The last Ice Age ended around 10,000 years ago, and Norway’s history spans the period from the first people arrived on its shores and up to the present day.

The earliest traces of human settlement in Norway date from the Stone Age, which started around 9,000 to 10,000 years Before the Common Era.

800–1030
The Viking Age.

Approx. 890
King Harald Fairhair unites Norway into one kingdom.

1030–1537
The Middle Ages – dominance of the Catholic Church.

1030
King Olav Haraldsson is slain in the Battle of Stiklestad. He is canonised the following year.

1152
The Pope establishes an archbishopric in Norway.

1263
Magnus Håkonsson, known as Magnus the Lawmender, becomes king and introduces the country’s first common national laws.

1319
Union between Norway and Sweden under a common monarch. The Union Era begins.

1349
The Black Death, a contagious bubonic plague, reaches Norway claiming perhaps as much as 50% of its population.

1397
The Kalmar Union is formed, a personal union between the kingdoms of DenmarkNorway and Sweden, formed in 1397 and dissolved in 1523. 

1537
The Reformation
The Catholic Archbishop Olaf Engelbrektsson flees from Norway. King Christian III establishes a Lutheran State Church.
The Bible is translated and published. Windows are added to churches so that the congregation can read the psalms and scriptures.

1814
The Norwegian Constitution is signed on 17 May at Eidsvoll.
Sovereignty over Norway is transferred from the King of Denmark to the King of Sweden.

1905
Dissolution of the union with Sweden.
The Norwegian Storting invites Prince Carl of Denmark to take the throne as King Haakon VII of Norway.