The Scandinavian 78

The Scandinavian 78

[image: Jormungandr biting his tail]

I.                   The Viking Epoch & earlier

“Tollund man”  (died circa 400 B.C.) 

Tolland man’s only known achievement was to become the most perfectly mummified human being from ancient Scandinavia.  But everyone on this list, or any list like it, is on it partially due to luck.  Lucky to be born with a Titanic intelligence (like Bohrs), or heir to a throne (like Gustavus Adolphus), or in whatever circumstances that permitted them to make a mark on history. 

All that’s left of Tollund man now is his head, yet like Mimir, he has continued to instructed us. 

Tolland Man was probably executed, perhaps sacrificed to the gods. 

(Nod to “Haraldskaer woman” & the various other famous peat bog people of Jutland. )       

For tens of thousands of years, Scandinavia lay under mountains of ice.  Only 15,000 years ago did it begin to retreat, a process that took 6,000 years.  The earth, according to Nordic myth, was created from the body of the Frost Giant, Ymir.

The peopling of Scandinavia...   

[Tolland man’s head]

Turgeis  (died 839)  Norwegian invader of Ireland, “declared himself, as the annals relate, ‘King of all foreigners in Erin’.  He was an active soldier and a confirmed pagan.  He founded Dublin and tried to replace Christianity by the worship of Thor; in Armagh, the holy of holies of Christian Ireland, he officiated as pagan high priest.”  (Bronsted 57)  The Irish captured and drowned Turgeis in Lough Owel. 

Chapter on the Norse invasions of Ireland. 

“If a hundred heads of hardened iron could grow on one neck, and if each head possessed a hundred sharp indestructible tongues of tempered metal, and if each tongue cried out incessantly with a hundred ineradicable loud voices, they would never be able to enumerate the griefs which the people of Ireland –men and women, laymen and priests, young and old—have suffered at the hands of these warlike, ruthless, pagans.”

901  The Irish conquer Dublin.  The Norwegians strike back at the battles of Confey (916) and Climashogue (919) inflicting “gruesome massacres” on the natives to begin the second century of rule over the greater part of Ireland.

Ivar:  Norse dynasty in Ireland.

According to Irish chronicler, the real Norse influence in Ireland dates from the reign of Olaf Cuaran. 

980—Norse defeated by Irish at Tara by Brian Boroimhe.  Olaf Cuaran retires to become a monk.      

Turgeis will get knocked off the 78 only in favor of a Viking who still better epitomizes the abhorrent Norse invasion of Ireland. 

Rurik  (c. 830-879)  founded ruling dynasty of Russia.  Chapter on eastern expansionism of Sweden.

Kingdom of Uppsala – Rus Khaganate

Novgorod, Kiev

“Swedish journeys were undertaken in search not of plunder but of new markets.”   In contrast the Norwegians and Danes who were out for plunder.

Varangians: Swedish ruling class in Russia.

Ibn Rustah—Arab observations of Viking culture.

St. Valdemar   

Rognvaldsson, Hrolf  (c. 870-932)  “Rollo”  “Robert I” founded Normandy.  Sources vary as to whether a Dane or Norwegian; his army, at any rate, was mixed but mostly Danish.  Probably the de facto ruler already before the Frankish King, Charles the Simple, made it official, elevating Rollo to the status of a Duke, on the conditions that he protect Normandy from further Viking attacks, and convert to Christianity (baptized at St. Clair-Sur-Epte, CE 912).  Makes good on his promises.  Few Viking raids into Frankish territory after this time.  “Normandy sprang up as a Scandinavian colony on the banks of the lower Seine...just across the channel lay the tempting and prosperous south of England.”  (JB)      

Egil Skalagrimsson  (c. 910-990)  Icelandic warrior, skald

He suffered a bone deforming disorder that resulted in a large, malformed head.  He wrote his first poem at 3, committed his first murder at 7, splitting another boy’s skull with an axe.  The pattern for Egill Skalagrimsson’s long life was set early.

