s converted herring boat, was
passed as a gift to the people of San Francisco. He had used the
vessel to cross the Northwest Passage in 1905 and had arrived in SF
in 1906. In 1972 the Gjoe was returned to Norway and a commemorative
sculpture was left next to the Beach Chalet at Ocean Beach.
(Ind, 4/27/02, 5A)(SSFC, 6/14/09, DB p.50)
1910 Nov 22, The Norwegian
freighter Seija sank in 300 feet of water off the coast of San
Francisco after a collision with another ship. 2 crew members were
killed and both captains were found at fault in a case that went to
the US Supreme Court.
(SFC, 9/17/14, p.A10)
1911 Oct 19, A team, consisting
of Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, Oscar Wisting, and
Roald Amundsen set out to reach the South Pole.
1911 Dec 14, Norwegian explorer
Roald Amundsen became the first man to reach the South Pole, beating
an expedition led by Robert F. Scott. The best book on Scott and
Amundsen is by Roland Huntford "Scott and Amundsen."
(AP, 12/14/97)(SFEC, 1/24/99, BR p.1,6)
1912 Apr 8, Sonja Henie
(d.1969), ice skater, actress (Olympic-gold-1928,32,36), was born in
Oslo, Norway. Henie won 10 consecutive world championships.
(MC, 4/8/02)(SSFC, 10/5/03, Par p.2)
1913 In Norway industrialist
Sam Eyde built the town of Rjukan, Telemark County, to provide
workers for a hydroelectric plant located at the foot of a nearby
(SFC, 10/31/13, p.A4)
1914 May 29, The Canadian ship
Empress of Ireland sank while enroute to Quebec City to Liverpool
after colliding with the Norwegian coal freighter Storstad. 1,012
(1,024) of the 1,500 passengers and crew were killed. The site of
the tragedy was proclaimed a protected historic and archeological
site by Quebec in 1999.
(SFC, 4/23/99, p.D3)(SC, 5/29/02)
1914 Jun 6, The 1st air flight
out of sight of land was made from Scotland to Norway.
1914 Oct 6, Thor Heyerdahl,
Norwegian entomologist and adventurer whose 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition
established the possibility that Polynesians may have originated in
South America, was born.
1915 Feb 23, Germany sank US
ships Carib & Evelyn and torpedoed the Norwegian ship Regin.
1916 Apr 16,
In Norway Lars Korvald (d.2006), later prime minister
(1972-1973) was born on a farm near the southeastern village of
Nedre Eiker. He graduated from the Norwegian Agricultural College in
1943, and became an agriculture teacher.
1916 Sep 13, Roald Dahl
(d.1990), son of Norwegian immigrants, was born in Llandaff, Wales.
He is best known for his children’s books such as "James and the
1917 Jan, In Norway a piece of
sugar containing anthrax bacilli was found in the luggage of Baron
Otto Karl von Rosen, when he was apprehended in Karasjok for
suspected espionage and sabotage.
(NH, 10/98, p.18)
1917 Dec 6, In Nova Scotia some
2000 people were killed and thousands wounded following an explosion
in Halifax harbor. The Imo, a Norwegian freighter ship, had collided
with the French munitions ship Mont Blanc and a fire soon caused a
massive explosion. A local court found Captain Le Medec of the Mont
Blanc and other defendants guilty of the collision. Canada’s Supreme
Court ruled that the captains of both ships were equally to blame. A
Privy Council in London ruled that Le Medec had done nothing
(EWH, 4th ed, p.1054)(ON, 7/05, p.7)(AP, 12/6/07)
1919 The Versailles conference
gave Norway sovereignty over the island of Svalbard, but allowed
other countries to establish settlements there.
(Econ, 10/2/04, p.52)
1920 Knut Hamsun (1859-1952),
Norwegian writer, won the Nobel Prize in literature for his work
"The Growth of the Soil."
(Econ, 11/7/09, p.79)
1920 A treaty between Norway
and Russia allowed Russia to pursue mining in the Svalbard islands
(WSJ, 9/19/97, p.A1)(Econ, 10/11/08, p.70)
1922 Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian
Arctic explorer (1893-1896), was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
(ON, 7/05, p.5)
1924 Jul 10, Denmark took
Greenland as Norway ended its claim.
1926 Erik Rotheim of Norway
invented the aerosol can.
(SFEC, 1/17/99, Z1 p.1)
1828 Mar 20, Henrik Ibsen
(d.1906), Norwegian dramatist (Peer Gynt, Hedda Gabler), was born.
(HFA, '96, p.26)(HN, 3/20/98)
1928 