November 6 marks Gustav Adolf Day, a commemoration of the death of Gustav II Adolf at the Battle of Lützen in 1632 (I finally learned how to type accents on a Mac! I am very pleased with myself). Gustav II Adolf, grandson of Gustav Vasa, who made the Lutheran State Church the official church of Sweden, oversaw the the acquisition of Baltic territories, establishing a glorious kingdom. He also okayed the death penalty for those who converted to Catholicism, which was much less heady. He ultimately met his demise two years after entering into the Thirty Years War, back when those who made the decision to go to war actually had to, well, go. The Swedes celebrate Gustav Adolf Day by eating a chocolate or marzipan medallion of the fallen king; there is also a statue in Gothenburg of Gustav pointing to a spot on the ground in which he declared, "The town will be here," and it is a place of much dancing and celebrating every sixth of November.
Heady, right? I'm waving my finger out my bedroom window and proclaiming that it is the future home of Haackville, but my minions are a bit slow on the statue-erecting.
This is a really, really spotty and abridged recounting of Sweden's glory days, but I have a really poor sense of history thanks to European history teacher in high school who only talked about China, spent 20 minutes a class saying "um" (we did the math), and was overall just really, really really dumb. Like, probably dumber than those AXOs who recounted their mixer to us one night on the LA Quad:
"It was a mixer, you know? Like, a tossed salad. Tossed salaaaaaaaad!"
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| Vegetable Amalgamation, or Greek Social Function? |
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