Fax
Fax, sometimes called telecopying or telefax, is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device. The original document is scanned with a fax machine, which processes the contents as a single fixed graphic image, converting it into a bitmap, transmitting it through the telephone system in the form of audio-frequency tones; the receiving fax machine reconstructs the image, printing a paper copy. Early systems used direct conversions of image darkness to audio tone in a continuous or analog manner. Since the 1980s, most machines modulate the transmitted audio frequencies using a digital representation of the page, compressed to transmit areas which are all-white or all-black. Scottish inventor Alexander Bain worked on chemical mechanical fax type devices and in 1846 was able to reproduce graphic signs in laboratory experiments, he received British patent 9745 on May 27, 1843 for his "Electric Printing Telegraph". Frederick Bakewell demonstrated a telefax machine.
The Pantelegraph was invented by the Italian physicist Giovanni Caselli. He introduced the first commercial telefax service between Paris and Lyon in 1865, some 11 years before the invention of the telephone. In 1880, English inventor Shelford Bidwell constructed the scanning phototelegraph, the first telefax machine to scan any two-dimensional original, not requiring manual plotting or drawing. Around 1900, German physicist Arthur Korn invented the Bildtelegraph, widespread in continental Europe since a noticed transmission of a wanted-person photograph from Paris to London in 1908, used until the wider distribution of the radiofax, its main competitors were the Bélinographe by Édouard Belin first since the 1930s the Hellschreiber, invented in 1929 by German inventor Rudolf Hell, a pioneer in mechanical image scanning and transmission. The 1888 invention of the telautograph by Elisha Gray marked a further development in fax technology, allowing users to send signatures over long distances, thus allowing the verification of identification or ownership over long distances.
On May 19, 1924, scientists of the AT&T Corporation "by a new process of transmitting pictures by electricity" sent 15 photographs by telephone from Cleveland to New York City, such photos being suitable for newspaper reproduction. Photographs had been sent over the radio using this process; the Western Union "Deskfax" fax machine, announced in 1948, was a compact machine that fit comfortably on a desktop, using special spark printer paper. As a designer for the Radio Corporation of America, in 1924, Richard H. Ranger invented the wireless photoradiogram, or transoceanic radio facsimile, the forerunner of today’s "fax" machines. A photograph of President Calvin Coolidge sent from New York to London on November 29, 1924, became the first photo picture reproduced by transoceanic radio facsimile. Commercial use of Ranger’s product began two years later. In 1924, Herbert E. Ives of AT&T transmitted and reconstructed the first color facsimile, a natural-color photograph of silent film star Rudolph Valentino in period costume, using red and blue color separations.
Beginning in the late 1930s, the Finch Facsimile system was used to transmit a "radio newspaper" to private homes via commercial AM radio stations and ordinary radio receivers equipped with Finch's printer, which used thermal paper. Sensing a new and golden opportunity, competitors soon entered the field, but the printer and special paper were expensive luxuries, AM radio transmission was slow and vulnerable to static, the newspaper was too small. After more than ten years of repeated attempts by Finch and others to establish such a service as a viable business, the public quite content with its cheaper and much more substantial home-delivered daily newspapers, with conventional spoken radio bulletins to provide any "hot" news, still showed only a passing curiosity about the new medium. By the late 1940s, radiofax receivers were sufficiently miniaturized to be fitted beneath the dashboard of Western Union's "Telecar" telegram delivery vehicles. In the 1960s, the United States Army transmitted the first photograph via satellite facsimile to Puerto Rico from the Deal Test Site using the Courier satellite.
Radio fax is still in limited use today for transmitting weather charts and information to ships at sea. It is widely used within the medical field to transmit confidential patient information. In 1964, Xerox Corporation introduced what many consider to be the first commercialized version of the modern fax machine, under the name or Long Distance Xerography; this model was superseded two years with a unit that would set the standard for fax machines for years to come. Up until this point facsimile machines were expensive and hard to operate. In 1966, Xerox released a smaller, 46-pound facsimile machine; this unit could be connected to any standard telephone line. This machine was capable of transmitting a letter-sized document in about six minutes; the first sub-minute, digital fax machine was developed by Dacom, which built on digital data compression technology developed at Lockheed for satellite communication. By the late 1970s, many companies around the world had entered the fax market. Shortly after this, a new wave of more compact and efficient fax machines would hit the market.