He won the lifelong enmity of Erik Bloodaxe and Queen Gunnhild of Norway by killing several of their kin, including her brothers and their son.  Fled Norway an outlaw, cursing Erik and Gunnhild with a Nithing pole (the severed head of a horse mounted on a pole).

Shipwrecked in Northumbria, Egill came into the power of his rivals, was condemned to death, but supposedly saved himself by composing a poem in praise of King Eric.    

How much of this is true?

Egill considered the finest poet of ancient Scandinavia, his Sonatorrrek, a dirge for his son, “the birth of Nordic lyric poetry.”  He was also a runic scholar.  Snorri boasted descent from him. 

Gunnhild Gormsdottir  (c. 910-980)  Danish queen of Norway, Orkney, Northumbria: “Mother of Kings.”  Wife of Erik Bloodaxe, king of the same.  Daughter of King Gorm the Old and Queen Thryri, “Denmark’s restorer.”   Gunnhild is depicted, negatively, in several Norse sagas; her historicity is disputed.  She is commonly held to have been a witch, though this may be slander of hostile Icelandic skalds. 

Her son Harald Greycloak is a violent Christian fanatic.  Suppressed pagan rites by force, killed by earl Hakon with assistance from Harald Bluetooth. 

Harald Bluetooth  (10^th century)  King of Denmark and Norway, brother of Gunhild, son of Gorm and Thyri. 

Baptized a Christian about 960 under pressure of German king Otto I.  Incited by his deposed sister, Gunnhild, Harald takes up arms vs. Norway, now ruled by her former brother in law, Hakon (brother and successor to Erik Bloodaxe).  Hakon the Good... drives out the invaders, counterattacks by invading Jutland and Skane, seized Zealand.  After this, the tide turns in Bluetooth’s favor, he drives the Norwegians out of Denmark, reinvades Norway, kills Hakon at the battle of Hordaland, shortly after 960 becoming king of both countries. 

Jelling stones*  “Harald who won all Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christians.”

Afterwards kills Harald Greycloak, son of Erik Bloodaxe, who’d ruled Norway briefly.  Cedes dominion of northern and western Norway to his ally, Earl Hakon, under Bluetooth’s suzerainty, while Bluetooth himself ruled southern Norway directly. 

974  Otto II retaliates for Danish attacks on Holstein by successfully attacking the Danevirke and Hedeby.  In the aftermath of the disaster, Bluetooth and Earl

Hakon fall out, Hakon assumes independence from his rule.  Bluetooth ousted from power by his own son, Swein Forkbeard (a pagan).  Dies in exile in a stronghold on the Baltic about 986, “wrongfully wounded and banished for the   name sake of Christ,” according to Adam of Bremen.   

[The Jelling Stones]

Addendum: Bluetooth software.  The odd legacy of his name

Thorvaldson, Erik  (c. 950-1003)  also known as Erik the Red, founded Norse colony in Greenland.  “It is easier to be wise after the event.”

Ericson, Leif  (c. 970-1020)        founded Norse colony in Newfoundland.  (Nod to Bjarne Herjulfsson, who sighted the coast earlier, without landing there.)

Consider folding Erik into Leif.

Sigrid the Haughty  Pagan queen of Denmark, Norway and England.

According to Heimskringla, Sigrid refuses to marry Olaf Tryggvason or become a Christian: “I will not part from the faith which my forefathers kept before me.”  Stung by this double rejection, Olaf struck her with a glove, whereupon Sigrid informed him: “This may some day be thy death.”  She creates a coalition of enemies to ensure Olaf’s downfall, marrying his enemy, the widower Sweyn Forkbeard, sending her sister Tyri to marry the king of the Wends.  Tyri however flees and marries Olaf instead. 

Karen Blixen—7 Gothic tales

Olaf Tryggvasson  (d. 1000)  King of Norway.

Christianized in England, takes as his pretext to conquer and convert his native land. 

