Haakon VII of Norway (1872–1957)
Born 1872 CE, died 1957 CE.
Haakon VII (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈhôːkʊn]; born Prince Carl of Denmark; 3 August 1872 – 21 September 1957) was King of Norway from 1905 until his death in 1957. Born in Copenhagen during the reign of his grandfather, King Christian IX of Denmark, he was named Carl at birth and was the second son of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Denmark (later King Frederick VIII and Queen Louise). Through his mother, Louise of Sweden, he was also a grandson of King Charles XV of Sweden, linking him lineally to both the Danish and Swedish royal houses. Carl was educated at the Royal Danish Naval Academy and served in the Royal Danish Navy. After the 1905 dissolution of the union between Sweden and Norway, he was offered the Norwegian crown. Following a referendum on the monarchy, he accepted the offer and was formally elected King of Norway by the Storting and took the Old Norse name Haakon, thus ascended the throne as Haakon VII, the first independent Norwegian monarch since Olav IV in 1387. As king, Haakon gained much sympathy from the Norwegian people.
Text from the Wikipedia article Haakon_VII, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.