Peace of Travendal
The Peace of Travendal was a peace treaty concluded at the outset of the Great Northern War on 18 August 1700 between the Swedish Empire, Denmark–Norway and Holstein-Gottorp in Traventhal. Denmark had to return Holstein-Gottorp to its duke, a Swedish ally, to leave the anti-Swedish alliance; the Danes only reentered the war after Sweden's major defeat in the Battle of Poltava, 1709 having used the time to reform their army. The treaty was guaranteed by the Holy Roman Empire, the United Provinces and Great Britain. In 1698 and 1699, Peter the Great of Russia, Augustus II the Strong of Saxony and Poland–Lithuania, as well as Christian V and his successor Frederick IV of Denmark-Norway agreed on a three-front assault on the Swedish Empire, where minor Charles XII had ascended the throne in 1697. Holstein-Gottorp, just south of Denmark, was tied to Sweden by the marriage of duke Frederick IV to Hedvig Sophia, daughter of Charles XI of Sweden, in 1698. Danish forces entered Holstein-Gottorp in March 1700 and besieged the fortress of Tönning, while August the Strong was advancing through Swedish Livonia.
In the meantime, Sweden had negotiated the support of the Maritime Powers, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, against Danish assaults on Holstein-Gottorp. Such assaults violated the Altona convention of 1689, of which the Maritime Powers were the guarantors. In addition, the Maritime Powers prepared for the emerging War of the Spanish Succession and therefore opposed an additional war in the Baltic Sea. Aided by the Dutch and British navies, a Swedish fleet deployed a 10,000 strong army near Copenhagen. Caught by surprise and unable to defend his capital, Frederik IV of Denmark-Norway had to make peace; as soon as the end of the war was in sight, the Maritime Powers withdrew their vessels and made it clear that they preferred a peace at once and had no interest in Sweden crushing and annexing Denmark. In Travendal, Denmark left the Great Northern War by obliging herself to not engage in future armed conflicts with Sweden. In paragraph XIII, the king of Denmark and Norway in his own name and the name of his successors promises to neither engage in hostilities with Sweden nor ally with or in any way aid Sweden's enemies, adhere to all earlier Dano-Swedish treaties.
The duke of Holstein-Gottorp's sovereignty was restored, the treaty detailed the conditions under which armies and fortresses were to be maintained in the area. It was further agreed that Holstein-Gottorp be financially compensated by Denmark for the war costs, resulting in the subsequent payment of 260,000 Reichstalers. Paragraph XIV mentions France, the Holy Roman Emperor, the dukes of the Holy Roman Empire, the guarantors of the Altona convention as guarantors of the treaty; the guarantees of the United Provinces and the United Kingdom for the treaty were reconfirmed in a convention signed by the aforementioned parties after Queen Anne's succession in Great Britain, 1702. By the time of Travendal, Augustus II the Strong's campaign in Swedish Livonia had not produced satisfactory results. Though Dünamünde was captured and renamed "Augustusburg", he failed to take Riga or gain the support of the local nobility. Furthermore, Russia's forces had not yet entered the Great Northern War, as they were bound by the Russo-Turkish War until the Peace of Constantinople set them free in the summer.
Thus, August's reaction to Travendal was to enter negotiations with France and Brandenburg-Prussia and ask them to mediate a truce with Sweden. Charles XII of Sweden, rejected the offer, refusing to enter negotiations as long as Saxon forces were in Livonia. Peter the Great took a more indifferent stance, marched his troops towards Swedish Ingria as agreed on in the Treaty of Preobrazhenskoye; as soon as Denmark was out of the war, Charles XII speedily embarked his armies and headed from Denmark to his Baltic dominions. Russian forces entered Ingria and laid siege to Narva in October, while August the Strong was preparing winter quarters in Livonia. On 30 November, Charles XII's army relieved Narva before turning south sweeping August the Strong's forces out of Livonia and decisively defeating them at Kliszow and Fraustadt during the following years, forcing August to drop out of the war in the Treaty of Altranstädt in 1706; the tide turned only in 1709, when Charles XII's last remaining adversary Peter the Great was able to crush his army at Poltava and exile the Swedish king to Bender in the Ottoman Empire.
