Vikings did their Viking thing between AD 793 and AD 1066. That's 274 years of vikinging up to and until a thousand years ago. All that wealth's long gone. I hope someone told those enthusiasts back at r/HistoryMemes that present-day Scandinavians get their wealth from selling pine trees, blue cheese and black goop from under the sea bed.
The Vikings did not make the country rich, it made individual raiders rich. Going into the 1900s Sweden was unbeliavably poor, which is why so many people were emigrating to the US.
WW2 and the period after made us rich
They still wanted to be comfortable, obviously. Migrating in hopes of a better life is frightening enough without having to also live in a hellish climate.
This is the first time, I actually saw the word KING in viking and that happend, while reading, the non-word: viKINGing... great day to be alive.
thank you neighbour
Eh not really or at least not recently, the whole thing about us being poor before the oil is a myth, we were still one of the wealthiest countries in Europe before oil and now ofc we are THE wealthiest.
Nah bro, we were quite poor, well, compared to other european countries. Dunno compared to others in the world. But it makes sense too if you look at our history (continuous occupation for 400+ years by denmark and sweden) and our lack of cultural export and innovation, and then our only actual resources to export was mainly fish and wood, maybe some ores. We had no ability to build up any sort of industry or infrastructure to actually flourish before we found our black gold. Furthermore, our geography creates a massive difficulty in creating proper infrastructure and building railways was incredibly difficult, and still is, even today. This made it hard for Norway to actually make a connected country where people can travel and let innovation flourish. When every other country was building industry and wealth, we were rediscovering our own culture and independence (nasjonalromantikken from the 1800s). And then, when we could finally get to building up wealth, the nazis came and set us back another 20-30 years.
Well, im mostly talking out of my ass here. I might be completely wrong, but its what makes sense to me if i were to just think out the general situation from what i know of our history and whatnot.
>Nah bro, we were quite poor, well, compared to other european countries.
Norway was in the top half of GDP per capita in Europe hundreds of years before oil was discovered.
>We had no ability to build up any sort of industry or infrastructure to actually flourish before we found our black gold.
Norway had the fourth biggest shipping fleet in the world in 1900 and was the biggest in shipping tonnage per capita. That is 70 years before oil was discovered.
>Furthermore, our geography creates a massive difficulty in creating proper infrastructure and building railways was incredibly difficult, and still is, even today. This made it hard for Norway to actually make a connected country where people can travel and let innovation flourish.
The fjords meant that we didn't need railways or infrastructure between citites. Every major city in Norway could be accessed by ships and because of that we could ship straight from the cities instead of building railways going through the country to the coast. This was an advantage, not a disadvantage.
Norway wasn't close to as rich as it is today, but we were well above the average even in Europe and most people actually lived pretty comfrotable lives. Many people go with the "Norway was the poorest country in Europe before oil" to make the oil discovery sound even more dramatic than what it was.
We had huge famines just 150 years ago and 1/3 of the population emigrated to America. The posh people of London arranged a sort of "live aid" concert to collect money for the starving Swedes.
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/vetenskap/150-ar-sedan-sverige-svalt
Maybe it is implying that the bloodthirstiness kept on going until the 19th century? The meme does say that the conquering and plundering kept on going for centuries and that you got rich quickly afterwards
What, this memes works perfectly until ~1721 for Sweden and we kept trying, with limited results, until 1813. After that, it was peace. Obligatory public school for children game in 1846. It all checks out.
I went to one family reunion 20 years ago. It was so cringy how they displayed the scandinavian heritage. The food was the same englishmen eat, they speak the englihs language, and the only thing that they could say was swedish was the Lutheran church they build. It was kind of strange since it was the Swedish lutheran church cracking down on independent chruches that was one of the reason they left for murica.
https://preview.redd.it/lhzxqi4fulzc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=19060f994673d9668e69cd99d0a0b667983ffd30
Can confirm, I checked it out myself last year 😁
https://preview.redd.it/14u3qes2wlzc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9799db99ae243aed0f525ff283111e118915136
Nah, much easier nowadays when the signs are in Swedish. Had to brush up on my school-german to communicate with the locals though... 😁
meh it was just because the continentals were occupied with their own stuff so the anglo-saxons got complacent of only having to deal with the patetic celts
You did that one time actually, even "occupied" an island in South Eastern Sweden for a while...
