1.
Sweden
–
Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
2.
Stockholm
–
The city is spread across 14 islands on the coast in the southeast of Sweden at the mouth of Lake Mälaren, by the Stockholm archipelago and the Baltic Sea. The area has settled since the Stone Age, in the 6th millennium BC. It is also the capital of Stockholm County, Stockholm is the cultural, media, political, and economic centre of Sweden. The Stockholm region alone accounts for over a third of the countrys GDP and it is an important global city, and the main centre for corporate headquarters in the Nordic region. The city is home to some of Europes top ranking universities, such as the Stockholm School of Economics, Karolinska Institute and it hosts the annual Nobel Prize ceremonies and banquet at the Stockholm Concert Hall and Stockholm City Hall. One of the citys most prized museums, the Vasa Museum, is the most visited museum in Scandinavia. The Stockholm metro, opened in 1950, is known for its decoration of the stations. Swedens national football arena is located north of the city centre, Ericsson Globe, the national indoor arena, is in the southern part of the city. The city was the host of the 1912 Summer Olympics, and hosted the equestrian portion of the 1956 Summer Olympics otherwise held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Stockholm is the seat of the Swedish government and most of its agencies, including the highest courts in the judiciary, and the official residencies of the Swedish monarch and the Prime Minister. The government has its seat in the Rosenbad building, the Riksdag is seated in the Parliament House, and the Prime Ministers residence is adjacent at the Sager House. After the Ice Age, around 8,000 BCE, there were already a number of people living in the present-day Stockholm area. Thousands of years later, as the ground thawed, the climate became tolerable, at the intersection of the Baltic Sea and lake Mälaren is an archipelago site where the Old Town of Stockholm was first built from about 1000 CE by Vikings. They had a positive impact on the area because of the trade routes they created. Stockholms location appears in Norse sagas as Agnafit, and in Heimskringla in connection with the legendary king Agne, the earliest written mention of the name Stockholm dates from 1252, by which time the mines in Bergslagen made it an important site in the iron trade. The first part of the name means log in Swedish, although it may also be connected to an old German word meaning fortification, the second part of the name means islet, and is thought to refer to the islet Helgeandsholmen in central Stockholm. Stockholms core, the present Old Town was built on the island next to Helgeandsholmen from the mid 13th century onward. The city originally rose to prominence as a result of the Baltic trade of the Hanseatic League, Stockholm developed strong economic and cultural linkages with Lübeck, Hamburg, Gdańsk, Visby, Reval, and Riga during this time
3.
Swedes
–
Swedes are a Germanic ethnic group native to Sweden. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, in particular Finland, with a substantial diaspora in other countries, the English term Swede has been attested in English since the late 16th century and is of Middle Dutch or Middle Low German origin. The term is believed to have derived from the Proto-Indo-European reflexive pronominal root, *se. The word must have meant ones own, the same root and original meaning is found in the ethnonym of the Germanic tribe Suebi, preserved to this day in the name Swabia. Sweden enters proto-history with the Germania of Tacitus in AD98, in Germania 44,45 he mentions the Swedes as a powerful tribe with ships that had a prow in both ends. Which kings ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents a line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC. In the 6th century Jordanes named two tribes, which he calls the Suehans and the Suetidi, who lived in Scandza and these two names are both considered to refer to the same tribe. The Suehans, he says, has very fine horses just as the Thyringi tribe, the Icelander Snorri Sturluson wrote of the 6th-century Swedish king Adils that he had the finest horses of his days. The Suehans supplied black fox-skins for the Roman market, then Jordanes names the Suetidi which is considered to be the Latin form of Svitjod. He writes that the Suetidi are the tallest of men - together with the Dani, later he mentions other Scandinavian tribes as being of the same height. Originating in semi-legendary Scandza, a Gothic population had crossed the Baltic Sea before the 2nd century AD and they reaching Scythia on the coast of the Black Sea in modern Ukraine, where Goths left their archaeological traces in the Chernyakhov culture. In the 5th and 6th centuries, they divided as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. Crimean Gothic communities appear to have survived intact in the Crimea until the late 18th century, the Swedish Viking Age lasted roughly between the 8th and 11th centuries. During this period, it is believed that the Swedes expanded from eastern Sweden and it is believed that Swedish Vikings and Gutar mainly travelled east and south, going to Finland, the Baltic countries, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine the Black Sea and further as far as Baghdad. Their routes passed through the Dnieper down south to Constantinople, on which they did numerous raids, the Byzantine Emperor Theophilos noticed their great skills in war and invited them to serve as his personal bodyguard, known as the varangian guard. The Swedish Vikings, called Rus are also believed to be the fathers of Kievan Rus. The Arabic traveller Ibn Fadlan described these Vikings as following, I have seen the Rus as they came on their merchant journeys, each man has an axe, a sword, and a knife, and keeps each by him at all times. The swords are broad and grooved, of Frankish sort, the adventures of these Swedish Vikings are commemorated on many runestones in Sweden, such as the Greece Runestones and the Varangian Runestones
4.