Denmark and Saxony abandoned Travendal and Altranstädt and entered the war again. Frederik IV of Denmark used the peace period to reform the Danish army. Instead of relying on mercenaries, the army was now raised from peasants distributed by Danish landowners; the mercenary force was kept and fought on the Maritime Powers' side in the War of the Spanish Succession against roi soleil Louis XIV of France. Frederik implemented civil reforms such as the abolishment of serfdom; when he re-entered the Great Northern War, the mercenaries were still fighting France, but were returned to participate in the war in 1713. Scan of the print version, pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Scan of the handwritten version at IEG Mainz Annotated edition of the treaty at IEG Mainz
Capitulation of Estonia and Livonia
With the Capitulation of Estonia and Livonia in 1710 the Swedish dominions Estonia and Livonia were integrated into the Russian Empire following their conquest during the Great Northern War. The Livonian nobility and the city of Riga capitulated on 4 July / 15 July 1710, Pernau in August, the Estonian nobility and the city of Reval on 29 September / 10 October. Russia left the local institutions in place and confirmed the traditional privileges of the German nobles and burghers as was established in Privilegium Sigismundi Augusti with respect to the Protestant faith; the land reform of the so-called reduction, introduced by the Swedish king Charles XI, transformed many serfs to subjects of the Crown, was reversed. The Swedish Empire formally accepted the capitulations in the Treaty of Nystad in 1721; the transfer of the Baltic provinces marked the end of Sweden's and the beginning of Russia's time as a great power. The Baltic provinces retained their special status until the late 19th century.
In the pretext of the Great Northern War, August the Strong of Saxe-Poland-Lithuania and Peter the Great of Russia had agreed to conquer and partition Sweden's Baltic dominions in the Treaty of Preobrazhenskoye in 1699. During the war, Charles XII of Sweden was able to defeat the Russian army at Narva in 1700, pursued August the Strong to Saxony. Once the main Swedish army was gone, Russian forces were able to regroup and conquered most of the plague-stricken Baltic provinces until 1710, when the last Swedish strongholds Riga and Pernau capitulated. At this time, the main Swedish army was captured at the Surrender at Perevolochna following the Battle of Poltava. Peter the Great had in person launched the first shells in the siege of Riga, in November 1709. In the Estonian and Livonian capitulations, Russia confirmed local law and privileges the Protestant church order, thus granting administrative, economical and cultural autonomy; this included laws and privileges dating back to the Teutonic Order State and, in Estonia, Danish laws.
The reduction of these privileges by Swedish absolutism had caused exiled Livonian noble and spokesman of the Livonian nobles Johann Reinhold von Patkul to lobby for war against Sweden in the pretext of the war, their confirmation was to assure loyalty of the Baltic elites, who in the majority had fiercely resisted Russian conquest, to the tsar. The capitulations were concluded by the Baltic German burghers and noble class, the Estonian and Latvian speaking population was not mentioned; the confirmation of local law and administration resulted in many Swedish laws and decrees remaining in effect under Russian rule. For example, an incomplete list of 122 still effective Swedish decrees was published in Reval in 1777, the Swedish ecclesiastical order was only replaced in 1832; the capitulation of Livonia violated August the Strong's claims as outlined in the Treaty of Preobrazhenskoye and renewed on 9–10 October / 20–21 October 1709 in the Treaty of Thorn. When in these treaties the allies had partitioned the Swedish dominions among themselves, August was to gain Livonia.
Ignoring Gerhard Johann von Löwenwolde's urge to heed these treaties, Boris Sheremetev had the Livonians swear allegiance to Peter the Great. Löwenwolde serving August the Strong, was made Peter's plenipotentiary in Livonia and held that office until 1713. Before the Swedish-Russian hostilities were concluded in Nystad, the Swedish government did not accept the capitulation. Swedish intelligence operated in the occupied areas and interrogated people who escaped from these provinces to Sweden proper. In 1711 and 1712, Swedish naval units made several landfalls on the Estonian coast, burning villages and estates. Greater expeditions were planned during the same time, including a naval assault on Ösel in 1711 and a subsequent landfall with all Swedish troops stationed in Finland, but these plans were not executed; the last plan for a military recovery of the Baltic provinces was made in 1720, but this one too was not executed. The Swedish government further maintained an exiled administration of the Baltic dominions, assigned vacant administrative positions until 1720.
