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
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If you look at the 150 years of modern China’s history since the Opium Wars, then you can’t avoid the conclusion that the last 15 years are the best 15 years in China’s modern history.”
—J. Stapleton Roy (b. 1935)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)