Xerox continued to refine the fax machine for years after their ground-breaking
SJ Rc
The SJ Class Rc is the most used electric locomotive in Sweden. Rc is a universal locomotive used both in passenger trains; the largest operator is Green Cargo, although SJ, Veolia Transport, Tågåkeriet, Hector Rail and the Swedish Transport Administration operate it as well. The Rc-locomotive first appeared in 1967 to replace the 1950s Ra-locomotive, the 1940s F-locomotive and the older D- and Da-locomotives; the locomotives are notable for using thyristors instead of the older diode based system. As of 2017, Rc-locomotives are used all over Sweden in both freight lines. Altogether there have been 8 versions of the Rc-locomotive in Sweden including the freight locomotive Rm designed to pull iron ore trains. Rc1, Rc2, Rc4, Rc5 have a maximum allowed speed of 135 km/h. Rc3 and Rc6 have a maximum allowed speed of 160 km/h. Rc7 was a rebuild of Rc6 meant to haul replacement trains needed when the X 2000 trains were canceled or delayed. Rc7 had a maximum allowed speed of 180 km/h. However, the maximum speed permitted without emergency electromagnetic track brakes is 160 km/h, converting the carriages proved too expensive.
For that reason all Rc7 were subsequently converted back to Rc6. Rc1–Rc7 all weigh between 75 and 80 tonnes, whilst the Rm weighs 90 tonnes; the Rm's top speed is only 100 km/h, but due to the nature of their work, they are more powerful locomotives. Engines based on the Rc design were sold to other countries; the Austrian Federal Railways bought 10 Rc2 with extra brakes for the alpine conditions, ÖBB Class 1043. One of the locos was badly damaged in an accident but the remaining nine have been bought by the Swedish company Tågåkeriet i Bergslagen AB, returned to Sweden. A altered Rc4 has been sold to Norwegian State Railways of Norway, known as El 16; the RAI 40-700 class of eight engines were exported to Iran in the early eighties for use on the electrified stretches near the then-Soviet border. In 1977, an Rc4 was tested in the United States for use with Amtrak's passenger trains; the Rc4 engine proved successful and would become the basis for the AEM-7. 42 class locomotives are being refurbished by Bombardier for Green Cargo.
They include various upgrades and are now known as class Rd. Photos of various Rc locomotives
Swedish krona
The krona is the official currency of Sweden. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use. In English, the currency is sometimes referred to as the Swedish crown, as krona means crown in Swedish; the Swedish krona was the ninth-most traded currency in the world by value in April 2016. One krona is subdivided into 100 öre. However, all öre coins have been discontinued as of 30 September 2010. Goods can still be priced in öre, but all sums are rounded to the nearest krona when paying with cash; the word öre is derived from the Roman gold coin aureus, which in itself comes from the Latin word aurum, meaning gold. The introduction of the krona, which replaced at par the riksdaler, was a result of the Scandinavian Monetary Union, which came into effect in 1876 and lasted until the beginning of World War I; the parties to the union were the Scandinavian countries, where the name was krona in Sweden and krone in Denmark and Norway, which in English means "crown". The three currencies were on the gold standard, with the krona/krone defined as 1⁄2480 of a kilogram of pure gold.
After dissolution of the monetary union in August 1914, Sweden and Norway all decided to keep the names of their respective and now separate currencies. On 11 September 2012, the Riksbank announced a new series of coins with new sizes to replace the 1- and 5-krona coins which arrived in October 2016; the design of the coins follows the theme of singer-songwriter Ted Gärdestad's song, "Sol, vind och vatten", with the designs depicting the elements on the reverse side of the coins. This included the reintroduction of the 2-krona coin, while the current 10-krona coin remained the same; the new coins have a new portrait of the king in their design. One of the reasons for a new series of coins is to end the use of nickel, it is expected that vending machines and parking meters will to a high degree stop accepting coins and accept only bank cards or mobile phone payments. Cash is less used in Sweden, with many young people avoiding cash as much as possible. Between 1873 and 1876, coins in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50 öre and 1, 2, 10, 20 kronor were introduced.