The Russian administration, under supreme command of Boris Sheremetev, reacted by prohibiting contacts of the local population to Sweden. On 30 August 1721, the Treaty of Nystad formalized Russia's acquisition of the Baltic provinces and the respective capitulations in articles IX, X, XI and XII. Sweden had to relinquish her claims "forever", strike the provinces from the royal title. Peter the Great in turn changed his title from tsar to imperator, amended it with kniaz Estlandskyi, Livlandskyi i Korelskyi, i.e. duke of Estonia and Karelia. However, reconquest of her former Baltic dominions remained a Swedish war aim in the century following the Great Northern War, since these territories were of high strategic importance and Livonia had been a major Swedish source for grain. Yet, none of the respective attempts during the Russo-Swedish wars of 1741–1743, 1788–1790 and 1808–1809 was successful; as Loit put it: "It was the acquisition of Estonia in the year of 1561, which marked the first step to Sweden's emergence as a European great power, it was when the Baltic provinces were lost to Russia in 1710, during the Northern War, that Sweden was transformed into a second-class power again."
The acquisition of Estonia and Livonia introduced a new class of Baltic German nobles to Russian courts. During the following centuries, Baltic Germans were to occupy important positions in the Russian Empire. In 1795, Early Modern Russia completed her Baltic expansion with the acquisition of Courland by a capitulation
European balance of power
The European balance of power referred to international relations between European countries during the First World War, which evolved into the present states of Europe. The Nineteenth Century political concept emerged at the Peace of Paris in 1815, it is known by the term European State System. Its basic tenet is that no single European power should be allowed to achieve hegemony over a substantial part of the continent and that this is best curtailed by having a small number of ever-changing alliances contend for power; the emergence of city-states in ancient Greece marks the beginning of classical antiquity. The two most important Greek cities, the Ionian-democratic Athens and the Dorian-aristocratic Sparta, led the successful defense of Greece against the invading Persians from the east, but clashed against each other for supremacy in the Peloponnesian War; the Kingdom of Macedon took advantage of the following instability and established a single rule over Greece. Desire to form a universal monarchy brought Alexander the Great to annex the entire Persian Empire and begin a hellenization of the Macedonian possessions.
At his death in 323 BC, his reign was divided between his successors and several hellenistic kingdoms were formed. Rome, a Latin republic with a mixed constitution, unified Italy around the same period and rose to prominence in the western and eastern Mediterranean through the Punic and Macedonian wars; such a rapid expansion was followed by the so-called'Roman Revolution', when the Gracchi, the Servile Wars, the Social War and Sulla's civil wars shook the Italian peninsula. Meanwhile, the popularity and wealth of Roman generals increased: notably Julius Caesar acquired fame for projecting military power north of the Alps into Gaul, east of the Rhine into Germania and across the English channel into Britain. A group of senators afraid of Caesar's title of dictator for life assassinated him the Ides of March of 44 BC; the adoptive son of Caesar, Octavian Augustus, defeated the killers of his father and became the first Roman Emperor in 27 BC. The Roman Empire peaked during the Pax Romana, stagnated during the crisis of the third century AD and split between the Latin West and the Greek East.
Both parts of the Empire abandoned pagan polytheism in order to tolerate monotheistic Christianity and make it the state religion. The West collapsed around 476, several centuries of Germanic migrations and "barbarian" conquests followed. Greece continued to be ruled by the Byzantine Empire while the Iberian peninsula fell under Arab control. Among the barbarian kingdoms, that of Charlemagne managed to unite most of France, the Low Countries and Italy under one rule: he was subsequently crowned Holy Roman Emperor the day of Christmas in 800 by Pope Leo III; the Germanic Emperor and the Roman Pontiff came to be known as the universal powers of Europe, but entered in conflict during the investiture controversy and the clash between their factions. Their rivalry made possible the birth of autonomous city-states in northern Italy and the rise of an independent feudal monarchy in France under the House of Capet. Around the same period, the Norse Viking expansion was taking place with the Norman conquest of England happening in 1066 and that of Sicily in 1130.