Built first church in Norway, founded Trondheim.  His warship, the Long Dragon, biggest yet seen in the north.  Killed by drowning at the naval battle of Svolder, against the forces of his former accomplice, Swein Forkbeard.  According to legend survived to live out the rest of his days a monk.  (Christianization of Norway, St. Olaf)

The battle of Svolder is the first certain date in Norwegian history.

The Christianizing of Norway, culminating in St. Olaf.     

Gudrid the Far Traveler  (11^th c.)  seafarer, explorer.  “Gudrid traveled from Canada to Rome.  She crossed the North Atlantic eight times.”  (Brown 7)

Sweyn Forkbeard  (c. 960-1014)  king of Denmark, England, Norway.  Son of King Harald Bluetooth, whom he deposed.  “a powerful and ambitious ruler.”  Pagan, but politically tolerant of Christianity.  Secures the southern border versus the Germans, attacks Norway unsuccessfully.  Earl Hakon (his father’s former ally) defeats his forces at decisively sea battle of Hjorungavag about 990.  May have fought additional war against King Eric the Victorious of Sweden.  At some point in his career Swein was captured by Slavs and ransomed at great cost.  Late 10^th century, he turns his attention to England. 

994 Forkbeard arrives in the Thames with his ally, the Norwegian Olaf Tryggvason; together they have about 100 longships and 2,000 men.  They were repelled from London’s walls, and had to make due with pillaging the southern English countryside.  Eventually, withdraw in exchange for 16 thousand pounds of silver. 

“the Vikings sailed from place to place and sold local peace for cash payments.”

Vikings were horrible people.

1002 Aethelred the Unready orders the massacre of all the Danes in England.  Gunhild, Sweyn’s sister, is among the victims.  Sweyn overruns England, Aethelred flees to Normandy. 

Sweyn passes on the crown to his son, Canute.

Canute the Great  King of Scandinavia & England.

“The Empire of Canute, a union of freemen, disappeared, but its shade still seems to linger.  At any rate we [the English] and the Scandinavians once belonged to it—and not the Empire of Charlemagne.”  (Trevelyan 5)

Harald Hardrada (d. 1066)  The last viking 

II. Medieval to early modern

Sturluson, Snorri  (1179-1241)  Icelandic historian, poet, wrote Prose Edda

Heimskringla “King’s Chronicle”

Gesta Danorum “Feats of the Danes”  Saxo Gramaticus.  “Danish monarchs are portrayed as men of heroic stature in the Roman model in order to enhance their status in the eyes of all Europe.”

Saint Birgitta  (1303-73)  Catholic saint

“in her widowhood she believed that God had called her to be sponsa mea et canale meum.”  Given to visionary ecstasies.  Walked through plague stricken Europe, to Rome in the jubilee year of 1350, to call upon the Pope to return from Avingon.  Founds the Birgittines, branch of the Augustinian order.  Dies after pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  A daughter is a godmother of...

Margreta  (1353-1412)  Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, founded Kalmar Union.   

Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson  (1390s -1436)  Swedish rebel, statesman: “awakening of Swedish national consciousness”

Dacke, Nils  (16^th century)  Swedish revolutionary, led the “Dacke Revolution”: the greatest popular revolt in Swedish history.  “Dacke had a majority of the Smaland population behind him, as well as a large part of the population of Ostergotland, and the struggle lasted for more than a year.  Not until Gustav Vasa had mobilized all the nobility’s men-at-arms throughout the entire kingdom, called in Danish auxiliaries and recruited 6,000 men in Germany, was he finally victorious.  So I should like to ask: Which side were the true nationalists?” (Moberg 219-20)  Four hundred years after his death, Nils Dacke was still causing controversy.  One suspects that this would have pleased him. 

Gustav Vasa  (1496-1560)  Swedish king, broke with Roman Catholicism, founded Vasa dynasty

Tycho Brahe  (1546-1601)  Swedish astronomer.   

