Timeline of Swedish history

This is a timeline of Swedish history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in Sweden and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of Sweden. See also the list of Swedish monarchs and list of Prime Ministers of Sweden.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

1st century

YearDateEvent
98The tribe of the Swedes (Suiones) is first mentioned by Tacitus in his Germania.

2nd century

YearDateEvent
100The Iron Age settlement at Uppåkra is founded.

6th century

YearDateEvent
530The possibly legendary Battle on the Ice of Lake Vänern is supposed to have taken place.

8th century

YearDateEvent
750-790The trade center Birka is established on Lake Mälaren, near present-day Stockholm.

9th century

YearDateEvent
800The Rök Runestone is carved.
829The monk Ansgar makes the first campaign to introduce Christianity to Sweden.

10th century

YearDateEvent
960Birka is abandoned.
980The city of Sigtuna is founded.
990The city of Lund is founded.
984The Battle of Fýrisvellir takes place near Uppsala.

11th century

YearDateEvent
1000Gothi Þorgeirr Ljósvetningagoði endorses the adoption of Christianity.
1004King Olof Skötkonung is baptized and makes Christianity the official religion of Sweden.
1036Ingvar the Far-Travelled leads an unsuccessful viking attack against Persia.
1085The city of Helsingborg is founded.
1087The Temple at Uppsala, the central place of worship within Ancient Norse paganism, is destroyed at the order of King Inge the Elder.

12th century

YearDateEvent
1187Estonians invade and burn down Sigtuna.
The city of Nyköping is founded.

13th century

YearDateEvent
1208The Battle of Lena takes place.
1240The Battle of the Neva takes place.
1252The city of Stockholm is founded.
1280The Ordinance of Alsnö gives birth to the frälse, a class of tax-exempt secular nobility, in Sweden.

14th century

YearDateEvent
1306The conflict known as the Håtuna games takes place.
1310The Treaty of Helsingborg is signed, establishing peace between Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
1317The Nyköping Banquet takes place, following which King Birger imprisons his two brothers and starves them to death.
1319Sweden and Norway are first united.
1323The Treaty of Nöteborg is signed, establishing peace between Sweden and the Novgorod Republic.
1344The Bridgettine Order is founded by St. Bridget (Heliga Birgitta).
1350The Black Death arrives in Sweden.
1359King Magnus IV of Sweden summons the first Swedish Riksdag.
1389February 24The Battle of Åsle takes place.
1397Sweden, Denmark and Norway unite into the Kalmar Union.
1398Gotland is conquered by Teutonic Knights.

15th century

YearDateEvent
1409The Teutonic Order sells Gotland to the Kalmar Union.
1434The Engelbrekt rebellion, led by Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson against King Erik of Pomerania, begins.
1436Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson is assassinated.
1471The Battle of Brunkeberg takes place.
1477Uppsala University is founded.
1495The Russo-Swedish War (1495-1497) begins.
1497The Russo-Swedish War ends.

16th century

YearDateEvent
1520The Stockholm bloodbath occurs at the order of Christian II of Denmark.
1523Gustav Vasa liberates Stockholm, reasserting Sweden's independence from Denmark-Norway and initiating the monarchical rule of the House of Vasa.
1524The Treaty of Malmö is signed. Denmark-Norway recognizes the independence of Sweden, while in return Sweden renounces its claims to Scania and Blekinge.
1526The first Swedish translation of the New Testament is published.
1529The Westrogothian Rebellion takes place.
1531The Third Dalecarlian Rebellion, also knows as the Bell Rebellion (Klockupproret) begins, and is suppressed two years later.
1535War with Lübeck leads to the expulsion of the Hanseatic traders, who previously had a monopoly on foreign trade.
1540The first full Swedish translation of the Bible, the Gustav Vasa Bible, is published.
1542Nils Dacke starts a peasant uprising in Småland, which is defeated the following year.
1554Border skirmishes between Sweden and Russia lead to the outbreak of the Russo-Swedish War (1554-1557).
1555A Description of the Northern Peoples (Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus) by Olaus Magnus is published.
1561Estonia becomes a Swedish dominion.
1567The Sture Murders take place at the order of King Eric XIV.
1577February 26Eric XIV dies in imprisonment, most likely murdered.
1584The city of Karlstad is founded.
1592Poland and Sweden enter into a short-lived personal union following the crowning of Sigismund III Vasa as King of Sweden.
1598 A conflict between Duke Charles, later King Charles IX, and Sigismund, King of Sweden and Poland, leads to the outbreak of the War against Sigismund.
September 25The Battle of Stångebro takes place.
1599The War against Sigismund ends, resulting in the deposition of King Sigismund.