Fellow of the Royal Society
–
As of 2016, there are around 1600 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members. Fellowship of the Royal Society has been described by The Guardian newspaper as “the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar” with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year. Up to 60 new Fellows, honorary and foreign members are elected annually usually in May, each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use the post-nominal letters FRS, see Category, Fellows of the Royal Society and Category, Female Fellows of the Royal Society. Every year, Fellows elect up to ten new Foreign Members, like Fellows, Foreign Members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016 there are around 165 Foreign Members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS, see Category, Foreign Members of the Royal Society. Honorary Fellows include Bill Bryson, Melvyn Bragg, Robin Saxby, David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville, Honorary Fellows are entitled to use the post nominal letters HonFRS. Others including John Maddox, Patrick Moore and Lisa Jardine were elected as honorary fellows, statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997. Fellows elected under statute 12 include David Attenborough and John Palmer, prime Ministers of the United Kingdom such as Margaret Thatcher, Neville Chamberlain, H. H. Asquith were elected under statute 12, see Category, Fellows of the Royal Society. The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of the British Royal Family for election as Royal Fellows of the Royal Society. As of 2016 there are five royal fellows, Charles, Prince of Wales, Anne, Princess Royal, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince Andrew, Duke of York. Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth II is not a Royal Fellow, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow. The election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination, each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society, who sign a certificate of proposal. Previously, nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer, the certificate of election includes a statement of the principal grounds on which the proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates is confirmed by the Council in April, a candidate is elected if he or she secures two-thirds of votes of those Fellows present and voting. A further maximum of six can be ‘Honorary’, ‘General’ or ‘Royal’ Fellows, nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by sectional committees, each with fifteen members and a chair
5.
Lund University
–
Lund University is one of northern Europes oldest, largest and most prestigious universities, consistently ranking among the worlds top 100 universities. After Sweden won Scania from Denmark in the 1658 Treaty of Roskilde, the studium generale had not survived the Lutheran Reformation of 1536. The university founded in 1666 was thus a new institution. Lund University has eight faculties, with campuses in the cities of Malmö and Helsingborg. The University has some 600 partner universities in over 70 countries, the city of Lund has a long history as a center for learning and was the ecclesiastical centre and seat of the archbishop of Denmark. A cathedral school for the training of clergy was established in 1085 and is today Scandinavias oldest school, a studium generale was founded in 1425, and in 1438 education was started by the Franciscan order for a baccalaureus degree. The university was named Academia Carolina after Charles X Gustav of Sweden until the late 19th century and it was the fifth university under the Swedish king, after Uppsala University, the University of Tartu, the Academy of Åbo, and the University of Greifswald. The university was at its founding granted four faculties, law, theological, medicine and they were the cornerstones, and for more than 200 years this system was in effect. Towards the end of the 17th century, the number of students hovered around 100, some notable professors in the early days were Samuel Pufendorf, a juridical historian, and Canutus Hahn and Kristian Papke in philosophy. The Scanian War in 1676 led to a shut-down, which lasted until 1682, the university was re-opened largely due to regional patriots, but the university was not to enjoy a high status until well into the 19th century. Lecturing rooms were few, and lectures were held in the Lund Cathedral, in 1713, Charles XII of Sweden entered Lund. He stayed in Lund for three years, in between his warlike expeditions, Lund and the university attracted a temporary attention boost. The most notable lecturer during this time was Andreas Rydelius, peace was finally restored with the death of Charles XII in 1718, and during the first half of the 18th century the university was granted added funds. The number of students was now well around 500, despite not being on par with Uppsala University, it had still built a solid reputation and managed to attract prominent professors. Around 1760 the university reputation dropped as the number of students fell below 200, however, by 1780 its reputation was largely restored, and continued to rise through the 1820s. This was largely owing to popular and well-educated lecturers particularly in philology and he, in turn, attracted others towards Lund. One of these was the young theological student C. G. Brunius, with time he was to devote himself to architectures and he redesigned several of Lunds buildings, as well as churches of the province. In 1845 and 1862 Lund co-hosted Nordic student meetings together with the University of Copenhagen, a student called Elsa Collin was the first woman in the whole of Sweden to take part in a spex