The 1, 2 and 5 öre were in bronze, the 10-, 25-, 50-öre and 1-krona and 2-krona were in silver, the 10- and 20-krona were in gold. Gold 5-krona coins were added in 1881. In 1873 the Scandinavian Monetary Union currency was fixed so that 2,480 kronor purchased 1 kg of gold. In 2017 the price of gold is 365,289 kronor per kg. So one öre in 1873 bought as much gold as 1.47 krona in 2017. So if it is reasonable to have the smallest denomination coin 1 krona today, in 1873 a reasonable smallest denomination coin was 1 öre. A 10 kr gold coin weighed 4.4803 grams with 900 finess so that the fine weight was 4.03327 grams or 1/248th of a kilogram. In 1902, production of gold coins ceased, was restarted in 1920 and 1925 before ceasing entirely. Due to metal shortages during World War I, iron replaced bronze between 1917 and 1919. Nickel-bronze replaced silver in the 10, 25 and 50 öre in 1920, with silver returning in 1927. Metal shortages due to World War II again led to changes in the Swedish coinage. Between 1940 and 1947, the nickel-bronze 10, 25 and 50 öre were again issued.
In 1942, iron again replaced the silver content of the other coins was reduced. In 1962, cupronickel replaced silver in the 25-öre and 50-öre coins. In 1968, the 2 kronor switched to cupronickel and the 1-krona switched to cupronickel-clad copper. Nonetheless, all previous mintages of 1- and 2-krona coins are still legal tender, since 1875 and 1876 though 2-krona coins are rarely seen in circulation as they have not been issued since 1971; the 2-krona coins contained 40% silver until 1966, which meant they had been for several years worth much more than two kronor, so most have been bought and melted down by arbitrageurs, the rest are kept by collectors). A new design of 2-krona coins will be issued in 2016. In 1954, 1955 and 1971, five-krona silver coins were produced, with designs similar to contemporary 1- and 2-krona coins. In 1972, a new, smaller 5-krona coin was struck in cupronickel-clad nickel; the current design has been produced since 1976. Five-krona coins minted since 1954 are legal tender but tend to be kept by collectors for their silver content.
In 1971, the 1- and 2-öre, as well as the 2-krona coins ceased production. The size of the 5-öre coin was reduced in 1972. In 1984, production of the five- and 25-öre coins came to an end, followed by that of the 10-öre in 1991. In 1991, aluminium-brass 10-krona coins were introduced. Previous 10-krona coins are not legal tender. In 1991, bronze-coloured 50-öre coins were introduced. Jubilee and commemorative coins have been minted and those since 1897 or are legal tender; the royal motto of the monarch is inscribed on many of the coins. The 5-krona coin was designed in 1974, at a time when there were political efforts to abandon the monarchy, when there was a new young inexperienced king; the monarchy remained. Coins minted before 1974 have the same size, but contain the portrait of King Gustav VI Adolf and his royal motto. On 18 December 2008, the Riksbank announced a proposal to phase out the 50-öre, the final öre c
Øresund Bridge
The Øresund or Öresund Bridge is a combined railway and motorway bridge across the Øresund strait between Sweden and Denmark. The bridge runs nearly 8 kilometres from the Swedish coast to the artificial island Peberholm in the middle of the strait; the crossing is completed by the 4-kilometre Drogden Tunnel from Peberholm to the Danish island of Amager. The Øresund Bridge is the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe and connects two major metropolitan areas: Copenhagen, the Danish capital city, the Swedish city of Malmö, it connects the road and rail networks of the Scandinavian Peninsula with those of Central and Western Europe. A data cable makes the bridge the backbone of internet data transmission between central Europe and Sweden; the international European route E20 crosses via the Oresund Line via railway. The construction of the Great Belt Fixed Link, connecting Zealand to Funen and thence to the Jutland Peninsula, the Øresund Bridge have connected Central and Western Europe to Scandinavia by road and rail.
