{"id":970,"date":"2014-06-06T14:28:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-06T13:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wood.nu\/?p=970"},"modified":"2014-06-06T14:28:00","modified_gmt":"2014-06-06T13:28:00","slug":"the-worlds-least-interesting-national-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiowood.com\/?p=970","title":{"rendered":"The world&#8217;s least interesting national day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/media3.wood.nu\/2014\/06\/20140606-150759-54479285.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/media3.wood.nu\/2014\/06\/20140606-150759-54479285.jpg\" alt=\"20140606-150759-54479285.jpg\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>National Day 2011 at Millesg\u00e5rden, Liding\u00f6,<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Today is Sweden&#8217;s National Day, and practically no one cares.<\/p>\n<p>Under the headline &#8220;National Day, a bluff clothed in Blue and Yellow&#8221;, the noted historian Dick Harrison tells the newspaper &#8220;Svenska Dagbladet&#8221; today that what was originally Swedish Flag Day had its origin with the founder of Skansen, Artur Hazelius, in the 1890&#8217;s. Apparently he held a number of Flag Days, but they all got rained out. According to Harrison, it rained least on June 6, so Hazelius stuck with that date.<\/p>\n<p>Afterwards, people looked for historical events on June 6, and discovered that Gustaf Vasa was crowned King of Sweden on that date (under the Julian Calendar) in 1523, and a new Swedish Constitution was signed (not adopted) on June 6, 1809. Harrison says these events were linked to the day after the fact.<\/p>\n<p>The day didn&#8217;t become a public holiday until 2005, replacing Pentacost Monday, and that was only because industry realized Pentacost Monday happens every year, but two years out of seven June 6 falls on a weekend. Unlike US, where the following Monday is a holiday in such cases, Swedes lose out if a holiday is on a weekend. So industry realized they could get more work out of people with June 6, and successfully lobbied for the change.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Svenska Dagbladet&#8221; points out that most Swedes feel no connection to the day, and the true national day of Sweden is Midsummer. That&#8217;s when everyone is out, dancing around Maypoles, and picnicking together.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years one custom has been attached to the national day. Every year on June 6 city halls across the country hold ceremonies to honor those who became Swedish citizens during the previous calendar year. I attended such a ceremony in 2011, and it was fun. But for most Swedes June 6 has virtually no significance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National Day 2011 at Millesg\u00e5rden, Liding\u00f6, Today is Sweden&#8217;s National Day, and practically no one cares. Under the headline &#8220;National Day, a bluff clothed in Blue and Yellow&#8221;, the noted historian Dick Harrison tells the newspaper &#8220;Svenska Dagbladet&#8221; today that&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/radiowood.com\/?p=970\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3AzSx-fE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiowood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiowood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiowood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiowood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiowood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiowood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":971,"href":"https:\/\/radiowood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions\/971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiowood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiowood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiowood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}