in northern Stockholm on suspicion of involvement in the robbery.
    (AP, 9/16/05)

2005        Aug 29, A Swedish nuclear power plant shut down one of its three reactors because of an abnormal accumulation of jellyfish in the cooling system.
    (AP, 8/29/05)

2005        Sep 6, Lars Erik Petersson, former chief executive of Sweden's largest insurer, Skandia, was charged with fraud for allegedly handing out large bonuses to other executives without board approval.
    (AP, 9/6/05)

2005        Sep 29, In Sweden Saab said it plans to recall almost 300,000 cars worldwide because of a problem with the ignition system.
    (AP, 9/29/05)

2005        Oct 5, Americans Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock and Yves Chauvin of France won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for discoveries that let industry create drugs and advanced plastics in a more efficient and environmentally friendly way.
    (AP, 10/5/05)

2005        Oct 10, Robert J. Aumann of Israel and Thomas C. Schelling of the Univ. of Maryland won the 2005 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for their work in game theory that explains political and economic conflicts, arms races and even preventing warfare.
    (AP, 10/10/05)

2005        Oct 13, British playwright Harold Pinter, who juxtaposed the brutal and the banal in such works as "The Caretaker" and "The Birthday Party" and made an art form out of spare language and unbearable silence, won the 2005 Nobel Prize in literature.
    (AP, 10/13/05)

2005        Oct 17, Abdi Hassan Awale, who once served as Somalia's interior minister, was arrested on suspicion of war crimes while attending a conference in Sweden. He is suspected of being a militia leader during the Oct 3, 1993, "Black Hawk Down" battle that left 18 Americans dead.
    (AP, 10/17/05)

2005        Dec 12, Swedish home-appliance maker AB Electrolux said it will close its plant in Nuremberg, Germany, by the end of 2007, transferring production to Poland and Italy and eliminating 1,750 jobs.
    (AP, 12/12/05)

2005        Dec 22, Sweden's immigration authority was facing harsh criticism after media reported that employees celebrated deportations of asylum-seekers with cakes and champagne.
    (AP, 12/22/05)

2005        Dec 25, Birgit Nilsson (b.1918), Swedish opera singer, died. Her prodigious voice, unrivaled stamina and thrilling high notes made her the greatest Wagnerian soprano of the post-World War II era.
    (AP, 1/11/06)(SFC, 1/12/06, p.A2)

2006        Jan 19, A Swedish man who confessed to killing two women and drinking their blood was charged with double murder. The 29-year-old man was arrested in October on suspicion of stabbing the women to death in two separate attacks.
    (AP, 1/19/06)

2006        Jan 20, German factory workers at Swedish home-appliances maker AB Electrolux launched a strike, demanding a better severance package when the plant shuts down late next year.
    (AP, 1/20/06)

2006        Feb 21, It was reported that the Stockholm chapter of the biker gang Hell's Angels is being investigated for fraud after police found 70 percent of members were certified as depressed by the same doctor and were getting state sickness benefits.
    (Reuters, 2/21/06)

2006        Feb 26, On the final day of the Turin Winter Olympics, Sweden beat Finland 3-2 to win the men's hockey gold. Germany led the gold medal count with 29. The US won 25 medals including 9 gold, Canada won 24, Austria 23 and Russia 22. Drew Lachey leaped to victory with professional partner Cheryl Burke on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars." Shizuka Arakawa won a gold medal for Japan in figure skating.
    (SFC, 2/27/06, p.A1)(SFC, 2/27/06, p.A1)(AP, 2/26/07)

2006        Feb, In Sweden a painting by Swedish writer and painter August Strindberg (1849-1912) was stolen from a Stockholm museum. The 1893 painting "Svartsjukans Natt," or "Jealousy's Night," was valued at $1.5 million. In 2008 police recovered the work and arrested 2 suspects.
    (AP, 3/8/08)

2006        Mar 3, An EU executive said Sweden's first case of mad cow disease has been confirmed by the European Union's central laboratory.
    (AP, 3/3/06)

