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| Nov. 4 |
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| First regular Norwegian Storting established connection with Sweden through an Act of Union (ratified, 1815). The Storting had elected Christian Frederick as king. Christian Frederick abdicated on Oct. 10 after a Swedish invasion and was replaced by the Swedish king on Nov. 4. Under the union, Norway maintained its local and national government. | 1 |
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| 1824 |
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| First commemorative celebration of the birthday of the Norwegian constitution under the direction of the Students' Union. | 2 |
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| 1830, Dec. 10 |
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| Publication of liberal paper Aftonbladet by Lars Johan Hierta. | 3 |
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| 1833 |
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| Liberals received growing support partially as a result of the Institute of Agriculture, which was founded to train farmers in correct farming methods and to teach agronomy. | 4 |
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| 1834 |
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| Fredrika Bremer published Presidentens döthar (The President's Daughters). Bremer argued for women's rights to higher education and freedom to pursue the career of their choice and remain single. Her novels were stylistically exceeded by those of Emelie Flygare Carlén, who did not infuse her novels with such ideological intent. | 5 |
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| 1836 |
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| Peter Wieselgren, a pastor, spearheaded the movement that founded the Swedish Temperance Society in Skåne. The temperance movement reflected growing concern over the consumption of cheap potato liquor, which was produced throughout Sweden. The temperance movement demanded government action, but such demands went largely unheeded because farmers and distillers mounted their own campaign in an effort to ensure their economic future. | 6 |
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| 1836 |
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| Agitation in Norway against Swedish control led the king to dissolve the Storting. Fearful of revolution, he had to reconvene it within a month. The sense of national independence within Norway also forced the king to grant Norwegian vessels the right to fly the Norwegian flag at their own risk (1838). These bids for national control centered on the work of Jonas Anton Hjelm, a Norwegian lawyer, who had argued that the Act of Union provided that a Norwegian minister had to be present whenever the Swedish ministers discussed Norwegian affairs. The Swedish king was forced to grant this demand (1837). | 7 |
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| 1837, Jan. 14 |
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| Two Communal Government Acts establishing representative local governments were passed and royally sanctioned in Norway. | 8 |
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| 1842 |
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| An education law was passed, which required that a school be set up in every pastorate (or congregation) in Sweden within five years (extended to Norway in 1847). It also raised the teachers' minimum salaries. | 9 |
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| 1844, March |
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| The death of the king brought new hope to liberals, who expected Oscar I to support their efforts at reform. Among liberal demands was the reordering of the Riksdag, the Swedish legislative assembly. The Riksdag currently consisted of four orders: nobles, clergy, burghers, and bönder (landholding peasants). Liberals wanted to replace it with an elected bicameral legislature, which would eliminate the current distinction of orders. In Norway, liberalism was also evident in the passage of a free trade law (1842) and the abolition of feudal nobility. | 10 |
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| 1845 |
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| Oscar appointed a special commission chaired by John Gabriel Richert. The commission formulated a new civil and criminal code and reorganized the judicial system. A commission to consider Riksdag reform was also created (1846). The debates surrounding these reforms continued into the 1850s. | 11 |
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| 1845 |
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| Legal reform assured women of more equality before the law. Traditional law had considered women as wards and established the principle that daughters inherited only one-half of what sons did. The new law (1845) gave women legal status as independents at age 25 and eliminated the inequality of inheritance. However, women remained limited to five occupations: selling fancy goods, peddler's wares, or tobacco, and conducting brokerage houses and huckster's stands. Reforms also abolished guilds and established a new system of poor relief. (See Sweden and Norway) | 12 |
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