With the holy land lost to Islam and the Byzantine Empire seeking help from Turks, the Pope initiated the crusades against Muslims in an attempt to restore Christian unity following the Eastern Schism of the Orthodox from the Catholics. Most of the crusades did not achieve their objective, but some of them had a massive impact on the political and economic landscape of Europe: the first crusade re-opened the trade routes in the Mediterranean and ushered the commercial revolution. At the same time, the Reconquista of christian forces was taking place in the Iberian peninsula and the countries of Portugal and Aragon were formed. A vast part of the French nobility took part in the crusades under the leadership of their king: this made possible the formation of a strong centralized French monarchy; the rise of medieval France began with the Battle of Bouvines and the Avignon Papacy but ended with the outbreak of the Hundred Years' War with England and the return of the papacy to Rome. As Europe recovered from the Black Death, a Renaissance in art and science began in Italy and spread to the rest of the continent.
Portugal formed the first European colonial Empire in 1415 with the conquest of Ceuta. In 1453, the French expelled the English from their land and the Ottoman Turks caused the Fall of Constantinople, initiating the rise of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. In 1500, Charles V of the House of Austria was born in the Habsburg Netherlands, he inherited the territories of the Holy Roman Empire as well as the crowns of Aragon. In the Indies discovered by Cristopher Columbus for Castille and Aragon, he ordered the conquistadores to annex the Atzec Empire and conquer the Incas, he made use of the gold and silver coming from the Americas to finance the defence of his German territories in Austria from the Ottoman Empire and his Italian territories in the Duchy of Milan from France. Styling himself as the protector of Catholicism, he resigned because of the growth of protestantism and split his territories between a Spanish Empire led by Philip II of Spain and a Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation led by Ferdinand I.
The papacy launched the Catholic revival i
Swedish Empire
The Swedish Empire was a European great power that exercised territorial control over much of the Baltic region during the 17th and early 18th centuries. The beginning of the Empire is taken as the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, who ascended the throne in 1611, its end as the loss of territories in 1721 following the Great Northern War. After the death of Gustavus Adolphus in 1632, the empire was controlled for lengthy periods by part of the high nobility, such as the Oxenstierna family, acting as regents for minor monarchs; the interests of the high nobility contrasted with the uniformity policy. In territories acquired during the periods of de facto noble rule, serfdom was not abolished, there was a trend to set up respective estates in Sweden proper; the Great Reduction of 1680 put an end to these efforts of the nobility and required them to return estates once gained from the crown to the king. Serfdom, remained in force in the dominions acquired in the Holy Roman Empire and in Swedish Estonia, where a consequent application of the uniformity policy was hindered by the treaties by which they were gained.
After the victories in the Thirty Years' War, Sweden reached the climax of the great-power era during the Second Northern War, when its primary adversary, was neutralized by the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658. However, in the further course of this war, as well as in the subsequent Scanian War, Sweden was able to maintain her empire only with the support of her closest ally, France. Charles XI of Sweden consolidated the empire, but a decline began with his son, Charles XII. After initial Swedish victories, Charles secured the empire for some time in the Peace of Travendal and the Treaty of Altranstädt, before the disaster that followed the king's war in Russia; the Russian victory at the Battle of Poltava put an end to Sweden's eastbound expansion, by the time of Charles XII's death in 1718 only a much-weakened and far smaller territory remained. The last traces of occupied continental territory vanished during the Napoleonic Wars, Finland went to Russia in 1809. In older Swedish history telling, Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII were heroic warriors.