Christian IV of Denmark  (1577-1648)  Involved Denmark in the Thirty Years War, partially out of religious considerations, partially to further his own territorial ambitions in Germany.  Failed spectacularly, then saw mainland Denmark overrun and despoiled by Wallenstein in retaliation.  Lost an eye in battle, as a good Scandinavian king should.

If I lose Christian IV, I lose the line about the eye.  But that fact doesn’t make him one of the 78 most influential Scandinavians.   

Bureus, Johannes  (17^th century)  Swedish Runic scholar, writer, “Rosicrucian”

Gustavus Adolphus  (1594-1632)  Swedish monarch, military genius.   

Queen Christina Alexandra  (1626-1689) Swedish queen, eccentric, a flamboyant adventuress who abdicated.

Oxenstierna, Axel  (1583-1654)  Swedish statesman, regent, general.  Ruled Sweden during the minority of queen Christiana, negotiated in the peace of Westphalia.

Chapter also covers Sweden’s involvement in the 30 Years war after the death of Gustavus Adolphus, the exploits of her other famous generals (Wrangle, etc.) –and on the Peace of Westphalia and what it means in European and world history.      

Charles XII  (1682-1718)  Swedish monarch, military genius.  Defeated by Peter the Great of Russia.  Exile in Turkey, showed up in Sweden long after being presumed dead.  Killed in battle against Norwegian rebels.

Buxtehude, Dietrich  (c. 1637-1707)  Danish German organist and composer, his organ works “a central part of the standard organ repertoire...”  His style profoundly influenced Bach. 

II.                 18^th century     

Swedenborg, Emmanuel  (1688-1772)  Swedish philosopher, scientist, mystic.  “The reason we are united in spirit to both Heaven and Hell is to keep us in freedom.”

Holberg, Ludvig  (18^th century?)  Norwegian playwright, historian, satirist, philosopher, the “Scandinavian Voltaire”

“Before 1722 there was no Scandinavian theater; in that year Ludvig Holberg’s first play was produced and Scandinavia soon boasted a major playwright whose comic genius could be compared with that of Moliere.”  (Sprinchorn)

Celsius, Anders  (1701-1744)  Swedish astronomer, Celsius temperature scale

Linnaeus, Carl  (1707-1778)  Swedish botanist, physician, zoologist, father of modern taxonomy.  Father of modern ecology.  “Linnaeus was the first person to place humans in a system of biological classification.”  Places Homo Sapiens among the primates in the first edition of Systema Naturae.

Rousseau on Linnaeus:  “There is no greater man on earth.”

Goethe:  “With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who influenced me more strongly.”

Strindberg:  “Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist.”

Orsted, Hans Christian  (1777-1851)  Danish physicist & chemist, “clarified the relationship between magnetism and electricity”

Discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields, important aspect of electromagnetism.  Founded academy “to disseminate knowledge of the natural sciences.”  “First modern thinker to explicitly describe and name the thought experiment.” 

Also a writer and poet.  “The Airship” poetry inspired by balloon flights.  “The Soul of Nature,” a collection of articles expressing his philosophy of life. 

Berzelius, J.J  (1779-1848)  Swedish chemist, fixed atomic weights, devised modern system of chemical notation.

One of the founding fathers of modern chemistry.  1828 “compiled a table of relative atomic weights, where oxygen was set to 100, and which included all of the elements known at the time.”  Provided evidence for atomic theory.  Discovered silicon, selenium, thorium & cerium.  Students in his lab discovered lithium and vanadium.  Berzelius originated chemical terms “catalysis” “polymer” “isomer” and “allotrope.”  First to distinguish between organic (carbon) compounds from inorganic.  Coined term “protein”

Berzelius is top 20 material.

III.             19^th century

Bremer, Fredrika  (1801-1865)  Swedish writer, feminist, activist: “Hertha”

Her novels had a “large influence on the social development of Sweden.”  “The Hertha Debate” in the wake of her novel of that title contributed to law and was “a starting point for the real feminist movement in Sweden.”  Helped inspire the creation of the University for Women Teachers, 1861.  Helped build school for deaf & mute in Stockholm. 