The Øresund Bridge was designed by the Danish engineering firm COWI. The justification for the additional expenditure and complexity related to digging a tunnel for part of the way, rather than raising that section of the bridge, was to avoid interfering with air traffic from the nearby Copenhagen Airport, to provide a clear channel for ships in good weather or bad, to prevent ice floes from blocking the strait; the Øresund Bridge crosses the border between Denmark and Sweden, but in accordance with the Schengen Agreement and the Nordic Passport Union, there are no passport inspections. There are a few random customs checks at the entrance toll booths entering Sweden, but not when entering Denmark. Since January 2016, checks have become more stringent due to the European migrant crisis. Construction began in 1995, with the bridge opening to traffic on 1 July 2000; the Øresund Bridge received the 2002 IABSE Outstanding Structure Award. The concept of a bridge over the Øresund was first formally proposed in 1936 by a consortium of engineering firms who proposed a national motorway network for Denmark.
The idea was dropped during World War II, but picked up again thereafter and studied in significant detail in various Danish-Swedish government commissions through the 1950s and 1960s. However, disagreement existed regarding the placement and exact form of the link, with some arguing for a link at the narrowest point of the sound at Helsingør–Helsingborg, further north of Copenhagen, some arguing for a more direct link from Copenhagen to Malmö. Additionally, some regional and local interests argued that other bridge and road projects, notably the then-unbuilt Great Belt Fixed Link, should take priority; the governments of Denmark and Sweden signed an agreement to build a fixed link in 1973. However, that project was cancelled in 1978 due to the economic situation, growing environmental concerns; as the economic situation improved in the 1980s, interest continued and the governments signed a new agreement in 1991. An OMEGA centre report identified the following as primary motivations for construction of the bridge: to improve transport links in northern Europe, from Hamburg to Oslo.
A joint venture of Hochtief, Skanska, Højgaard & Schultz and Monberg & Thorsen, began construction of the bridge in 1995 and completed it 14 August 1999. Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden met midway across the bridge-tunnel on 14 August 1999 to celebrate its completion; the official dedication took place on 1 July 2000, with Queen Margrethe II, King Carl XVI Gustaf as the host and hostess of the ceremony. Because of the death of nine people, including three Danes and three Swedes, at the Roskilde Festival the evening before, the ceremony opened with a minute of silence; the bridge-tunnel opened for public traffic that day. On 12 June 2000, two weeks before the dedication, 79,871 runners competed in Broloppet, a half marathon from Amager, Denmark, to Skåne, Sweden. Despite two schedule setbacks – the discovery of 16 unexploded World War II bombs on the seafloor and an inadvertently skewed tunnel segment – the bridge-tunnel was finished three months ahead of schedule.
Although traffic between Denmark and Sweden increased by 61 percent in the first year after the bridge opened, traffic levels were not as high as expected due to high tolls. However, since 2005, traffic levels have increased rapidly; this may be due to Danes buying homes in Sweden to take advantage of lower housing prices in Malmö and commuting to work in Denmark. In 2012, to cross by car cost DKK 310, SEK 375 or €43, with discounts of up to 75% available to regular users. In 2007 25 million people travelled over the Øresund Bridge: 15.2 million by car and bus and 9.6 million by train. By 2009, the figure had risen to 35.6 million by coach or train. In January 2016, during the European migrant crisis, Sweden was granted a temporary exemption from the Schengen Agreement in order to mandate that all travellers across the bridge had photographic proof of identity. A fine of SEK 50,000 would be the punishment for travel companies serving travellers without such identity documents; the move marked a break with 60 years of passpor
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and most populous city of Denmark. As of July 2018, the city has a population of 777,218, it forms the core of the wider urban area of the Copenhagen metropolitan area. Copenhagen is situated on the eastern coast of the island of Zealand; the Øresund Bridge connects the two cities by road. A Viking fishing village established in the 10th century in the vicinity of what is now Gammel Strand, Copenhagen became the capital of Denmark in the early 15th century. Beginning in the 17th century it consolidated its position as a regional centre of power with its institutions and armed forces. After suffering from the effects of plague and fire in the 18th century, the city underwent a period of redevelopment; this included construction of the prestigious district of Frederiksstaden and founding of such cultural institutions as the Royal Theatre and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. After further disasters in the early 19th century when Horatio Nelson attacked the Dano-Norwegian fleet and bombarded the city, rebuilding during the Danish Golden Age brought a Neoclassical look to Copenhagen's architecture.