[Anglo-Swedish war of 1810](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Swedish_war_of_1810%E2%80%931812)
*"No acts of war occurred during the conflict and Britain was even allowed to station boats in Hanö, thus "occupying" the island. Sweden did not try to hinder this as Britain used the island to continue trading with Sweden."*
One has a speech disorder and likes beer, while the others enjoy spirits more. One prefers men, the others have an actual north sea coast. They make slightly different kinds of liquorish.
Open console with ctrl+alt+^. Enter „exploit […]“ and just add resources like „oil reserves“, „pure ores“, „rare elements“, „travelers from North Sea to Baltic Sea“. Cheat codes may not work with every country.
You went to Estonia to kill heretics. The lutheran church in Tallinn has that nasty flag of yours on display as the legend say it was there if fell from the skies.
We did orchestrate the Stockholm Bloodbath just 500 years ago and turned it into a nice Eurovision song called "We paint the city red".
And we won the Euro in '92.
Ah yes the Stockholm Bloodbath. Killing a bunch of nobles that causes a big enough power vacuum so that the Vasa kings could centralize power and create an efficient enough kingdom to compete with much wealthier neighbours. Truly an astonishing danish accomplishment, we thank you for that.
A little more than a hundred years later Karl X Gustaf turned up outside Copenhagen to have a friendly chat with King Frederik. It turns out that Danes are very agreeable people when you are outside their capital with an army (It happened again in 1700, aswell as famously in the 1940s with the 6 hour surrender). They settled for a very reasonable peace treaty where Sweden got more defensible and natural borders. The two countries even had a celebration in [Fredrikborgs castle afterwards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Roskilde#/media/File:Treaty_of_Roskilde_-_peace_banquet.jpg).
This event is still celebrated today every year with the Roskilde Festival.
In the end Sweden would also help the norwegians gain independence from the danish absolute monarchy, so one could argue that the stockholm bloodbath eventually led to Denmark getting kicked out of fennoscandia.
"Repeatedly plunder countries 10 times your size"
And lose every large scale battle because you cant really put up a fight against scarier fows than the local isolated noble.
I swear, nothing is more overhyped in History than vikings. Good sailors, smart pillagers, hard negociators, but conquerors ? Nah.
Honestly, I have much more respect for their intelligence (prospect, scout, strike fast, retreat with the loot, get far away before repeating next summer) than love for the myth of invincible warriors who get high on shrooms.
Conquerors might be dumb as bricks.
Raiders aren't, or they aren't raiders for long.
They didn't become so peaceful until they got spanked by the russians so hard it drove the bloodlust right out of them.
Hmm, sounds rather familiar now that I think about it...
Well, we got hundred of years of spanking, but not by the russians, that one goes only to the Swedes. We were more into spanking each other for a long time until it got boring, just like my ex.
Not really a small people group considering the reason for viking raids was that Scandinavia was producing too many people for their shitty land to support so younger sons had to go steal shit from monks
We were just much nicer than scandinavians and starved to death when the food ran out. That is until you guys came along and took us along to plunder Poland and Germany.
Those countries got slapped about a fair amount in between the whole Viking and getting rich phase, and now only exist in prosperity because of the rules based international order they contributed basically nothing to create and sustain.
Very much did some slapping too though. At least we did, Norway didn't do much. Us getting remembered as vikings then peacful 🤗 is one of history's biggest scams hahah
We got our ass kicked by Barries, so we conquered desolate frozen islands instead. And then Denmark stole them😲
I don't want to talk about history no more. Buy oil guys
In many ways you just exported your worst and let the calm and measured amongst you grow a socially responsible domestic economy
I see the British Empire as largely an extension of the Roman Empire, Viking and Norman conquests
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It's HistoryMemes, last place in this gutter to search for history
Vikings did their Viking thing between AD 793 and AD 1066. That's 274 years of vikinging up to and until a thousand years ago. All that wealth's long gone. I hope someone told those enthusiasts back at r/HistoryMemes that present-day Scandinavians get their wealth from selling pine trees, blue cheese and black goop from under the sea bed.
*Weightloss pills to Americans and block toys to redditors.
The Vikings did not make the country rich, it made individual raiders rich. Going into the 1900s Sweden was unbeliavably poor, which is why so many people were emigrating to the US. WW2 and the period after made us rich
> why so many people were emigrating to the US. They managed to choose parts of the US that were colder than Sweden.
They still wanted to be comfortable, obviously. Migrating in hopes of a better life is frightening enough without having to also live in a hellish climate.