Sweden emerged as a great European power under King Gustavus Adolphus. As a result of acquiring territories seized from Russia and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, as well as its involvement in the Thirty Years' War, Sweden found itself transformed into the leader of Protestantism. During the Thirty Years' War, Sweden managed to conquer half of the member states of the Holy Roman Empire; the fortunes of war would shift forth several times. After its defeat in the Battle of Nördlingen, confidence in Sweden among the Swedish-controlled German states was damaged, several of the provinces refused further Swedish military support, leaving Sweden with only a couple of northern German provinces. After France intervened on the same side as Sweden, fortunes shifted again; as the war continued, the civilian and military death toll grew, when it was over, it had led to severe depopulation in the German states. Although exact population estimates do not exist, historians estimate that the population of the Holy Roman Empire fell by one-third as a result of the war.
Sweden founded overseas colonies, principally in the New World. New Sweden was founded in the valley of the Delaware River in 1638, Sweden laid claim to a number of Caribbean islands. A string of Swedish forts and trading posts was constructed along the coast of West Africa as well, but these were not designed for Swedish settlers. At the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 granted Sweden territories as war reparations. Sweden demanded Silesia, Pomerania (which had been in its possession since the Treaty of Stettin, a war indemnity of 20,000,000 Riksdaler. Through the efforts of Johan Oxenstierna and Johan Adler Salvius it obtained: Swedish Pomerania, the Swedish share of the former Duchy of Pomerania since the Treaty of Stettin, consisting of Western Pomerania, with the islands of Rügen and Wollin, as well as the towns of Stettin and Stralsund; these German possessions were to be held as fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire. This allowed Sweden a vote in the Imperial Diet and enabled it to "direct" the Lower Saxon Circle alternately with Brandenburg.
France and Sweden, became joint guarantors of the treaty with the Holy Roman Emperor and were entrusted with carrying out its provisions, as enacted by the executive congress of Nuremberg in 1650. After the peaces of Brömsebro and Westphalia, Sweden was the third-largest area of control in Europe by land area, only surpassed by Russia and Spain. Sweden reached its largest territorial extent during this time under the rule of Charles X Gustav after the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658; as a result of eighteen years of war, Sweden gained small and scattered possessions, but had secured control of three principal rivers in northern Germany—the Oder, the Elbe and the Weser—and gained toll-collection rights for those important commercial arteries. Two principal reasons for the small reparations were Queen Christina's impatience; as a result of Sweden's intervention, Swede
Uusikaupunki
Uusikaupunki, is a town and municipality of Finland. It is located in the Southwest Finland region; the municipality has a population of 15,685 and covers an area of 551.65 square kilometres of which 49.04 km2 is inland water. The population density is 31.21 inhabitants per square kilometre. The municipality is unilingually Finnish. Both its Finnish and Swedish names translate to "new town"; the original name of the main village, incorporated into Uusikaupunki was Kalainen. The surrounding region, the neighboring town of Kalanti, which merged with Uusikaupunki in 1993, was a lively marketplace for wooden objects and salt in the early Middle Ages. Uusikaupunki was founded to legalize this trade; the town of Uusikaupunki was founded as a town with the rights of commerce in 1617 by decree by Gustav II Adolf. In 1721, the Peace of Nystad was signed in Uusikaupunki, ending the Great Northern War between Sweden and Russia. Up to the 19th century, Uusikaupunki was an important port for commerce and fishing, up to the latter half of the 20th century, it retained an important ship-building industry.