Following the Second World War, the Finger Plan fostered the development of housing and businesses along the five urban railway routes stretching out from the city centre. Since the turn of the 21st century, Copenhagen has seen strong urban and cultural development, facilitated by investment in its institutions and infrastructure; the city is the cultural and governmental centre of Denmark. Copenhagen's economy has seen rapid developments in the service sector through initiatives in information technology and clean technology. Since the completion of the Øresund Bridge, Copenhagen has become integrated with the Swedish province of Scania and its largest city, Malmö, forming the Øresund Region. With a number of bridges connecting the various districts, the cityscape is characterised by parks and waterfronts. Copenhagen's landmarks such as Tivoli Gardens, The Little Mermaid statue, the Amalienborg and Christiansborg palaces, Rosenborg Castle Gardens, Frederik's Church, many museums and nightclubs are significant tourist attractions.
The largest lake of Denmark, Arresø, lies around 27 miles northwest of the City Hall Square. Copenhagen is home to the University of Copenhagen, the Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen Business School and the IT University of Copenhagen; the University of Copenhagen, founded in 1479, is the oldest university in Denmark. Copenhagen is home to the FC Brøndby football clubs; the annual Copenhagen Marathon was established in 1980. Copenhagen is one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world; the Copenhagen Metro launched in 2002 serves central Copenhagen while the Copenhagen S-train, the Lokaltog and the Coast Line network serves and connects central Copenhagen to outlying boroughs. To relieve traffic congestion, the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link road and rail construction is planned, because the narrow 9-9.5 mile isthmus between Roskilde Fjord and Køge Bugt forms a traffic bottleneck. The Copenhagen-Ringsted Line will relieve traffic congestion in the corridor between Roskilde and Copenhagen.
Serving two million passengers a month, Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup, is the busiest airport in the Nordic countries. Copenhagen's name reflects its origin as a place of commerce; the original designation in Old Norse, from which Danish descends, was Kaupmannahǫfn, meaning "merchants' harbour". By the time Old Danish was spoken, the capital was called Køpmannæhafn, with the current name deriving from centuries of subsequent regular sound change. An exact English equivalent would be "chapman's haven". However, the English term for the city was adapted from Kopenhagen. Although the earliest historical records of Copenhagen are from the end of the 12th century, recent archaeological finds in connection with work on the city's metropolitan rail system revealed the remains of a large merchant's mansion near today's Kongens Nytorv from c. 1020. Excavations in Pilestræde have led to the discovery of a well from the late 12th century; the remains of an ancient church, with graves dating to the 11th century, have been unearthed near where Strøget meets Rådhuspladsen.
These finds indicate. Substantial discoveries of flint tools in the area provide evidence of human settlements dating to the Stone Age. Many historians believe the town dates to the late Viking Age, was founded by Sweyn I Forkbeard; the natural harbour and good herring stocks seem to have attracted fishermen and merchants to the area on a seasonal basis from the 11th century and more permanently in the 13th century. The first habitations were centred on Gammel Strand in the 11thcentury or earlier; the earliest written mention of the town was in the 12th century when Saxo Grammaticus in Gesta Danorum referred to it as Portus
Tilting train
A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force; this can cause packages to slide about or seated passengers to feel squashed by the outboard armrest, standing passengers to lose their balance. Tilting trains are designed to counteract this; the train may be constructed such that inertial forces cause the tilting, or it may have a computer-controlled powered mechanism. The first passive tilting car design was built in the US in 1937, an improved version was built in 1939; the opening of WWII ended development. Talgo introduced a version based on their articulated bogie design in 1950s, this concept saw use on a number of commercial services. Among these was the UAC TurboTrain, the first tilting train to enter commercial service in 1968 in the USA and Canada. Parallel experiments in Japan and Italy through the 591 Series and the Fiat Y 0160, developed into the successful 381 series which began services in 1973 and is still in service today.
