Christian Michelsen is the greatest Bergen hero of all, leading the negociations with Sweden, when Norway broke away from the forced royal union and gained independence. Before Sweden, Norway was a colony under Denmark for 400 years, but was given to Sweden as a war prize after Waterloo in 1813, but without the Norwegian islands Greenland, Faroe islands and Iceland. The British objected, if Sweden got those, they would be too powerful!
The people of Bergen (and the rest of Norway) thought so highly of Christian Michelsens leadership in the difficult times before and after we broke out of the union with Sweden, that his statue in the hearth of town is towering so high, it is mostle used by birds. But his name and the year 1905 is carved in stone, and accessible even for the kids.
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