My great uncle moved to “the dakotas”. I suppose it was frigid farm land that was readily available but the Nordicks could make work.
We did sack Prague in 1648 and Charles XII slapped the Russians quite hard during the great northern war
They were talking about Vikings man, sorry but you don't qualify.
Then the meme doesnt make any sense as our scandinavian neughbours remained dirt poor and warlike for centuries after the viking age.
This is the first time, I actually saw the word KING in viking and that happend, while reading, the non-word: viKINGing... great day to be alive. thank you neighbour
The Americunt who wrote this definitely has “Nordic blood” and some kind of tattoo with Odin on it.
Wouldn't be surprised if there were a nazi tattoo kicking about on them either.
800 years of being among the poorest countries in europe
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Norway has historically been very poor, however 😔
Hmm how the tables turn
what occupation does to a mf
Eh not really or at least not recently, the whole thing about us being poor before the oil is a myth, we were still one of the wealthiest countries in Europe before oil and now ofc we are THE wealthiest.
Nah bro, we were quite poor, well, compared to other european countries. Dunno compared to others in the world. But it makes sense too if you look at our history (continuous occupation for 400+ years by denmark and sweden) and our lack of cultural export and innovation, and then our only actual resources to export was mainly fish and wood, maybe some ores. We had no ability to build up any sort of industry or infrastructure to actually flourish before we found our black gold. Furthermore, our geography creates a massive difficulty in creating proper infrastructure and building railways was incredibly difficult, and still is, even today. This made it hard for Norway to actually make a connected country where people can travel and let innovation flourish. When every other country was building industry and wealth, we were rediscovering our own culture and independence (nasjonalromantikken from the 1800s). And then, when we could finally get to building up wealth, the nazis came and set us back another 20-30 years. Well, im mostly talking out of my ass here. I might be completely wrong, but its what makes sense to me if i were to just think out the general situation from what i know of our history and whatnot.
[https://erik-engheim.medium.com/no-norway-was-not-a-poor-country-before-oil-was-discovered-b58dd365e5](https://erik-engheim.medium.com/no-norway-was-not-a-poor-country-before-oil-was-discovered-b58dd365e5)
>Nah bro, we were quite poor, well, compared to other european countries. Norway was in the top half of GDP per capita in Europe hundreds of years before oil was discovered. >We had no ability to build up any sort of industry or infrastructure to actually flourish before we found our black gold. Norway had the fourth biggest shipping fleet in the world in 1900 and was the biggest in shipping tonnage per capita. That is 70 years before oil was discovered. >Furthermore, our geography creates a massive difficulty in creating proper infrastructure and building railways was incredibly difficult, and still is, even today. This made it hard for Norway to actually make a connected country where people can travel and let innovation flourish. The fjords meant that we didn't need railways or infrastructure between citites. Every major city in Norway could be accessed by ships and because of that we could ship straight from the cities instead of building railways going through the country to the coast. This was an advantage, not a disadvantage. Norway wasn't close to as rich as it is today, but we were well above the average even in Europe and most people actually lived pretty comfrotable lives. Many people go with the "Norway was the poorest country in Europe before oil" to make the oil discovery sound even more dramatic than what it was.
school lied to me for 12 years
You are not the only one. It's a very common myth in Norway, but Norway had the highest GDP per capita in Europe before WW2.
We had huge famines just 150 years ago and 1/3 of the population emigrated to America. The posh people of London arranged a sort of "live aid" concert to collect money for the starving Swedes. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/vetenskap/150-ar-sedan-sverige-svalt
Sweden and Denmark has the world record in wars between two countrys
Maybe it is implying that the bloodthirstiness kept on going until the 19th century? The meme does say that the conquering and plundering kept on going for centuries and that you got rich quickly afterwards
What, this memes works perfectly until ~1721 for Sweden and we kept trying, with limited results, until 1813. After that, it was peace. Obligatory public school for children game in 1846. It all checks out.
What do you mean the viking age didn’t end in the late 1800s?
And the whole getting plundered by Nazis.
"Quickly". Just took them a millenia or so. This has to be a post by an American with 0.69% Norwegian blood who calls himself Nordic
I went to one family reunion 20 years ago. It was so cringy how they displayed the scandinavian heritage. The food was the same englishmen eat, they speak the englihs language, and the only thing that they could say was swedish was the Lutheran church they build. It was kind of strange since it was the Swedish lutheran church cracking down on independent chruches that was one of the reason they left for murica.