All of these had problems with short curves like those in switchyards, where they tended to sway about. Because of the way the carriages always swung outward, they placed more weight on the outside of the curve, which limited their improvement in corner speed to about 20%. Starting in the late 1960s, British Rail began experiments with their Advanced Passenger Train which pioneered the active-tilt concept; this used hydraulic rams on the bottoms of the carriages to tilt them, rotating them around their center point rather than swinging outward. This had the advantage of keeping the carriage centred over the bogies, which reduced load on the rails, could be turned off when navigating switches. Due to lengthy delays, the APT did not begin test runs until 1981 and entered commercial service only in 1985. By this time, the Canadian LRC design had become the first active tilting train to enter full commercial service, starting with Via Rail in 1981. Fiat developed their Pendolino design into the most successful type of tilting train, with over 500 trains active in Europe.
The concept of active tilt as a whole has been independently developed by many companies. Active tilting systems are used today. Aeroplanes and bicycles tilt inwards when cornering, but automobiles and trains cannot do this on their own. Vehicles with high centres of gravity rounding sharp curves at high speeds may topple over. To make their turns easier, the outer edge of a roadway of a high-speed highway or outer rail of a railway may be canted upward around the curve; the combination of tilt and centrifugal force combines to produce an effective acceleration, down through the floor, reducing or eliminating any sideways component. The particular angle of tilt is determined by the intended vehicle speed — higher speeds require more banking, but with a growing desire in the 1960s and 1970s to build high-speed rail networks, a problem arose: the amount of tilt appropriate for high-speed trains would be over-tilted for lower-speed local passenger and freight trains sharing the lines. Japan's early bullet train efforts of the 1960s avoided this problem by laying all-new lines as part of a re-gauging effort, France's TGV followed the same pattern.
Other operators did not have this luxury and were limited to much lower speeds. Spain's national railway RENFE took a domestic invention, the Talgo, developed it into a reliable high-speed train for a low-traffic-density railway. British Railways invested in tilting-train technology to overcome the limitations of a rail network located in space-constrained built-up areas. Italy's Trenitalia has used tilting technology to speed trains through mountainous terrain. Tilting trains are meant to help reduce the effects of centrifugal force on the human body, but they can still cause nausea, a problem, seen on early "passive" tilting trains that balanced the outward force; the effect could be felt under maximum speed and tilt, when the combination of tilting outside view and lack of corresponding sideways force can be disconcerting to passengers, like that of a "thrill ride". More limited and slower tilt could be achieved using ` forced', tilting mechanisms. In trains adopting these mechanisms tilt is initiated by computers, which'force' train bodies to tilt at specific angles based on track information.
This information could be stored on board or detected using a sensor at the front of the train or using Automatic train stop beacons. The slight delay in reacting to this information leads to a short period of sideways force while the cars react, it was found that when the cars tilt just at the beginning of the curves instead of while they are making the turns, there was no motion sickness. Researchers have found that if the tilting motion is reduced to compensate for 80% or less of lateral apparent force passengers feel more secure. Motion sickness on tilting trains can be eliminated by adjusting the timing of when the cars tilt as they enter and leave the curves. A similar technology adopted across Asia and Oceania, known as controlled passive tilt, achieves a similar effect by using on-board computers to limit tilt, initiated using inertia. Automatic train stop beacons are used to inform computers of the precise location of these trains and limit natural tilt to angles specified by track data.
