1.
Norway
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The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres and a population of 5,258,317. The country shares a long border with Sweden. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. King Harald V of the Dano-German House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway, erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, replacing Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the Parliament, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, as determined by the 1814 Constitution, the kingdom is established as a merger of several petty kingdoms. By the traditional count from the year 872, the kingdom has existed continuously for 1,144 years, Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels, counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have an amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States, the country maintains a combination of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the countrys gross domestic product. On a per-capita basis, Norway is the worlds largest producer of oil, the country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists. On the CIAs GDP per capita list which includes territories and some regions, from 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 to 2017, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. It also has the highest inequality-adjusted ranking, Norway ranks first on the World Happiness Report, the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity and the Democracy Index. Norway has two names, Noreg in Nynorsk and Norge in Bokmål. The name Norway comes from the Old English word Norðrveg mentioned in 880, meaning way or way leading to the north. In contrasting with suðrvegar southern way for Germany, and austrvegr eastern way for the Baltic, the Anglo-Saxon of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. This was the area of Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, and because of him
2.
Oscar II of Sweden
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Oscar II was King of Sweden from 1872 until his death and King of Norway from 1872 until his dethronement in 1905. He was the third of four sons of King Oscar I, as his eldest brother Charles XV was without heirs and his brother Prince Gustaf died in 1852, it was he who succeeded his brother as king. Oscar II was king during a period when Sweden was undergoing a period of industrialization, the declining Union of Sweden and Norway was finally dissolved in 1905 and Oscar became the last Bernadotte king of Norway. He died in 1907 and was succeed as King of Sweden by his son, at his birth in Stockholm, Oscar Fredrik was created Duke of Östergötland. He entered the navy at the age of eleven, and was appointed lieutenant in July 1845. Later he studied at Uppsala University, where he distinguished himself in mathematics, on 13 December 1848, he was made an honorary member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. On 6 June 1857 he married in Wiesbaden-Biebrich, Germany, Princess Sophia Wilhelmina, from 1859, when his father died, he was first in line to the Swedish throne after his oldest brother King Charles, who then had no male heirs. His middle brother Gustaf had died in 1852 and he succeeded his brother Charles XV / IV on 18 September 1872. At the accession he adopted as his motto Brödrafolkens väl / Broderfolkenes Vel, the political events which led up to the peaceful dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905 could hardly have been attained but for the tact and patience of the king himself. He was dethroned on 7 June 1905 by the Norwegian Parliament and he declined, indeed, to permit any prince of his house to become king of Norway, but better relations between the two countries were restored before his death. He died in Stockholm on 8 December 1907 at 9,10 AM and his acute intelligence and his aloofness from the dynastic considerations affecting most European sovereigns gave the king considerable weight as an arbitrator in international questions. At the request of Great Britain, Germany and the United States in 1889 he appointed the justice of Samoa. He was the 1, 027th Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in Spain, the office of prime minister was instituted in 1876. Louis De Geer became the first head of government in Sweden to use this title, the most known and powerful first minister of the Crown during the reign of Oscar was the conservative estate owner Erik Gustaf Boström. Boström served as Prime Minister in 1891-1900 and 1902-1905 and he was trusted and respected by the king, who had much difficulty approving someone else as prime minister. Over a period of time, the king gave Boström a free hand to select his own ministers without much royal involvement and it was an arrangement that furthered the road to parliamentarism. Himself a distinguished writer and musical amateur, King Oscar proved a friend of learning. In 1858 a collection of his lyrical and narrative poems, Memorials of the Swedish Fleet, published anonymously, obtained the second prize of the Swedish Academy
3.
Paper clip
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A paper clip is an instrument used to hold sheets of paper together, usually made of steel wire bent to a looped shape. Most paper clips are variations of the Gem type introduced in the 1890s or earlier, common to paper clips proper is their utilization of torsion and elasticity in the wire, and friction between wire and paper. When a moderate number of sheets are inserted between the two tongues of the clip, the tongues will be forced apart and cause torsion in the bend of the wire to grip the sheets together. Paper clips usually have a shape with straight sides, but may also be triangular or circular. The most common material is steel or some metal. Some other kinds of paper use a two-piece clamping system. Recent innovations include multi-colored plastic-coated paper clips and spring-fastened binder clips, according to the Early Office Museum, the first patent for a bent wire paper clip was awarded in the United States to Samuel B. This clip was intended primarily for attaching tickets to fabric. Fay received U. S. patent 64,088 on April 23,1867, although functional and practical, Fays design along with the 50 other designs patented prior to 1899 are not considered reminiscent of the modern paperclip design known today. Another notable paper clip design was patented in the United States by Erlman J. Wright in 1877. This clip was advertised at that time for use in fastening newspapers, since the 1883 article had no illustration of this early Gem, it may have been different from modern paper clips of that name. The earliest documentation of its existence is an 1894 advertisement for Gem Paper Clips, in 1904 Cushman & Denison registered a trade mark for the Gem name in connection with paper clips. The announcement stated that it had used since March 1,1892. Paper clips are sometimes called Gem clips, and in Swedish the word for any paper clip is gem. The drawing clearly shows that the product is a clip of the Gem type. The fact that Middlebrook did not mention it by name, suggests that it was well known at the time. Since then countless variations on the theme have been patented. Some have pointed instead of rounded ends, some have the end of one loop bent slightly to make it easier to insert sheets of paper, in addition, purely aesthetic variants have been patented, clips with triangular or round shapes
4.
