Stories: Sweden

Stories connected to Sweden.

• Her skirt came off. It was planned.At Eurovision in 1985, the host's skirt appeared to snag and fall away. She then revealed another dress under…
• Sweden's first woman bus driver was called “Buss-Berta.”Berta Persson drove the Kappelshamn–Visby route from 1927 to 1934. As Sweden's first female bus driver, she e…
• A sample from Pompeii went to a scientist. It turned out to be glass, not stone.Eighteenth-century naturalist Johann Jacob Ferber supplied mosaic samples from Pompeii to researcher Torbern…
• The Japanese keepsake turned out to be a customs formDuring the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, Shizo Kanakuri received help from a local family. An account of his 1967…
• Melbourne’s equestrian events took place in StockholmThe 1956 Summer Olympics were hosted by Melbourne, but the equestrian competitions took place months earlier…
• Lagom is about enough without excessSwedish lagom expresses an amount that is neither too much nor too little, with a sense of appropriateness. A…
• Fika is a social break, not just consuming coffeeSwedish fika is a coffee-break tradition, commonly involving pastries and social time. It appears in workplac…
• Toppling it too soon loses the gameKubb uses thrown wooden batons to knock down the opponent’s blocks, with a larger king in the center. Under t…
• The nyckelharpa changes pitch through keyed tangentsThe Swedish nyckelharpa resembles a bowed fiddle but uses keys to operate tangents that stop the strings. The…
• Slice the cake, find a sandwichSwedish smörgåstårta layers bread and savoury fillings, then decorates them like a cake. Eggs, fish or meat m…
• A sausage with a connection to mining ropesOx hides supplied ropes for the copper mine at Falun, Sweden. Preserving the remaining meat by salting and sm…
• At five in the morning, traffic used the other sideOn 3 September 1967, Sweden switched from left-hand to right-hand traffic. Vehicles permitted on the roads du…
• The praised painter was a chimpanzeeIn 1964, a Swedish journalist exhibited four paintings by Peter, a zoo chimpanzee, under an invented French a…
• Swedish surplus bikes became affordable everyday transportSweden had six bicycle infantry regiments in 1939. Its m/42 military bicycle offered an upright riding positi…