2006        Mar 7, In Sweden masked gunmen crashed through an airport fence at the Landvetter airport outside Goteborg, held up luggage handlers unloading crates of foreign currency from an airliner, and left behind a suspicious package that looked like a bomb.
    (AP, 3/7/06)

2006        Mar 15, Sweden recorded its first case of the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain, saying European laboratory tests confirm two wild birds found dead in the southeast were infected with the virus.
    (AP, 3/15/06)

2006        Mar 21, Sweden's foreign minister resigned, accused of lying about shutting down a far-right Web site that solicited cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
    (AP, 3/21/06)

2006        Apr 23, It was reported that Sweden has allowed the letter 'W' into the mainstream of the Swedish language. The Swedish language, according to the Swedish Academy, now has 29 letters instead of 28.
    (AP, 4/23/06)

2006        May 2, In Iran a court sentenced two Swedes to three years in prison each for photographing military installations. The two men, both in their 30s, were convicted of photographing military buildings and telecommunications equipment on Qeshm, an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz.
    (AP, 5/2/06)

2006        Jun 1, Swedish lawmakers approved a law that makes it possible for the Scandinavian country to imprison former Liberian President Charles Taylor if a UN-backed tribunal convicts him of war crimes.
    (AP, 6/1/06)

2006        Jul 19, Sweden launched a fresh effort to salvage Sri Lanka's troubled truce as ceasefire monitors reported at least 900 people killed in a surge of ethnic violence since December.
    (AP, 7/19/06)

2006        Jul 25, Officials and news reports said the Swedish government knew in 2000 that Saddam Hussein's government demanded kickbacks from companies participating in the UN Oil-for-Food Program.
    (AP, 7/25/06)

2006        Sep 1, World donors pledged $500 million in aid for Palestinians, including $55 million for a UN emergency appeal for humanitarian help. Carin Jamtin, Sweden's aid minister and host of the donors' conference held in the Swedish capital, said a total of $114 million of the money pledged will go toward humanitarian aid, with the rest going to rebuilding infrastructure and other projects.
    (AP, 9/1/06)

2006        Sep 2, The former Stella Polaris, a historic ocean liner (1927-1970), sank overnight off Japan's southeastern coast. The Swedish company Petro-Fast AB had planned to operate the ship, renamed the Scandinavia, as a hotel-restaurant in Stockholm.
    (AP, 9/2/06)

2006        Sep 16, Sten Andersson (b.1923), a leading figure in Sweden's governing Social Democratic Party and one-time mediator in the Middle East peace process, died. As foreign minister from 1985 to 1991, Andersson helped start a dialogue between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the US.
    (AP, 9/17/06)

2006        Sep 17, In Sweden PM Goeran Persson, head of the minority Social Democrat government for 10 years, faced Fredrik Reinfeldt (41), who led the four-party Alliance for Sweden, after a campaign focused on getting Swedes back into the job market. The center-right opposition, vowing to streamline Sweden's famed welfare state, ousted the Social Democratic government with 48.1% of the vote, ending 12 years of leftist rule. Fredrik Reinfeldt (41), head of the main opposition Moderate Party, became prime minister. He authored the 1993 book "The Sleeping Nation," in which he criticized the cradle-to-grave welfare state. Fredrik Reinfeldt renamed his party the “New Moderates.”
    (AP, 9/17/06)(Econ, 9/23/06, p.16)(Econ, 9/23/06, p.60)

2006        Sep 20, Sven Nykvist (b.1922), Swedish cinematographer, died. He began working with Ingmar Bergman in 1953, eventually became his full-time cinematographer, pushing the director's work in a new direction. Nykvist won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for two Bergman movies, Cries and Whispers (1973), and Fanny and Alexander (1982).
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Nykvist)

2006        Oct 14, Maria Borelius, Sweden's trade minister, resigned over allegations of tax evasion after just one week in office, saying media pressure has made her life impossible.
    (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6051220.stm)

2006        Oct 16, Sweden’s Culture Minister Cecilia Stego Chilo issued a statement saying she could not carry out her duties after it was revealed that she evaded taxes by paying a nanny under the table and failed to pay her mandatory TV license fee. Surveys showed about one-third of Swedes have bought "black market services," mostly for cleaning, painting or carpentry jobs. Hiring a cleaner legally costs around $40 an hour, including taxes, while a black market hire will do the job for less than $14, tax-free.
    (AP, 10/16/06)(AP, 10/20/06)

