Thursday 6 June 2019

nationaldag

Though not a regular observance until the 1916 Stockholm Olympics and not an official holiday until 2005, Sweden’s National Day (prior to 1983, Flag Day, Svenska flaggans dag) is a day set aside for country-wide celebrations and cultural exhibitions and marks several historic occurrences that happened on this day, beginning with elevation of King Gustav Vasa—marking the end of the Kalmar Union of the Nordic countries under a single dynastic ruler. The sixth of June 1809 saw the governmental reform that established the kingdom as a parliamentary (Riksdag) constitutional democracy. In 1974, further legislation took away the monarch’s political and military leadership roles, vesting all power in the peoples’ duly-appointed representatives.