17th century

YearDateEvent
1600March 20The Linköping Bloodbath takes place.
1610The Ingrian War between Russia and Sweden begins.
1611Denmark declares war on Sweden, initiating the Kalmar War.
1613The Treaty of Knäred is signed, ending the Kalmar War. Sweden is obligated to pay a ransom of one million thaler for the return of the fortress of Älvsborg.
1614The city of Kristianstad is founded.
1617February 27The Treaty of Stolbovo is signed, ending the Ingrian War. Russia cedes the province and fortress of Kexholm, southwestern Karelia and the province of Ingria to Sweden, laying the foundation for Sweden's rise as a Great Power.
1621The city of Gothenburg is founded.
1628August 10The sinking of the Swedish warship Vasa.
1630Sweden enters the Thirty Years' War.
1631 April 13 The Battle of Frankfurt an der Oder takes place.
September 7The Battle of Breitenfeld takes place.
1632November 6The Battle of Lützen takes place. King Gustav II Adolf is killed in battle.
1638The colony of New Sweden is established along the Delaware River in North America.
1648The Thirty Years' War ends, with Sweden among the winners. The Peace of Westphalia grants Sweden the provinces of Western Pomerania, Wismar, and the bishoprics of Bremen-Verden.
1650The colony of the Swedish Gold Coast is established on the Gulf of Guinea in present-day Ghana.
1654Queen Christina abdicates her throne and converts to Roman Catholicism, creating a major scandal.
1658February 26Treaty of Roskilde. Denmark-Norway cedes the provinces of Blekinge, Bornholm, Bohuslän, Scania, Trøndelag and Halland to Sweden.
1663The colony of the Swedish Gold Coast is seized by Denmark, and integrated in the Danish Gold Coast.
1666Lund University is founded.
1668The Swedish National Bank (Sveriges Riksbank) is founded.
1674December 24Sweden invades Brandenburg, triggering the Swedish-Brandenburg War.
1675Denmark invades Scania, triggering the Scanian War.
1676 June 1 The Battle of Öland takes place.
August 17 The Battle of Halmstad takes place.
December 4The Battle of Lund takes place.
1677 June 26 The Siege of Malmö takes place.
July 14The Battle of Landskrona takes place.
1678The Invasion of Rügen takes place.
1679August 23The Treaty of Fontainebleau is signed, restoring all Danish conquests during the Scanian War to Sweden.
1680The city of Karlskrona is founded.
The Great Reduction of 1680 is enacted, returning to the Swedish Crown lands that had earlier been granted to the nobility.
1697May 7The castle of Tre Kronor burns down, destroying a significant portion of Sweden's national library and royal archives.

18th century

YearDateEvent
1700An alliance consisting of Denmark-Norway, Saxony, Poland and Russia declares war on Sweden, initiating the Great Northern War.
The Battle of Narva takes place.
1702July 8The Battle of Kliszów takes place.
1706October 13The Treaty of Altranstädt is signed, following Sweden's victorious invasion of Poland. King Augustus the Strong is forced to renounce his claims to the Polish throne and his alliance with Russia.
1708January 1Charles XII crosses the Vistula, initiating the Swedish invasion of Russia.
1709June 27The Battle of Poltava takes place. The Swedish army under Charles XII is destroyed by the Russian forces of Peter the Great, marking the beginning of Sweden's decline as a Great Power.
1710February 28The Battle of Helsingborg takes place. Denmark's last attempt to regain Scania fails.
1713February 1The Skirmish at Bender, a battle to remove Charles XII and the remnants of his army from the Ottoman Empire, takes place.
1718November 30Charles XII is killed at Frederikshald.
1719The Treaties of Stockholm are signed, requiring Sweden to cede parts of Swedish Pomerania to Prussia and Bremen-Verden to Hanover.
1720The Treaty of Frederiksborg is signed, requiring Sweden to cede Schleswig to Denmark-Norway.
1721The Treaty of Nystad is signed, requiring Sweden to cede Estonia, Livonia and Ingria to Russia.
1731The Swedish East India Company is founded.
1732Carl Linnaeus departs on his Expedition to Lapland.
1735The first edition of Carl Linnaeus' Systema Naturae is published.
1739June 2The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is founded.
1741August 23The Battle of Villmanstrand takes place.
1742Anders Celsius proposes the Celsius temperature scale.
1743The Fourth Dalecarlian Rebellion breaks out.
1756An attempted coup d'état by Queen Louisa Ulrika and a few devoted nobles to reinstate absolute monarchy in Sweden is exposed and subdued.
1757Sweden enters the Seven Years' War.
1762May 22The Treaty of Hamburg is signed, concluding Sweden's involvement in the Seven Years' War.
1766The Freedom of the Press Act is enacted, abolishing censorship and restricting limitations only to vocal opposition to the king or the Church of Sweden.
1768The December Crisis (1768) fails to increase royal power.
1772Absolute monarchy is reintroduced in Sweden through the Revolution of 1772.
1773 Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovers oxygen.
The Royal Swedish Opera is founded.
1782Sweden purchases the Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy from France.
1786March 20The Swedish Academy is founded.
1788Sweden declares war against Russia, beginning the Russo-Swedish War (1788-90).
1790The Treaty of Värälä is signed, concluding the Russo-Swedish War.
1792March 16King Gustav III is assassinated at a masked ball.