2006        Nov 1, A Swedish freighter capsized and sank in a storm on the Baltic Sea, forcing its 14-member crew to jump overboard to save themselves. Rescue officials said helicopters plucked all but one man from the high waves and chilly waters. The 500-foot-long Finnbirch went down between the Swedish islands of Gotland and Oland.
    (AP, 11/1/06)

2007        Jan 14, Hurricane-strength winds whipped across southwestern Sweden, leaving more than 100,000 households without power and causing major disruptions in train and boat traffic across Scandinavia.
    (AP, 1/14/07)

2007        Jan 22, Klas Bergenstrand (61), the head of Sweden's intelligence agency, died from an apparent heart attack.
    (AP, 1/23/07)

2007        Jan 26, The Swedish government announced an agreement with suborbital space-tourism company Virgin Galactic that Swedish officials believe will lead to midsummer and mid-winter flights of Virgin's SpaceshipTwo vehicle to observe the Aurora Borealis from Sweden.
    (www.space.com/news/070128_sweden_virgin.html)

2007        Jan 30, In Sweden former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Darfur human rights activist Mossaad Mohamed Ali won the Olof Palme Prize for their work to protect human rights.
    (AP, 1/30/07)’

2007        Feb 27, In central Sweden 2 crowded commuter buses collided on a slippery road, killing six people and injuring nearly 50.
    (AP, 2/27/07)

2007        Mar 6, Volkswagen's new chief executive Martin Winterkorn has been nominated as chairman of Swedish truck maker Scania in a new phase in the plans for a three-way tie-up with German group MAN. VW is Scania's biggest shareholder with a voting stake of 34 percent and traditionally holds the chair of the Swedish truck maker's supervisory board.
    (AFP, 3/6/07)

2007        Mar 20, Nyamko Sabuni (37), a Congolese immigrant and Sweden's first black minister, said the oppression of women and girls in the name of family honor has become an urgent problem in Sweden with the arrival of growing numbers of immigrants over the past few years.
    (AP, 3/20/07)

2007        Mar 24, Swedish truck maker Volvo said it has successfully acquired Japan's Nissan Diesel, the latest merger in the industry as companies prepare for more stringent emissions rules.
    (AP, 3/24/07)

2007        Mar 27, Swedish artist Hans Hedberg (89), known for his outsized fruit and egg ceramic sculptures and, died.
    (AP, 3/29/07)

2007        Apr 16, In Iran 2 Swedish construction workers, who had been convicted of espionage and imprisoned for taking photographs of military installations, were released after being pardoned.
    (AP, 4/17/07)

2007        May 8, In Argentina 7 managers of Skanska, a Swedish construction firm, were arrested for tax evasion. Skanska sacked the managers and paid the tax authority almost $5 million.
    (Econ, 5/12/07, p.42)

2007        May 18, In Ethiopia 3 Swedish citizens were released after spending five months in jail. The three were among dozens of foreigners detained earlier this year as terror suspects.
    (AP, 5/19/07)

2007        May 19, Miroslav Deronjic (52), Bosnian Serb war criminal, died in a hospital in Sweden. Deronjic, the top authority in the eastern Bosnian city of Bratunac during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War, was convicted of ordering a 1992 attack on a Bosnian village in which 65 civilians were killed. He had been serving a 10-year sentence for war crimes.
    (AP, 5/20/07)

2007        May 21, Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko arrived in Sweden, kicking off a 10-day tour of Europe that will take in the three Baltic nations and Britain, where they have faced protests in the past.
    (AP, 5/21/07)

2007        May 29, Sweden said it plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020, bettering the EU's proposal to cut emissions by at least 20%.
    (AP, 5/29/07)

2007        Jun 10, Sweden’s telecoms network firm Ericsson signed a framework agreement to provide $1 billion worth of networking equipment to China Mobile Communications Corp.
    (AP, 6/10/07)