Travelled alone to USA 1849-51.  Many works translated into English by poet Mary Howitt.  In Little Women, Mrs. March reads from Bremer to her daughters. 

Anderson, Hans Christian  (1805-1875)  Danish author, folklorist:  “The Little Mermaid,” “Thumbelina,” “The Ugly Duckling,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

Anderson may have been the illegitimate offspring of Danish royalty. 

Friend of Charles Dickens, Uriah Heep said to be modeled on Hans.   

“Danish Golden Age”

Asbjornsen, Peter Christen  (1812-1885)  and  Moe, Jorgen  (1813-1882)  writers, collected Norwegian folktales, collaborated on Norske Folkeeventyr (“Norwegian Folk Tales”), “received at once all over Europe as a most valuable contribution to comparative mythology as well as literature.”

Kierkegaard, Soren  (1813-1855)  Danish philosopher and theologian.  “Father of Existentialism.”     

His father drilled him in Greek, Latin and Lutheranism.  His philosophy evolves in reaction against Hegel’s thought which he encountered at the University of Copenhagen.  At about the age of 22 wrote in a journal of his need to find “the idea for which I can live and die.”

Abandoned his childhood faith and himself to hedonism for a time, before returning still more intensely theological studies.  Breaks off a marriage engagement, withdraws into solitude.  Wrote more than twenty books, a body of work that will be immensely influential to modern thought, before dying at 42.  He would have written with a quill pen.      

Attacked the established Danish Lutheran church: “Pastors are royal officials,” wrote Soren; “royal officials have nothing to do with Christianity.”

Attacked systematic thought, championed radical subjectivity.  Individual existence evades complete conceptualization.

Lind, Jenny  (1820-1887)  Swedish opera singer.  “The Swedish Nightingale”

One of the most highly regarded singers in the 19^th century “known for performances in soprano roles across Europe and for an extraordinarily popular concert tour of American beginning 1850.”  (under P.T. Barnum)

She inspired three stories and unrequited love from her friend Hans Christian Anderson.

“Jenny Lind was probably the most famous and adored personality of the nineteenth century, as noted for her kindness and charities as for her magnificent voice, but few of her admirers knew that behind the brilliant success of her adult years was a childhood of shocking loneliness and neglect.”

Ibsen, Henrik  (1828-1906)  Norwegian playwright, founder of modern drama, poet.  “He found the Western stage empty and impotent and transformed it into a rich and immensely powerful art form, not only in his own country, but throughout the world.”  Peer Gynt.

Ibsen attacked materialism and championed private conscience over societal rules.  Brand controversy.  Ibsen challenged social mores, flouted taboos, explored the unconscious mind, the quest for freedom, assaulted conventional values and insisted on the human right for a chance of self fulfillment.  In his lifetime regarded, with Tolstoy, as one of the world’s two greatest writers. 

“verse is for visions, prose for ideas”

Nobel, Alfred  (1833-1896)  Swedish inventor, invented dynamite, endowed Nobel prize.  “I am a misanthrope and yet utterly benevolent, have more than one screw loose yet am a super idealist who digests philosophy more efficiently than food.”

He was descended from Olaf Rudbeck, writer, scientist, composer, illustrator, the “Leonardo of the North” 

At the age of nine, Alfred Nobel left Sweden for Russia, where his father had found employment as an engineer.  At 17, sent to America to learn to be an inventor.  At 27, made nitroglycerine explode.  At 30 returned to Sweden and received patent for his “method of preparing gunpowder for both blasting and shooting.”  A year later he was injured in an explosion that killed 5 people, including his own brother. 

Suffered from low self-esteem, depression.  He mocked and coveted awards and honors. 

Hansen, G. H. Armauer  (1841-1912)  Norwegian physician, identified the causative agent of leprosy .  His chapter to be a biography of leprosy. 