19th century

YearDateEvent
1808The Finnish War breaks out.
1809Sweden cedes Finland to Russia following the Finnish War.
The Coup of 1809 is carried out, resulting in the deposition of King Gustav IV Adolf.
1810Karolinska Institutet is founded.
1814The countries of Sweden and Norway are united.
1832The Göta Canal, providing a route from Gothenburg on the west coast to Söderköping on the east coast, is completed.
1848The series of riots known as Marsoroligheterna take place in Stockholm.
1855Construction of the first railway line in Sweden begins.
1864The daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter is founded.
1867The telecommunications company Ericsson is founded by Lars Magnus Ericsson.
Alfred Nobel invents dynamite.
1873Sweden and Denmark form the Scandinavian Monetary Union.
The krona replaces the riksdaler as the currency of Sweden.
1876The office of prime minister (statsminister) is instituted.
1878The island of Saint Barthélemy is sold back to France.
1884The daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet is founded.
The Fredrika Bremer Association, Sweden's oldest women's rights organization, is founded.
1889The Social Democratic Party is founded.
1897S. A. Andrée's arctic balloon expedition.

20th century

YearDateEvent
1901The first Nobel Prizes are awarded.
1904The Moderate Party (Moderaterna) is founded.
1905The personal union between Sweden and Norway is dissolved.
1906An official spelling reform of the Swedish language is enacted, reforming and simplifying the previous spelling.
1909The Stockholm School of Economics (Handelshögskolan i Stockholm) is founded.
1919AB Svensk Filmindustri is founded.
1921June 30Capital punishment is abolished for all crimes committed in peacetime.
1934Crisis in the Population Question (Kris i befolkningsfrågan) by Alva and Gunnar Myrdal is published, and plays a major role in the design of Sweden's welfare policy.
1938The Saltsjöbaden Agreement, establishing rules for collective bargaining and trade relations, is signed.
1943The food packaging company Tetra Pak is founded by Ruben Rausing.
1945January 17Raoul Wallenberg is detained by Soviet authorities in Budapest and subsequently disappears.
1947The furniture company IKEA is founded by Ingvar Kamprad.
1954October 29Sweden conducts its first television broadcast.
1967September 3Right-hand traffic is introduced in Sweden.
1971The Riksdag becomes unicameral.
1973The Norrmalmstorg bank robbery and hostage crisis takes place.
1981October 3 Zlatan Ibrahimovic (the greatest swedish footballer to ever play for sweden) was born.
1986February 28Prime Minister and Social Democratic leader Olof Palme is murdered.
1994The MS Estonia disaster occurs en route from Tallinn to Stockholm. 852 people on board are killed.
1995Sweden becomes a member of the European Union.
1999The Church of Sweden is separated from the state and becomes an independent organization.

21st century

YearDateEvent
2000July 1The Øresund Bridge is opened, creating a road and railway connection between Sweden and mainland Europe.
2003Voters decide not to adopt the Euro as the country's official currency.
2009May 1Same-sex marriage is legalized in Sweden.
2010Military conscription is abolished in Sweden.

See also

Cities in Sweden

References

    Further reading

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