2007        Jun 25, A Swedish court ruled that convicted sex offenders are free to read pornography in their cells. It said the country's prison system had no right to deny an imprisoned rapist access to his porn magazines.
    (www.thelocal.se/7699/20070625/)

2007        Jul 30, Ingmar Bergman (b.1918), Swedish film and stage director, died. The iconoclastic filmmaker was widely regarded as one of the great masters of modern cinema. His 1987 autobiography was titled "The Magic Lantern."
    (AP, 7/30/07)

2007        Aug 17, Borse Dubai made a $3.95 billion takeover bid for OMX AB, challenging US-based NASDAQ Stock Market Inc. for ownership of the Stockholm-based Nordic stock exchange operator.
    (AP, 8/17/07)

2007        Sep 15, An al-Qaida front group warned it will hunt down and kill Sunni Arab tribal leaders who cooperate with the US and its Iraqi partners, saying the assassination of the leader of the revolt against the terror movement was just a beginning. An Iraqi soldier was killed when gunmen attacked a checkpoint in Baqouba. Police and army officials said eight civilians also were killed and five others wounded in attacks in and around Baqouba. The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq offered money for the murder of a Swedish cartoonist and his editor who recently produced images deemed insulting to Islam.
    (AP, 9/15/07)

2007        Sep 17, Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist who depicted Islam's Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog, said that police have taken him to a secret location and told him he cannot return home following a death threat from al-Qaida in Iraq.
    (AP, 9/17/07)

2007        Nov 8, Nordic countries again dominated the World Economic Forum's ranking of gender-equal countries. New Zealand squeezed into the top five and the US fell to 31st place. Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland retained the top four spots in the 2007 Gender Gap Index released by the Swiss-based think tank.
    (Reuters, 11/8/07)

2007        Dec 30, Bert Bolin (82), a Swedish climate scientist and co-founder of the Nobel Peace-winning UN panel on climate change, died in Stockholm. His last book, "A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change: The Role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" was published in November 2007.
    (AP, 1/2/08)

2008        Jan 9, Norway and Sweden dropped plans to send some 400 troops to the UN peacekeeping force in Darfur because of opposition by Sudan.
    (WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A1)

2008        Jan 16, Sun Microsystems agreed to buy MySQL AB, a Swedish-based database firm, for $1 billion.
    (SFC, 1/17/08, p.C3)

2008        Feb 1, In Sweden Christer Merrill Aggett (32), a British man, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for infecting two young women with HIV and putting 13 more at risk of infection. Six of them were under the age of 15, the legal age of consent in Sweden, when the sexual encounters took place.
    (AP, 2/1/08)
2008        Feb 1, Wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson AB reported a sharp drop in fourth-quarter net profits and said it would lay off around 1,000 employees in Sweden because of costs cuts.
    (AP, 2/1/08)

2008        Feb 28, Swedish and Norwegian authorities cracked down on terror financing, arresting six people in what Swedish investigators said were coordinated raids in Stockholm and Oslo.
    (AP, 2/28/08)

2008        Mar 5, Sweden’s Karolinska Institute said researchers have discovered a protein that stimulates the formation of fat cells, a finding that could potentially be used to treat obesity.
    (AP, 3/5/08)

2008        Mar 16, Ola Brunkert (62), a former drummer for 1970s Swedish pop group ABBA, was found dead after an apparent accident in his house in Mallorca. He first played with ABBA on the group's first single, "People Need Love," and toured with the band in 1977, 1979 and 1980.
    (AP, 3/17/08)

2008        Mar 30, Pernod Ricard SA, a French spirits company, agreed to pay the Swedish government 5.28 billion euros for Vin & Sprit, the maker of Absolut, outbidding three competitors.
    (AP, 3/31/08)

2008        Apr 17, Umeaa University said the world's oldest living tree on record is a 9,550 year-old spruce discovered in central Sweden. That would mean it had taken root in roughly the year 7,542 BC.
    (AP, 4/17/08)

2008        Apr 19, In France the charred body of Sussanna Zetterberg (19), a Swedish teenager, was discovered in woods outside Paris just hours after she left a nightclub. A postmortem showed she had been stabbed.
    (Reuters, 4/24/08)