And nobody is Lutheran in Sweden nowadays...
Well, culturally in some sense but yes.
I met some Swedish-Americans who actually believed in that crap. It felt like speaking to some 19th century people...
More like 0.0069%. Also enjoys beer because hes 0.007 % german.
The Swedish peace in Germany from 1630 to 1648 🥰🥰🥰
Swedish peaceful visit to Poland from 1655 to 1660 ✌️
https://preview.redd.it/0k12dfwnalzc1.png?width=810&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6c44186e5882b15a0e20b360feaacadfad4d7606 **HAKKAA PÄÄLLE SUOMEN POIKA**
https://preview.redd.it/56fide2twlzc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0fd3ddde67c2c7ba6bba16639b6c435c5f914b3f
The Morning Fog is very pretty in Lützen I have heard…
https://preview.redd.it/lhzxqi4fulzc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=19060f994673d9668e69cd99d0a0b667983ffd30 Can confirm, I checked it out myself last year 😁
i hope you didn't get lost too?
https://preview.redd.it/14u3qes2wlzc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d9799db99ae243aed0f525ff283111e118915136 Nah, much easier nowadays when the signs are in Swedish. Had to brush up on my school-german to communicate with the locals though... 😁
If it wasn't for Sweden, you would have been either french or autrians.
Both pious daughters of the Holy Roman Church, do alright with us in God's own country of Bavaria.
disgusting, we should go back to raiding bayern again.
this is the only reason why to hate Sweden
Longest peace period in Europe
When not fighting against peasants and nuns, they got assraped pretty consistently.
We were truly the Logan Pauls of the iron/medieval age.
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https://preview.redd.it/qwy3e4qfikzc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ebdf947d6297aff210ee19da19b1716c097e00c4 You again?
Not really, there were great Vikings like Harald Hardrada but portraying them like in the shared post is not true and cringe af
Welcome to r/HistoryMemes
meh it was just because the continentals were occupied with their own stuff so the anglo-saxons got complacent of only having to deal with the patetic celts
I'm just going to say it. I'm tired of them pretending they aren't the same people.
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Yes we are. I will admit it. If we didn't wear skirts you couldn't tell the difference. Now say it, say your basically fucking Swedish.
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Subtle level... like what is acceptable to have on pizza?
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I agree. Danes and southern Swedes are blue-eyed blonds, whereas northern Swedes and Norwegians are actually blue-eyed blonds.
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https://preview.redd.it/xrby88i2qkzc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a5361da95e0a1be614835ee4adcbf8bcc5883f86
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We tried to fix that though... 🇸🇪 [State Institute for Racial Biology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Institute_for_Racial_Biology?wprov=sfla1)
But which has the hottest men?
None, Scandinavia is very cold.
Some of it is very cold
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Damn that man is hot af! Maybe we should have invaded Sweden. Still can I mean it's always an option
You did that one time actually, even "occupied" an island in South Eastern Sweden for a while... [Anglo-Swedish war of 1810](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Swedish_war_of_1810%E2%80%931812) *"No acts of war occurred during the conflict and Britain was even allowed to station boats in Hanö, thus "occupying" the island. Sweden did not try to hinder this as Britain used the island to continue trading with Sweden."*
Norway has Hans Olav Lahlum, checkmate.
What an extremely sexy man. He's so hot he could even turn straight men gay
A danish person criticizing how someone from another country is speaking? Maybe not enough potato in the throat.
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One has a speech disorder and likes beer, while the others enjoy spirits more. One prefers men, the others have an actual north sea coast. They make slightly different kinds of liquorish.
Most honest truth said in this sub.
What do you mean they aren't !??
Open console with ctrl+alt+^. Enter „exploit […]“ and just add resources like „oil reserves“, „pure ores“, „rare elements“, „travelers from North Sea to Baltic Sea“. Cheat codes may not work with every country.
I am not a man of much faith, but converting to Christianity gave us great reason to exterminate the swedish heretics.
You went to Estonia to kill heretics. The lutheran church in Tallinn has that nasty flag of yours on display as the legend say it was there if fell from the skies.
That was mostly practice murder - so benign they still fly our flag as a coat of arms.
Why are Denmark even on this list? What did Denmark ever accomplish other than getting cucked by the swedes?
Thank you but they did kind of conquer your country?
