page_title: Olav V of Norway
section_title: Birth and early life
hierarchical_section_title: Olav V of Norway / Birth and early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Tittel / Title: Den norske kongefamilie, 1921 Motiv / Motif: Postkort. Dato / Date: 1921 Fotograf / Photographer: Anders Beer Wilse (1865-1949) Utgiver / Publisher: Mittet &amp; Co. Kunstforlag Eier / Owner Institution: Nasjonalbiblioteket / National Library of Norway Lenke / Link: www.nb.no Bildesignatur / Image Number: blds_04739
context_page_description: Olav V was King of Norway from 1957 until his death.
  Olav was the only child of King Haakon VII of Norway and Maud of Wales. He became heir apparent to the Norwegian throne when his father was elected King of Norway in 1905. He was the first heir to the Norwegian throne to be brought up in Norway since Olav IV in the fourteenth century, and his parents made sure he was given as Norwegian an upbringing as possible. In preparation for his future role, he attended both civilian and military schools. In 1929, he married his first cousin Princess Märtha of Sweden. During World War II his leadership was much appreciated and he was appointed Norwegian Chief of Defence in 1944. Olav became king following the death of his father in 1957.
  Owing to his considerate, down-to-earth style, King Olav was immensely popular, resulting in the nickname Folkekongen. In a 2005 poll by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, Olav was voted "Norwegian of the Century".
context_section_description: Olav was born Prince Alexander Edward Christian Frederik in Appleton House on the royal Sandringham Estate, Flitcham, United Kingdom. His parents were Prince Carl, second son of Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark (later King Frederick VIII), and Princess Maud, youngest daughter of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, who was the eldest son of Britain's Queen Victoria. In 1905, Carl was elected king of Norway and took the name Haakon VII. On the day Haakon was crowned, he gave his two-year-old son the Norwegian name Olav after Olaf Haakonsson, king of Norway and Denmark.
  Olav was thus the first heir to the throne since the Middle Ages to have been raised in Norway. Unlike his father, who was a naval officer, Olav chose to complete his main military education in the army. He graduated from the three-year Norwegian Military Academy in 1924, with the fourth best score in his class. Olav then went on to study jurisprudence and economics for two years at Balliol College, Oxford.
  During the 1930s, Crown Prince Olav was a naval cadet serving on the minelayer/cadet training ship Olav Tryggvason. Olav moved up the ranks of the Norwegian armed forces, rising in the army from an initial rank of first lieutenant to captain in 1931 and colonel in 1936.
  He was an accomplished athlete. Olav jumped from the Holmenkollen ski jump in Oslo and competed in sailing regattas. He won a gold medal in sailing at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam and remained an active sailor into old age.
  On 21 March 1929 in Oslo, he married his first cousin Princess Märtha of Sweden with whom he had two daughters, Ragnhild and Astrid and one son, Harald. As exiles during World War II, Crown Princess Märtha and the royal children lived in Washington, D.C., where she struck up a close friendship with Franklin D. Roosevelt. She died in 1954, before her husband ascended the throne.
  The British Film Institute houses an early film, made in 1913, in which a miniature car (a "baby Cadillac") commissioned by Queen Alexandra for Crown Prince Olav tows a procession of Londoners through the streets of the capital, before being delivered to a pair of "royal testers" of roughly Olav's age. The car is a battery-powered, one-third size replica on a four-foot wheelbase, and is on permanent loan to the Norsk Teknisk Museum in Oslo.
caption: The Norwegian Royal Family in 1921
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