2008        May 21, Two Swedish contractors were arrested suspected of preparing to sabotage The Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in southern Sweden, after traces of explosives were found on one of the men. Police released the 2 men the next day as technical experts continued an investigation.
    (AFP, 5/21/08)(Reuters, 5/22/08)

2008        Jun 3, In Sweden world chess star turned political activist Garry Kasparov told world news industry leaders that PM Vladimir Putin had assaulted press freedoms in Russia, and urged them to challenge Kremlin leaders over the issue.
    (AP, 6/4/08)

2008        Jun 14, Swedish jazz star Esbjoern Svensson was killed at the weekend in a scuba diving accident off Stockholm.
    (AFP, 6/16/08)

2008        Jun 18, Sweden's Parliament narrowly approved a contentious law that gives authorities sweeping powers to eavesdrop on all e-mail and telephone traffic that crosses the Nordic nation's borders. Outrage over the statute soon led to 2 million protests, filed by e-mail.  In September the government approved 15 changes following the widespread protests.
    (AP, 6/18/08)(AP, 7/2/08)(SFC, 9/26/08, p.A4)

2008        Jun 25, Swedish car maker Volvo, a unit of US auto giant Ford, said it planned to cut 2,000 jobs worldwide, most of them in Sweden.
    (AFP, 6/25/08)

2008        Aug 20, Swedish wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson AB and Swiss chip-maker STMicroelectronics NV unveiled plans to create a 50-50 joint venture that will make a key component known as chipsets for mobile phones.
    (AP, 8/20/08)

2008        Oct 6, Three European scientists shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in medicine for separate discoveries of viruses that cause AIDS and cervical cancer, breakthroughs that helped doctors fight the deadly diseases. French researchers Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier were cited for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV; while Germany's Harald zur Hausen was honored for finding human papilloma viruses that cause cervical cancer.
    (AP, 10/6/08)

2008        Oct 7, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that two Japanese citizens and a Japanese-born American won the 2008 Nobel Prize in physics for discoveries in the world of subatomic physics.
    (AP, 10/7/08)

2008        Oct 8, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said two Americans and a US-based Japanese scientist won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering and developing a glowing jellyfish protein that revolutionized the ability to study disease and normal development in living organisms. Japan's Osamu Shimomura and Americans Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien shared the prize for their work on green fluorescent protein, or GFP. Shimomura discovered the jellyfish protein in 1961. In the early 1990s Douglas Prasher conducted research on the jellyfish gene that made Chalfie’s and Tsien’s work possible.
    (AP, 10/8/08)(SFC, 10/21/08, p.A6)
2008        Oct 8, Six central banks jolted markets by cutting interest rates together in an attempt to shore up confidence in the world's crisis-stricken financial system. The US Fed reduced its key rate from 2% to 1.5%. The Bank of England unexpectedly slashed its key lending rate by a half-point to 4.5%. The Bank of Canada cut its key interest rate by 50 basis points to 2.5%. China also cut its key interest rates for a second time in less than one month to 6.9%. The European Central Bank sliced its rate by half a point to 3.75%. Sweden, and Switzerland also cut rates. Earlier in a day Japan's Nikkei showed its biggest drop since the October, 1987 stock market crash. The IMF said the world economy is entering a major downturn.
    (AP, 10/8/08)(AFP, 10/8/08)(Econ, 10/11/08, p.100)

2008        Oct 9, The Swedish Academy announced French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (b.1940) as the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature for his poetic adventure and "sensual ecstasy." Le Clezio made his breakthrough as a novelist with "Desert," in 1980.
    (AP, 10/9/08)
2008        Oct 9, In Tobago Anna Sundsval (62) and Oke Olsoon (73) of Sweden were slashed to death at their home in the Bon Accord area. A suspect was arrested the next day.
    (AP, 10/11/08)

2008        Oct 10, A Swedish court sentenced Chilean tenor Ernesto "Tito" Beltran (43) to two years and six months in prison for raping an 18-year-old nanny and molesting a 7-year-old girl. The appeals court in Goteborg upheld a previous rape conviction, but overturned an acquittal in the molestation case.
    (AP, 10/10/08)

