The Scandinavian Peninsula is a large peninsula reaching west from northern Europe over the north side of the Baltic Sea. Norway, Sweden and some of Finland are on this peninsula. However, Denmark is considered part of Scandinavia in the ethnic sense more often than Finland is. This is because Danish is a Scandinavian language but Finnish is not.
Some people like to say "Nordic countries" instead of "Scandinavia" because they think it is more correct about geography, but the Nordic countries include Norway, Sweden, Denmark (including the Faroe Islands), Finland, and Iceland. These five countries use the Nordic Council to work together on political and cultural activities. Denmark, Sweden, and Finland are also members of the European Union, but only Finland is part of the eurozone, meaning that it uses the Euro as its money. The other Nordic countries still use their own money, called "krone" or "krona" (from the word "crowns"). Norway and Iceland, which are not members of the EU, are members of NATO and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Only Denmark is a member of both the EU and NATO.
Most of the Scandinavian Peninsula has only a few people in it. It has large forests of pine, birch, and spruce trees. The western and northern parts are mountainous; the Scandinavian mountains are some of the oldest in the world. The tallest mountain is Galdhøpiggen in Norway. Denmark (43,098 km) is the smallest of the Scandinavian countries. It is more densely populated, and most of the land is farmland. Sweden (449,964 km) is the largest of the Scandinavian countries. It has the most lakes, and the landscape ranges from plains in the south to mountains in the west (along the border with Norway) to tundra in the north. The far north of Scandinavia and Finland is called Lapland, where the Sami people live. Some of them still herd reindeer, but most Sami live in modern houses and have modern jobs, like other Scandinavians.
The most famous group of Scandinavians is the Vikings of the Middle Ages. The Vikings attacked and raided but they were also traders, traveling to the Ukraine and starting trade routes to the Middle East.
Vikings from Norway were explorers, crossing the North Atlantic in their longships. They came to Iceland and Greenland and built towns and farms there. The Norwegian explorers also came to the east coast of Canada, where they set up at least one settlement, but it did not last into modern times.
The Vikings from Denmark came to England, where they affected the history and politics and even the English language. Danish raiders attacked England many times with great violence. Sometimes the Danes would ask that the English pay them to go away. These payments were called "Danegeld" (Danish gold). The priests and bishops of churches on the east coast of England wrote a famous prayer: "deliver us, O Lord, from the wrath of the Norsemen!" "Norsemen" is another way to say "men from the north," or the Danes.
Much later, in the 19th century (1800s), Richard Wagner and other artists in the Romantic period made operas and other artwork about ancient Germanic culture. They liked the Vikings because they were not Greeks or Romans. They were the first to have the idea of Vikings wearing helmets with wings or horns on them and drinking out of hollowed-out animal horns. Some ancient Germans wore helmets with horns on them, but real Vikings did not. Wagner and his partners deliberately dressed the actors in the opera "Ring des Nibelungen" so they would look like ancient Germans and so the audience would feel like modern Germans came from medieval Vikings.
During the 10th through 13th centuries, when the Christian religion spread through Scandiavia, modern countries started to form there. They came together into three kingdoms:
These three Scandinavian kingdoms made the Kalmar Union in 1387 under Queen Margaret I of Denmark. However, in 1523, Sweden left the union. Because of this, civil war broke out in Denmark and Norway. Then, the Protestant Reformation happened, and Catholic and Protestant Christians fought each other. After things settled, the Norwegian Privy Council was abolished: it assembled for the last time in 1537. Denmark and Norway formed another union in 1536, and it lasted until 1814. It turned into the three modern countries Denmark, Norway and Iceland.
The borders between Denmark, Sweden and Norway came to the shape they have today in the middle of the seventeenth century: In the 1645 Treaty of Brömsebro, Denmark–Norway gave some territory to Sweden: the Norwegian provinces of Jämtland, Härjedalen and Idre & Särna and the Baltic Sea islands of Gotland and Ösel (in Estonia). The 1658 Treaty of Roskilde forced Denmark–Norway to give the Danish provinces Scania, Blekinge, Halland, Bornholm, and the Norwegian provinces of Båhuslen and Trøndelag to Sweden. In 1660, the Treaty of Copenhagen forced Sweden to give Bornholm and Trøndelag back to Denmark–Norway.
Finland used to be part of Sweden in medieval times. During the wars fought by Napoleon, it became part of Russia.
Minerva cars
In 1883 a young Belgian called Sylvain de Jong settled in Antwerp, Belgium. He started a bicycle factory there. By the end of that century he started producing motorbikes, and after a while automobiles as well. In 1903 he grounded the NV Minerva Motors' in Berchem (Antwerp).
A certain Charles S Rolls was Minerva dealer in England. The small 1 cylinder "Minervette" was there with its 105 Pound, the cheapest automobile.
In the years after the fame of the automobile was rising enormous. Most important market for the constructor remained however England that took the biggest part of the production, followed by the Netherlands and France.
From 1908 Minerva got a worldwide Knight licence. The Knight motor was a motor without valves, developed by Charles Y Knight in the United States. These motors were extremely silent. The company did well in several automobile racing competitions in Europe.
After worldwar I, during which Sylvain de Jong and his engineers headed to Amsterdam, where they kept on developing parts, they returned to start up the production of luxury automobiles. The constructors star rose in the United States as well, American filmstars, politicians and industrials liked them cars as well (even Henry Ford had before the WW already one!). The car had the same qualities as the Rolls Royce, but was a little cheaper. With the economical crisis in the 30's, the company went bankrupt in 1936. The remains were taken over by another Belgian constructor named Imperia. Imperia putted the name Minerva on their automobiles for export to England and France and for the trucks (which Minerva had made before too).
After worldwar II the company produced Land Rovers under licence for the Belgian army. Production of these 4Wheel Drives stopped in 1953. The company struggled for survival and made some Land Rover-like cars till 1956. But than the constructor diappeared completely.
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E. B. White
Elwyn Brooks White (July 11, 1899 – October 1, 1985) was an American writer.
He is most famous for his 1959 manual about how to write well in English, "The Elements of Style" (which was first written by William Strunk Jr. in 1918), and also for his three children's books "Stuart Little" (1945), "Charlotte's Web" (1952), and the "Trumpet of the Swan" (1970).
He also wrote for magazines and newspapers in the United States.
E.B. White won many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize. "The Trumpet of the Swan" may be his best-selling book, but "Charlotte's Web" was voted the top children's novel in a 2012 survey, and not for the first time.
Raffles Institution