History
Svalbard began as a territory free of a nation, with multiple people from different countries participating in industries including fishing, whaling, mining, tourism, and research. Having no nation left Svalbard largely free of any regulations or laws, though there were conflicts over the area due to whaling rights and issues of sovereignty between The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Denmark–Norway in the first half of the 17th century. However, by the 20th century mine deposits were found in Svalbard and continual conflicts between miners and owners created a need for a government.
Read more about this topic: Svalbard Treaty
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“A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932)
“History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)
“So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul, or the like, but the universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in this history of the globe.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)