2008        Oct 13, Paul Krugman, the Princeton University scholar and New York Times columnist, won the Nobel prize in economics for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences praised Krugman for formulating a new theory to answer questions about free trade and said his theory has inspired an enormous field of research.
    (AP, 10/13/08)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.90)

2008        Nov 10, Sweden's financial regulator says it has revoked the banking license from troubled investment bank Carnegie and that Sweden's national debt office will take control of the bank.
    (AP, 11/10/08)

2008        Nov 11, Swedish truck and bus maker Volvo AB said it will lay off nearly 1,000 staff at its powertrain unit in Sweden and the United States as the global financial crisis continues to weigh on the demand for heavy vehicles.
    (AP, 11/11/08)

2008        Dec 4, Sweden’s central bank cuts its benchmark interest rate from 3.75% to 2% saying monetary policy was less effective than usual.
    (Econ, 12/6/08, p.92)

2008        Dec 10, The Nobel Prizes were awarded in twin ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo.
    (AP, 12/10/08)

2008        Dec 16, The central banks of Sweden and Denmark came to the aid of Latvia with currency swap agreements. This enabled the Bank of Latvia, to borrow as much as €500 million.
    (WSJ, 12/17/08, p.C2)

2009        Jan 6, Signs mounted that the conflict in Gaza is starting to spill over into violence in Europe's towns and cities, with assaults against Jews and arson attacks on Jewish congregations in France, Sweden and Britain.
    (AP, 1/6/09)

2009        Jan 13, Swedish truck maker AB Volvo said it will lay off more than 1,600 employees in Sweden as it slows production amid falling demand for trucks.
    (AP, 1/13/09)

2009        Feb 5, The Swedish government agreed to scrap a three-decade ban on building new nuclear reactors, saying it needs to avoid producing more greenhouse gases.
    (AP, 2/5/09)

2009        Feb 20, General Motors Corp.'s Swedish-based subsidiary Saab went into bankruptcy protection so the unit can be spun off or sold by its struggling US parent.
    (AP, 2/20/09)

2009        Feb 23, Swedish power company Vattenfall said it had made a friendly 8.5-billion-euro (10.9-billion-dollar) offer for Nuon of the Netherlands in a takeover aimed at creating one of Europe's biggest energy groups.
    (AP, 2/23/09)

2009        Mar 9, In Sweden researchers reported that a chimpanzee named Santino had collected a stash of rocks and then hurled them at visitors at the Furuvik Zoo, confirming that apes can plan ahead just like humans.
    (SFC, 3/10/09, p.A3)

2009        Mar 17, In Colombia Erik Roland Larsson (69), a partially paralyzed Swede, was released by leftist rebels after nearly two years of captivity. He was the last known foreign hostage held in Colombia by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
    (AP, 3/18/09)

2009        Apr 1, Sweden’s Parliament adopted a new law giving same sex couples the same marriage rights as heterosexuals, becoming the 5th European country to allow gay marriage.
    (SFC, 4/2/09, p.A2)
2009        Apr 1, In Sweden a new law cracking down on online copyright violation went into force leading to a sharp drop in internet traffic.
    (AP, 4/3/09)(http://tinyurl.com/c96saw)

2009        Apr 17, A Swedish court found four men guilty of promoting copyright infringement by running The Pirate Bay, one of the world's top illegal file-sharing websites, sentencing them to a year in prison in a landmark ruling.
    (AP, 4/17/09)

2009        May 26, A Swedish Navy ship detained seven suspected pirates after stopping them from capturing a cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden.
    (AP, 5/26/09)

2009        May 28, Swedish media reported that a 16-year-old Iraqi immigrant living in Sweden has cracked a maths puzzle that has stumped experts for more than 300 years. Mohamed Altoumaimi has found a formula to explain and simplify the so-called Bernoulli numbers, a sequence of calculations named after the 17th century Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli.
    (AFP, 5/28/09)

2009        Jun 16, GM and Sweden's Koenigsegg said they have struck a deal for Koenigsegg, a niche manufacturer of some of the world's fastest and most expensive sports cars, to buy loss-making Saab Automobile from General Motors.
    (Reuters, 6/16/09)