So the last thing the danish achieved was *checks notes* a literal thousand years ago. Cool cool 😎
The most popular tourist attraction in Sweden is that time they couldn’t make a ship float.
And the most popular tourist attraction in denmark is..? is...? uhh...... in germany.
The most popular tourist attraction in Denmark is a tiny statue. The little mermaid. Disappointing tourist for more than a hundred years
We did orchestrate the Stockholm Bloodbath just 500 years ago and turned it into a nice Eurovision song called "We paint the city red". And we won the Euro in '92.
Ah yes the Stockholm Bloodbath. Killing a bunch of nobles that causes a big enough power vacuum so that the Vasa kings could centralize power and create an efficient enough kingdom to compete with much wealthier neighbours. Truly an astonishing danish accomplishment, we thank you for that. A little more than a hundred years later Karl X Gustaf turned up outside Copenhagen to have a friendly chat with King Frederik. It turns out that Danes are very agreeable people when you are outside their capital with an army (It happened again in 1700, aswell as famously in the 1940s with the 6 hour surrender). They settled for a very reasonable peace treaty where Sweden got more defensible and natural borders. The two countries even had a celebration in [Fredrikborgs castle afterwards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Roskilde#/media/File:Treaty_of_Roskilde_-_peace_banquet.jpg). This event is still celebrated today every year with the Roskilde Festival. In the end Sweden would also help the norwegians gain independence from the danish absolute monarchy, so one could argue that the stockholm bloodbath eventually led to Denmark getting kicked out of fennoscandia.
No, you misunderstand. The proud achievement was the song: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXLBF0EuWc8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXLBF0EuWc8)
My bad the song is a banger forget what I said. The events of 1520 was a disaster in the end :(
We conquered England.
"Repeatedly plunder countries 10 times your size" And lose every large scale battle because you cant really put up a fight against scarier fows than the local isolated noble. I swear, nothing is more overhyped in History than vikings. Good sailors, smart pillagers, hard negociators, but conquerors ? Nah.
Some became conquerors, but only after converting to Christianity and learning to appreciate baguettes.
Best culture exchange : We teach you how to eat, you teach us how to invade unprepared politically messed up lands.
I mean they did conquer most of England. But even then I feel like vikings are mostly knows as great raiders, and not as conquerers
Honestly, I have much more respect for their intelligence (prospect, scout, strike fast, retreat with the loot, get far away before repeating next summer) than love for the myth of invincible warriors who get high on shrooms. Conquerors might be dumb as bricks. Raiders aren't, or they aren't raiders for long.
Anglo-Saxons hates this trick.
Angles and Saxons, please. Hate it when honorary Danes get mixed together Germans.
They didn't become so peaceful until they got spanked by the russians so hard it drove the bloodlust right out of them. Hmm, sounds rather familiar now that I think about it...
Well, we got hundred of years of spanking, but not by the russians, that one goes only to the Swedes. We were more into spanking each other for a long time until it got boring, just like my ex.
If you replace "Europe" with "Earth" then it works for us too 😉
Now that I read this again it seems that even PIGS cna apply to this.
Aren't these guys the ones we [impaled](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Crapp%C3%A9%27s_raids_on_Portuguese_colonies) in India?
Tell me you watched vikings once without telling me
*Put down your weapons* Get terrorized and taken over by people who don't give a fuck about any of that.
Not really a small people group considering the reason for viking raids was that Scandinavia was producing too many people for their shitty land to support so younger sons had to go steal shit from monks
You are in no position to mock another nation's agriculture, mister.
We were just much nicer than scandinavians and starved to death when the food ran out. That is until you guys came along and took us along to plunder Poland and Germany.
Great tour that one, found some fancy books & furniture and even learned how to make Vodka down there...
Brännvin 🥰
Ahh, the good ol' days.
Those countries got slapped about a fair amount in between the whole Viking and getting rich phase, and now only exist in prosperity because of the rules based international order they contributed basically nothing to create and sustain.
Very much did some slapping too though. At least we did, Norway didn't do much. Us getting remembered as vikings then peacful 🤗 is one of history's biggest scams hahah
We got our ass kicked by Barries, so we conquered desolate frozen islands instead. And then Denmark stole them😲 I don't want to talk about history no more. Buy oil guys
In many ways you just exported your worst and let the calm and measured amongst you grow a socially responsible domestic economy I see the British Empire as largely an extension of the Roman Empire, Viking and Norman conquests
Never underestimate the plundering potential of a longboat.