A high-speed tilting train is
Helsingborg
Helsingborg is a town and the seat of Helsingborg Municipality, Sweden. It had 108,334 inhabitants in 2017. Helsingborg is the centre of the northern part of western Scania. There is no formal metropolitan area, but the municipality of Helsingborg City and its neighbouring five municipalities had in spring of 2013 a population of 269 489 inhabitants at an area of 1,353 square kilometres, a population density of 200 people/km2; this makes Helsingborg the fourth largest population area in Sweden. The city is Sweden's closest point to Denmark, with the Danish city Helsingør visible on the other side of the Øresund about 4 km to the west, closer than to the city's own remoter areas. If including all population around the northern part of Øresund, as a Helsingborg-Helsingør metropolitan area, its population increases to 732 450 at an area of 2,802 square kilometres; the busy ferry route known as the HH Ferry route has through history been operated by several shipping lines. As of 2014 more than 70 car ferries departures from each harbour every day.
Following the Swedish orthography reform of 1906 many place names in Sweden got a modernized spelling. In 1912 it was decided to use the form Hälsingborg. In preparation for the local government reform. In 1971 the Hälsingborg city council proposed that the new, enlarged municipality should be spelled with an "e"; this was the decision of the Government of Sweden, effective from 1 January 1971. Historic Helsingborg, with its many old buildings, is a scenic coastal city; the buildings are a blend of old-style stone-built churches and a 600-year-old medieval fortress in the city centre, more modern commercial buildings. The streets vary from wide avenues to small alley-ways. Kullagatan, the main pedestrian shopping street in the city, was the first pedestrian shopping street in Sweden. Helsingborg is one of the oldest cities of, it has been the site of permanent settlement since 21 May 1085. Helsingborg's geographical position at the narrowest part of Øresund made it important for Denmark, at that time controlling both sides of that strait.
From 1429 Eric of Pomerania introduced the Øresundstolden, a levy on all trading vessels passing through the sound between Elsinore and Helsingborg. This was one of the main sources of income for the Danish Crown. Crossing traffic, like fishermen, were not subject to the tax, directed against the Hanseatic League; the Sound Dues helped Helsingør to flourish, some of it spilled over to Helsingborg. The northern narrow inlet to Øresund with its high coastlines made an impression on many mariners, when Kronborg was rebuilt from a fortress to a palace during the Renaissance, the area became famous. Evidence of this is William Shakespeare's Hamlet; the era of the Renaissance helped the Kingdom of Denmark, but towards the middle of the 17th century, the situation worsened. Following the Dano-Swedish War and the Treaty of Roskilde Denmark had to give up all territory on the southern Scandinavian peninsula, Helsingborg became subject to new rulers. King Charles X Gustav of Sweden landed here on 5 March 1658 to take personal possession of the Scanian lands and was met by a delegation led by the bishop of the Diocese of Lund, Peder Winstrup.
At that time the town had a population of 1,000 people. He soon attempted to erase Denmark from the map, by attacking Copenhagen but failed, died in Gothenburg soon afterwards. Not much changed for some 15 years, but when Charles XI was declared of age, the new king was unsatisfied with his former rulers, its situation on a conflict-ridden border caused problems for Helsingborg. Denmark could not hold it; the last Danish attempt to regain Scania was in 1710, when 14,000 men landed on the shores near Helsingborg. The Battle of Helsingborg was fought on the 28th of February just outside the city, badly affected, it took a long time to recover. On 20 October 1811 Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France and crown prince-elect of Sweden took his first step on Swedish soil in Helsingborg on his journey from Paris to Stockholm. In World War II, Helsingborg was among the most important drop-off points for the rescue of Denmark's Jewish population during the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler had ordered that all Danish Jews were to be arrested and deported to the concentration camps on Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year which fell on October 2, 1943.
When Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German maritime attaché received word of the order on September 28, 1943, he shared it with political and Jewish community leaders. Using the name Elsinore Sewing Club as a cover for messages, the Danish population formed an underground railroad of sorts, moving Jews away from the watched Copenhagen docks to spots farther away Helsingør, just two miles across the Øresund from Helsingborg. Hundreds of civilians hid their fellow Danish citizens -- Jews -- in their houses, farm lofts and churches until they could board them onto Danish fishing boats, personal pleasure boats and ferry boats. In the span of three nights, Danes had smuggled over 7200 Jews and 680 non-Jews across the Øresund, to safety in Sweden, with one of the main destinations at Helsingborg. From the
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