Grieg, Edvard  (1843-1907)  Norwegian composer and pianist  [nod to Ole Bull]

Strindberg, August  (1849-1912)  Swedish playwright

Larsson, Carl  (1853-1919)  Swedish painter

Arrhenius, Svante  (1859-1927)  Swedish chemist, Nobel prize, first scientist to predict greenhouse effect

Hamson, Knut  (1859-1952)  Norwegian novelist (Nobel).

Sundbeck, Gideon  (1880-1954)  Swedish American inventor of the zipper   

Laxness, Halldor  (1902-1998)  Icelandic novelist, poet: Independent People, The Atom Station, Nobel prize

Jacobsen, Arne  (1901-1971)  Danish architect, designer: “Danish modern”

Nansen, Fridtjof  (1861-1930)  Norwegian polar explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian.   In 1888 he crossed Greenland on skis.  In ’93 he attempted to sail and ski to the North Pole.  He didn’t make it, but got further than anyone before him, recording observations that would prove invaluable to subsequent Arctic explorers.  Appointed professor of oceanography at University of Oslo, “and did excellent work in the organization of this new branch of science.”  (Midgaard, 107) 

“But his greatest achievements were performed in the 1920’s, partly in the service of the League of Nations, partly on his own responsibility.  He organized the repatriation of half a million prisoners of war from Russia and Siberia, the settlement of one and a half million Russian political refugees, and later other refugees.  Thousands of people owe their lives to the ‘Nansen passport.’  Thanks to the relief work he set in hand, millions of lives were saved during the great famine in Russia.  He organized the exchange of two million inhabitants between Greece and Turkey and made efforts for the settlement of the homeless Armenians.  In all this work he showed outstanding skill as an organizer and administrator.”  (ibid 107-108)

Nansen should crack the top ten, easy.     

Munch, Edvard  (1863-1944)  Norwegian expressionist painter “The Scream”

Amundsen, Roald  (1872-1928)  Norwegian polar explorer.  Planted the Norwegian flag on the South Pole in 1911.  “In the nineteenth century the exploration of the land and water surfaces of the globe had the glamour which now attaches to voyages into space.”  (T.K.D. 297)

Fold arctic explorers into Nansen?

Unset, Sigrid  (1882-1949)        Norwegian novelist (Nobel)

Bohr, Niels (1885-1962)  Danish physicist, fundamental contributions to atomic structure, quantum mechanics, Nobel prize, Manhattan Project (though opposed to the decision to drop the a-bomb, and afterwards a prominent proponent of nuclear disarmament).  “It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is.  Physics concerns what we can say about nature.”     Quantum mechanics alters the world before our very eyes.

Born Oct. 7^th Bohr was a Libra, like Thor Heyerdal (6^th) and me. 

Doctrinal thesis concerned the theory of electrons, recently discovered by Thomson and Rutherford.  Saw that Newtonian physics “couldn’t explain the behavior of matter at the atomic scale.”  The Rutherford-Bohr model of the atom (though incorrect) was “soon used to gain a new understanding of the atomic structure of all the known elements.”

“complementarity”

Fled Nazi occupied Denmark for USA, joined Manhattan project.  Met with Roosevelt and Churchill to propose, unsuccessfully, heading off a nuclear arms race by sharing information with the Soviet Union.    

Quisling, Vidkun  (1887-1945)  Leader of the Norwegian Nazi party, traitor. 

On “9 April made his way to the microphones of the Norwegian Radio and ‘deposed’ the existing Government, proclaimed his own list of ‘Ministers’ and declared himself Prime Minister.”  (Riste 9)

His name is synonymous with treason. 

‘Quisling’ apparently has come to mean ‘traitor’ in Europe the way ‘Benedict Arnold’ means traitor in the USA.

Lagerkvist, Par  (b. 1891)  Swedish playwright, lyric poet.  Nobel prize 1951. 