Uusikaupunki is the home of Valmet Automotive, a contract automobile mechanical production company, producing cars and vehicles for brands such as Mercedes-Benz. It was founded in 1968 as Saab-Valmet for manufacturing Saab cars; as of June 2017, Valmet is assembling Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz GLC-Class cars. Uusikaupunki is home to the Bonk museum; the results of the Finnish parliamentary election, 2011 in Uusikaupunki were: Social Democratic Party 26.6% True Finns 23.4% National Coalition Party 19.6% Centre Party 13.1% Left Alliance 8.1% Christian Democrats 4.2% Green League 2.3% Communist Party of Finland 0.7% Swedish People's Party 0.6% Aimo Cajander, Prime Minister of Finland Bernhard Henrik Crusell, virtuoso clarinetist and composer Robert Wilhelm Ekman, painter Anna Eriksson, singer Joni Haverinen, SM-liiga ice hockey player Gordon Herbert, basketball coach and former player Eetu Koski, SM-liiga ice hockey player Gerald Lee Sr. former basketball player Gerald Lee Jr. basketball player Aleksi Lehtonen, Archbishop of Finland Johan Jakob Nervander, physicist and poet Ilmari Saarelainen, actor Martti Simojoki, Archbishop of Finland Kari Takko, hockey goaltender Restaurant Pursiseuran Paviljonki Myllymäki Park Uusikaupunki is twinned with: Antsla, Estonia Haderslev, Denmark Veliky Novgorod, Novgorod Oblast, Russia Sandefjord, Norway Szentendre, Hungary Varberg, Sweden Media related to Uusikaupunki at Wikimedia Commons Town of Uusikaupunki – Official site
Frederick I of Sweden
Frederick I was prince consort of Sweden from 1718 to 1720, King of Sweden from 1720 until his death and Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel from 1730. He ascended the throne following the death of his brother-in-law absolutist Charles XII in the Great Northern War, the abdication of his wife, Charles's sister and successor Ulrika Eleonora, after she had to relinquish most powers to the Riksdag of the Estates and thus chose to abdicate, his powerless reign saw his family's elimination from the line of succession after the parliamentary government dominated by pro-revanchist Hat Party politicians ventured into a war with Russia, which ended in defeat and the Russian tsarina Elizabeth demanding Adolph Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp to be instated following the death of the king. He was the son of Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, Princess Maria Amalia of Courland. In 1692 the young prince made his Grand Tour to the Dutch Republic, in 1695 to the Italian Peninsula and he studied in Geneva. After this he had a military career, leading the Hessian troops as Lieutenant General in the War of Spanish Succession on the side of the Dutch.
He was defeated in 1703 in the Battle of Speyerbach, but participated the next year in the great victory in the Battle of Blenheim. In 1706 he was again defeated by the French in the Battle of Castiglione. Both in 1716 and 1718 he joined the campaign of Charles XII of Sweden against Norway, was appointed Swedish Generalissimus, he married his second wife, Princess Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden, in 1715. He was granted the title Prince of Sweden, with the style Royal Highness by the estates, was prince consort there during Ulrika Eleonora's rule as queen regnant from 1718 until her abdication in 1720, he is the only Swedish prince consort. Frederick I had much influence during the reign of his spouse; some historians have suggested that the stray bullet which killed his brother-in-law Charles XII of Sweden in 1718 was fired by Frederick's aide. Charles had been an demanding ruler. Frederick succeeded Ulrika Eleonora on the throne upon her abdication in his favor in 1720, elected by the Swedish Estates.
The defeats suffered by Charles XII in the Great Northern War ended Sweden's position as a first-rank European power. Under Frederick, this had to be accepted. Sweden had to cede Estonia and Livonia to Russia in the Treaty of Nystad, in 1721. Frederick I was a active and dynamic king at the beginning of his 31-year reign, but after the aristocracy had regained power during the wars with Russia, he became not so much powerless as uninterested in affairs of state. In 1723, he tried to strengthen royal authority, but after he failed, he never had much to do with politics, he did not sign official documents. He devoted most of his time to love affairs, his marriage to Queen Ulrika Eleonora was childless, but he had several children by his mistress, Hedvig Taube. In 1723 Frederick rewarded the military inventor Sven Åderman with the estate of Halltorps on the island of Öland, for improving the rate of fire of the musket; as a king, he was not respected. When he was crowned, it was said of him: "King Charles we buried, King Frederick we crown – the clock has now passed from twelve to one".
It is said about him, that although a lot of great achievements in the country's development happened during his reign, he never had anything to do with them himself. When he died, Carl Gustaf Tessin said about him: Under the reign of King Frederick, science has developed – he never bothered to read a book; the merchant business has flourished – he has never encouraged it with a single coin. The Stockholm Palace has been built – he has never been curious enough to look at it. Neither did he have anything to do with the founding of the first Swedish speaking theater at Bollhuset during his reign. One of his few important policies was the banning of duels. On 23 February 1748 Frederick I instituted the three Swedish royal orders of the Seraphim, of the Sword and of the North Star, the three principal Swedish orders of chivalry. Frederick became Landgrave of Hesse only ten years after becoming King of Sweden, he appointed his younger brother William governor of Hesse. As Landgrave, Frederick is not seen as a success.