Haugesund
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Haugesund is a town and municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. The town is the population centre of the Haugaland region in northern Rogaland. The majority of the population of Haugesund lives in the urban area surrounding the city centre. The town is situated on an important sound, the Karmsundet. In the early years, the waters off Haugesund were a huge source of herring. Despite being barely a village then, King Harald Fairhair lived at Avaldsnes. In the last decades, the town, like its neighbours, has been turning towards the petroleum industry, Haugesund is a small municipality, only about 73 square kilometres. The population is 36,538, giving the municipality a population density of 534.5 inhabitants per square kilometre. The urban area of the town of Haugesund, which crosses over slightly into the neighboring municipality of Karmøy, has a total of about 40,152 people. This leaves about 2,000 residents of Haugesund that live outside the town of Haugesund in the portion of the municipality. The Haugesund Region, a metropolitan area, which consists of the municipalities Karmøy, Haugesund, Tysvær, Sveio. Despite being a young town, the areas around Haugesund were lands of power during the Viking Age. Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, had his home at Avaldsnes, Fairhair was buried at Haraldshaugen, a burial mound adjacent to the Karmsundet strait. This site is the namesake of the town and municipality of Haugesund, the national monument at Haraldshaugen was raised in 1872, to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the Battle of Hafrsfjord in 872. The Battle of Hafrsfjord has traditionally been regarded as when western Norway was unified under a monarch for the first time. The urban village area of Haugesund was declared to be a town, on 1 January 1911, a small urban area of Skåre that directly abutted the town of Haugesund was transferred to Haugesund. On 1 January 1958, the remainder of the municipality of Skåre was merged with the town of Haugesund, on 1 January 1965, the island of Vibrandsøy was transferred from Torvastad municipality to Haugesund. Haugesund has a historical bond to the sea and especially the herring
5.
Oslo
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Oslo is the capital and the most populous city in Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality, founded in the year 1040, and established as a kaupstad or trading place in 1048 by Harald Hardrada, the city was elevated to a bishopric in 1070 and a capital under Haakon V of Norway around 1300. Personal unions with Denmark from 1397 to 1523 and again from 1536 to 1814, after being destroyed by a fire in 1624, the city was moved closer to Akershus Fortress during the reign of Christian IV of Denmark and renamed Christiania in his honour. It was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838, following a spelling reform, it was known as Kristiania from 1877 to 1925, at which time its original Norwegian name was restored. Oslo is the economic and governmental centre of Norway, the city is also a hub of Norwegian trade, banking, industry and shipping. It is an important centre for industries and maritime trade in Europe. The city is home to companies within the maritime sector, some of which are among the worlds largest shipping companies, shipbrokers. Oslo is a city of the Council of Europe and the European Commission intercultural cities programme. Oslo is considered a city and ranked Beta World City in studies carried out by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group. It was ranked one in terms of quality of life among European large cities in the European Cities of the Future 2012 report by fDi magazine. A survey conducted by ECA International in 2011 placed Oslo as the second most expensive city in the world for living expenses after Tokyo. In 2013 Oslo tied with the Australian city of Melbourne as the fourth most expensive city in the world, as of January 1,2016, the municipality of Oslo has a population of 658,390, while the population of the citys urban area was 942,084. The metropolitan area had an population of 1.71 million. The population was during the early 2000 increasing at record rates and this growth stems for the most part from international immigration and related high birth rates, but also from intra-national migration. The immigrant population in the city is growing faster than the Norwegian population. As of January 1,2016, the municipality of Oslo has a population of 658,390, the urban area extends beyond the boundaries of the municipality into the surrounding county of Akershus, the total population of this agglomeration is 942,084. To the north and east, wide forested hills rise above the city giving the location the shape of a giant amphitheatre. The urban municipality of Oslo and county of Oslo are two parts of the entity, making Oslo the only city in Norway where two administrative levels are integrated
6.