“(M)odern art, if it is not to whither, must begin to be more abandoned and intense, and must be gripped by the sense of mystery that lies over life, heavy and sweet—and over modern life deeper and more heavy than ever before, because every day our existence becomes ever greater and more incomprehensible.”

Describes himself as “a religious atheist—a believer without a faith”

Myrdal, Gunnar  (1898-1987)  Swedish economist, sociologist, politician, writer: “An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy”

 state?

D’Aulaire, Ingri Mortenson  (20^th century)  Norwegian children’s book illustrator    

Hammarskjold, Dag  (1905-1961)  Swedish diplomat, author, president of U.N., Nobel Peace prize.  JFK:  “The greatest statesman of our century.”

Garbo, Greta  (1905-1990)  Swedish actress: “Camille”

Lindgren, Astrid  (1907-2002)  Swedish children’s author (Pippi Longstocking)

Wallenberg, Raoul  (1912-1947)  Swedish humanitarian, saved the lives of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust, died mysteriously, possibly in detention of Soviets in occupied Budapest.   

Heyerdahl, Thor  (1914-2002)  Norwegian scientist, explorer, writer: “Kon Tiki”    

Bergman, Ingrid  (1915-82)  Swedish actress  “Casablanca”

Sonsteby, Gunnar  (b. 1918)  Norwegian resistance fighter.  Nazi instructions:  “Resistance is to be broken ruthlessly...”

“I lay flat on the grass, pistol in hand.  The ticking of my wristwatch was matched by the pounding of my heart.  For an eternal second I could see the faces of friends who had died at the hands of the Nazis.  Three minutes more and the bombs would explode.  If we had done our job right, another factory—vital to the Nazis—would be destroyed.  Two minutes more.  I found myself remembering how I’d gotten here...how it all began.  One minute.  I bit my lower lip.  Even if the sabotage was successful, before the evening was over we might all be dead.”

.....

“(A)fter 125 years of peaceful existence on the outskirts of world events, the Norwegian nation had in a short span of sixty days experienced invasion, treason, war and defeat.”  (Riste 9)

“The stage was now set for the contest between nazification and resistance which dominated the history of Norway under German occupation.” (14)

Bergman, Ingmar  (1918-2007)  Swedish filmmaker: “The Seventh Seal”

Sveinbjorn Beintensson  (1924-1993)  Icelandic pagan revivalist

Kamprad, Ingvar Feodor  (b. 1926)  founded IKEA, billionaire: 11^th wealthiest man in the world

Finnbogadottir, Vigdis  (b. 1930)  president of Iceland, world’s first democratically elected female head of state

Brundtland, Gro Harlem  (b. 1939)  Norwegian politician, diplomat, physician, international leader in sustainable development and public health.  Three time prime minister of Norway (& Norway’s first and only female prime minister), former director of World health Organization, now Special Envoy on Climate Change for UN.  “Our common future” 

Borg, Bjorn  (b. 1956)  Swedish Tennis Champion

Bjork  (b. 1965)  Icelandic singer-songwriter, actress, global celebrity

Torvalds, Linus  (b. 1969)  Swedish-Finnish software engineer, created the “Linux kernel”

Bostrom, Nick  (b. 1973)  Swedish philosopher, transhumanist.  Director of the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford.  Proponent of “human enhancement” or “self-improvement and human perfectibility through the ethical application of science.”  Conerns “cloning, artificial intelligence, superintelligence, mind uploading, cryonics, nanotechnology, and the simulation argument.”  (Which amounts to, as I understand it, the claim that if simulated reality is possible, then we’re overwhelmingly likely to inhabit a simulated reality.)

Existential risk, a risk in which “the adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential.” 

 anthropic principle.

Carlsen, Magnus  (b. 1990)  Norwegian chess prodigy [with a nod to Bent Larsen]

Magnus Carlsen is the strongest chess player on Earth.  His peak rating of 2,826 is the second highest in history to Gary Kasparov.  On November 30^th 2010 he celebrated his twentieth birthday.