Indeed, he did concentrate more on Sweden, due to his negotiated, compromise-like ascension to the throne there, he and his court had a low income. The money for that expensive court since the 1730s came from wealthy Hesse, this means that Frederick behaved like an absentee landlord and drained Hessian resources to finance life in Sweden. Frederick's father, Charles I of Hesse-Kassel, had been the state's most successful ruler, rebuilding the state over his decades-long rule by means of economic and infrastructure measures and state reform, as well as tolerance, such as attracting, for economic purposes, the French Huguenots, his brother the governor, who would succeed Frederick as Landgrave William VIII of Hesse-Kassel, though by background a distinguished soldier, was a great success locally. There are few physical remainders of Frederick in Hesse today. Through Euphemia of Sweden, one of King Frederick's ancestors was King Magnus III. On 31 May 1700, he married his first wife, Louise Dorothea, Princess of Prussia, daughter of Frederick I of Prussia (1657
Sweden
Sweden the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north and Finland to the east, is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund, a strait at the Swedish-Danish border. At 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the largest country in Northern Europe, the third-largest country in the European Union and the fifth largest country in Europe by area. Sweden has a total population of 10.2 million. It has a low population density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre; the highest concentration is in the southern half of the country. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats and Swedes and constituting the sea peoples known as the Norsemen. Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is forested. Sweden is part of the geographical area of Fennoscandia; the climate is in general mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence, that in spite of this still retains warm continental summers.
Today, the sovereign state of Sweden is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state, like its neighbour Norway. The capital city is Stockholm, 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 divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. An independent Swedish state emerged during the early 12th century. After the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century killed about a third of the Scandinavian population, the Hanseatic League threatened Scandinavia's culture and languages; this led to the forming of the Scandinavian Kalmar Union in 1397, which Sweden left in 1523. When Sweden became involved in the Thirty Years War on the Reformist side, an expansion of its territories began and the Swedish Empire was formed; this became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, ending with the annexation of present-day Finland by Russia in 1809.
The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since Sweden has been at peace, maintaining an official policy of neutrality in foreign affairs; the union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905. Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars and the Cold War, albeit Sweden has since 2009 moved towards cooperation with NATO. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995, but declined NATO membership, as well as Eurozone membership following a referendum, it is a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, the 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 universal health care and tertiary education for its citizens, it has the world's eleventh-highest per capita income and ranks in numerous metrics of national performance, including quality of life, education, protection of civil liberties, economic competitiveness, equality and human development.
The name Sweden was loaned from Dutch in the 17th century to refer to Sweden as an emerging great power. Before Sweden's imperial expansion, Early Modern English used Swedeland. Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod, which meant "people of the Swedes"; this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige means "realm of the Swedes", excluding the Geats in Götaland. Variations of the name Sweden are used in most languages, with the exception of Danish and Norwegian using Sverige, Faroese Svøríki, Icelandic Svíþjóð, the more notable exception of some Finnic languages where Ruotsi and Rootsi are used, names considered as referring to the people from the coastal areas of Roslagen, who were known as the Rus', through them etymologically related to the English name for Russia; the etymology of Swedes, thus Sweden, is not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning "one's own", referring to one's own Germanic tribe. Sweden's prehistory begins in the Allerød oscillation, a warm period around 12,000 BC, with Late Palaeolithic reindeer-hunting camps of the Bromme culture at the edge of the ice in what is now the country's southernmost province, Scania.
This period was characterised by small bands of hunter-gatherer-fishers using flint technology. Sweden is first described in a written source in Germania by Tacitus in 98 AD. In Germania 44 and 45 he mentions the Swedes as a powerful tribe with ships that had a prow at each end. Which kings ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents a long line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC; as for literacy in Sweden itself, the runic script was in use among the south Scandinavian elite by at least the 2nd century AD, but all that has come down to the present from the Roman Period is curt inscriptions on artefacts of male names, demonstrating th