2009        Jun 21, In China the Danish-Swedish comedy “Original,” about mental illness, won the best picture at the 12th Shanghai International Film Festival. It also took the best actor award for lead Sverrir Gudnason.
    (AFP, 6/22/09)

2009        Jun 23, Swedish retailer IKEA announced that it was suspending its investment in Russia because of “the “unpredictable character of administrative procedures, a euphemism for graft.
    (Econ, 7/4/09, p.63)

2009        Jul 1, Sweden took over the rotating presidency of the EU.
    (Econ, 7/4/09, p.51)

2009        Jul 9, The Swedish government said it will expel Sylvere Ahorugeze (53) within three weeks, fulfilling a request from authorities in Rwanda and marking the first time an EU nation has sent back a suspect to face charges in the 1994 genocide.
    (AP, 7/10/09)

2009        Jul 25, Swedish wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson said it had penned a deal to buy a majority of Nortel Networks' North American wireless business for $1.13 billion.
    (AP, 7/25/09)
2009        Jul 25, In Sweden a woman in her 40s and her five daughters were killed when they tried to escape an apartment fire in a Stockholm suburb.
    (AP, 7/26/09)

2009        Jul 27, Sweden said it was demanding an explanation as to why Swedish-made anti-tank rocket launchers, sold to Venezuela years ago, were obtained by Colombia's main rebel group. Three launchers were recovered in October in a FARC arms cache belonging to a rebel commander known as "Jhon 40" and Colombia only recently asked Sweden to confirm whether they had been sold to Venezuela.
    (AP, 7/27/09)

2009        Jul 30, A Hamburg court ordered a German publisher to pay Sweden's Princess Madeleine euro400,000 ($560,000) in damages for fabricating stories about her. Sonnenverlag GmbH & Co KG magazines had carried false reports about the 27-year-old princess being engaged and pregnant, among other things. Sonnenverlag's parent company, Baden-Baden based KLAMBT media group, confirmed the ruling.
    (AP, 7/31/09)

2009        Aug 17, In Sweden the Aftonbladet tabloid published an incendiary article claiming that Israeli soldiers had harvested the organs of some Palestinians whom they had shot. Israel quickly denounced the article, while Sweden defended its freedom of expression.
    (Econ, 8/29/09, p.44)

2009        Aug 24, The Stockholm District Court threatened to fine Internet provider Black Internet 500,000 Swedish kronor (about $70,000) unless it stopped serving Pirate Bay. Court documents showed the company has to comply with the order until the ongoing case between Pirate Bay and the entertainment industry is over.
    (AP, 8/25/09)

2009        Aug 28, Mehdi-Muhammed Ghezali, a Swedish national and former Guantanamo detainee, was arrested on the outskirts of Dera Ghazi Khan in southern Pakistani town along with a group of foreigners, including 7 Turks and 3 other Swedes, who lacked proper immigration stamps. They were allegedly trying to join al-Qaida in the lawless tribal areas.
    (AP, 9/14/09)

2009        Sep 5, In Sweden Tesfaldet Tesloy (28), an illegal Eritrean immigrant who has lived in Sweden for six years, appeared on TV to collect a tax-free lottery prize of 1.2 million Swedish crown (101,654 pounds). Sweden's attempts to deport the man have failed due to his country's refusal to take him back, highlighting a common problem for immigration officials.
    (Reuters, 9/5/09)

2009        Sep 19, Sweden's centre-right government announced income tax cuts of 10 billion kronor to stimulate the job market, its primary objective.
    (AFP, 9/19/09)

2009        Sep 23, Swedish police held one suspect after armed robbers used a helicopter to stage a spectacular raid on the roof of a cash storage facility belonging to Anglo-Danish firm G4S in Vastberga, just south of Stockholm.
    (Reuters, 9/23/09)

2009        Oct 22, The Swedish government approved the early release of former Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic (79), who was sentenced to 11 years in prison by a war crimes tribunal. The Justice Ministry says she will be released on Oct 27 after serving two-thirds of her sentence for persecution.
    (AP, 10/22/09)

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End of file