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

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

2nd century

Year	Date	Event
100		The Iron Age settlement at Uppåkra is founded.

6th century

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

8th century

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

9th century

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

10th century

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

11th century

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

12th century

Year	Date	Event
1187		Estonians invade and burn down Sigtuna.
		The city of Nyköping is founded.

13th century

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

14th century

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

15th century

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

16th century

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

17th century

Year	Date	Event
1600	March 20	The Linköping Bloodbath takes place.
1610		The Ingrian War between Russia and Sweden begins.
1611		Denmark declares war on Sweden, initiating the Kalmar War.
1613		The 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.
1614		The city of Kristianstad is founded.
1617	February 27	The 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.
1621		The city of Gothenburg is founded.
1628	August 10	The sinking of the Swedish warship Vasa.
1630		Sweden enters the Thirty Years' War.
1631	April 13	The Battle of Frankfurt an der Oder takes place.
	September 7	The Battle of Breitenfeld takes place.
1632	November 6	The Battle of Lützen takes place. King Gustav II Adolf is killed in battle.
1638		The colony of New Sweden is established along the Delaware River in North America.
1648		The 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.
1650		The colony of the Swedish Gold Coast is established on the Gulf of Guinea in present-day Ghana.
1654		Queen Christina abdicates her throne and converts to Roman Catholicism, creating a major scandal.
1658	February 26	Treaty of Roskilde. Denmark-Norway cedes the provinces of Blekinge, Bornholm, Bohuslän, Scania, Trøndelag and Halland to Sweden.
1663		The colony of the Swedish Gold Coast is seized by Denmark, and integrated in the Danish Gold Coast.
1666		Lund University is founded.
1668		The Swedish National Bank (Sveriges Riksbank) is founded.
1674	December 24	Sweden invades Brandenburg, triggering the Swedish-Brandenburg War.
1675		Denmark invades Scania, triggering the Scanian War.
1676	June 1	The Battle of Öland takes place.
	August 17	The Battle of Halmstad takes place.
	December 4	The Battle of Lund takes place.
1677	June 26	The Siege of Malmö takes place.
	July 14	The Battle of Landskrona takes place.
1678		The Invasion of Rügen takes place.
1679	August 23	The Treaty of Fontainebleau is signed, restoring all Danish conquests during the Scanian War to Sweden.
1680		The 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.
1697	May 7	The castle of Tre Kronor burns down, destroying a significant portion of Sweden's national library and royal archives.

18th century

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

19th century

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

20th century

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

21st century

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

See also

• Timeline of Faroese history
• Timeline of Icelandic history

Cities in Sweden

• Timeline of Gothenburg
• Timeline of Stockholm history