June 6 is Sweden’s National Day. The date signifies the coronation of King Gustav Vasa, the founder of “modern Sweden” on June 6, 1523. Yep, the name of that ship in the museum, built and sunk a hundred years later. Before 2005 Sweden, for some reason, did not have a National Day, but we did celebrate a Swedish Flag Day on that same date.
And now Sweden officially celebrates 500 years as a nation. But the country is arguably much older than that. The area has been populated (albeit sparsely) since 12,000 BC. Many would claim that the Kingdom of Sweden was established around year 800, i.e. in early Viking age, but for much of the following 1,000 years years relations between neighbouring countries were often ... complicated.
At the height of “the Swedish Empire” (1611-1718) the Kingdom exercised great territorial control of present Finland, the Baltic region and small coastal parts of northern Germany. Conversely, for long periods of time, parts of today’s Sweden was ruled by Danish kings. A couple of bold/bat crazy Swedish warrior kings attempted to beat Russia, too but... You win some, lose some, right?
Since 1995 Sweden is a full member state of the European Union, effectively abandoning the principle of political neutrality. And in May 2022 we applied for NATO membership.