Helge Ingstad
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Helge Marcus Ingstad was a Norwegian explorer. After mapping some Norse settlements, Ingstad and his wife Anne Stine and he also thought that the mysterious disappearance of the Greenland Viking settlement in the 14/15th century could be explained by their emigration to North America. Helge Ingstad was the son of Olav Ingstad and Olga Marie Qvam in Meråker and his father was municipal engineer in Tromsø and held the title of factory supervisor. He was the grandson of professor, Marcus Pløen Ingstad. Helge and his moved to Bergen in 1915 where he attended the Bergen Katedralskole. Helge Ingstad was originally a lawyer by profession, but, ever an outdoorsman, he sold his law practice in Levanger. For the next three years, the Norwegian travelled with the local Indian tribe known as the Caribou Eaters, after returning to Norway, he wrote the bestselling Pelsjegerliv about his time in Canada, published in English as The Land of Feast and Famine. Ingstad was the governor of Erik the Reds Land in 1932–33, the Permanent Court of International Justice in The Hague decided that the lands belonged to Denmark, and so the official Norwegian presence had to end. During his years on Svalbard Helge Ingstad met Anne Stine Moe, in 1946 the Ingstads made themselves a home near the Holmenkollen area of Norways capital, Oslo, where they spent the rest of their lives when not travelling the world. They had one daughter, Benedicte, who became a professor in anthropology at the University in Oslo. From her teenage years, Benedicte accompanied her parents on their exploration journeys, Helge Ingstad was a popular author, whose books on his visits to remote parts of the world gained him fame in Norway. From Greenland he wrote Øst for den store bre, from Svalbard he wrote Landet med de kalde kyster and he also visited the Apache Indians of northwestern Mexico, from which he wrote Apache-indianerne - jakten på den tapte stamme. After World War II he stayed for a period in the Brooks Range in northern Alaska among the Nunamiut Iñupiat, in 1960, he discovered the remains of what later proved to be a Viking settlement at LAnse aux Meadows at the northernmost tip of Newfoundland in Canada. It is the known site of a Norse or Viking village in Canada. Following each period of excavation, the site was reburied to protect, the settlement at LAnse aux Meadows has been dated to approximately 1,000 years ago, an assessment that tallies with the relative dating of artifact and structure types. The remains of eight buildings were located and they are believed to have been constructed of sod placed over a wooden frame. Based on associated artifacts, the buildings were identified as dwellings or workshops. The largest dwelling measured 28.8 by 15.6 m, workshops were identified as an iron smithy containing a forge and iron slag, a carpentry workshop, which generated wood debris, and a specialized boat repair area containing worn rivets
7.
1900 in Norway
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Events in the year 1900 in Norway. Monarch, Oscar II Prime Minister, Johannes Steen 17 February - The Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture,3 December – Population Census, There were 2,239,881 inhabitants in Norway. The 1900 Parliamentary election takes place,5 January - Nina Eik-Nes, politician 31 January - Bertel Flaten, politician 14 February - Ola Johan Gjengedal, politician 4 March – Axel Coldevin, historian. 30 December – Lillemor von Hanno, actress and writer
8.
Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions
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The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions is a national trade union center, decidedly the largest and probably the most influential umbrella organization of labour unions in Norway. The 21 national unions affiliated to the LO have almost 900,000 members of a Norwegian population of 5 million, LO is affiliated to the ITUC and the ETUC. Gerd Kristiansen was elected leader on 6 May 2013 for a four-year period and it was named the Workers National Trade Union from 1899 to 1957. Aase served as treasurer from 1934 until his death in 1948, the organization owns the Norwegian Labour Movement Archives and Library. It is considered as being part of the Labour Sphere in Norway
9.
National Theatre (Oslo)
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The National Theatre in Oslo is one of Norways largest and most prominent venues for performance of dramatic arts. The theatre had its first performance on 1 September 1899 but can trace its origins to Christiania Theatre, the National Theatre was founded as a private institution and weathered several financial crises until 1929, when the Norwegian government started providing modest support. A number of famous Norwegians have served as directors for the theatre. The theatre is considered the home for Ibsens plays. Notable is also the childrens Christmas play, The Journey to the Christmas Star, written by the then theatres finance director Sverre Brandt, the main building is centrally located between the Royal Palace, Oslo and the Parliament of Norway. It is served by National Theatre Station and National Theatre metro stations and it was designed by architect Henrik Bull. The theatre organisation manages four stages, the stage, the amphitheatre. The fourth is the Torshov Theatre in the Torshov district of Oslo, as of 2009, the theatres artistic director was Hanne Tømta
10.
Prime Minister of Norway
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For a list, see List of heads of government of Norway. The Prime Minister of Norway is the leader of Norway. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Monarch, to the Storting, to their political party, and ultimately the electorate. In practice, since it is impossible for a government to stay in office against the will of the Storting. Norway has a Constitution, which was adopted on 17 May 1814, the position of Prime Minister is the result of legislation. As of 2017, the Prime Minister of Norway is Erna Solberg, unlike their counterparts in the rest of Europe, Norwegian Prime Ministers do not have the option of advising the King to dissolve the Storting and call a snap election. The Constitution requires that the Storting serve out its full four-year term, if the Prime Minister loses the confidence of the Storting, he or she must resign. As of 2015 six former Prime Ministers are alive, Odvar Nordli born 3 November 1927, kåre Willoch born 3 October 1928, served 1981–1986. Gro Harlem Brundtland born 20 April 1939, served 1981, 1986–1989, kjell Magne Bondevik born 3 September 1947, served 1997–2000 and 2001–2005. Thorbjørn Jagland born 5 November 1950, served 1996–1997, jens Stoltenberg born 16 March 1959, served 2000–2001 and 2005–2013. List of Prime Ministers of Norway Regjeringskvartalet Government Official Homepage
