History
The name Svalbard means Cold Coast and most likely it comes from the Vikings, who supposedly visited the islands in late 12th century.
In 15th and 16th century Svalbard was probably being visited by hunters from the White sea coasts.
The credit for official discovery is given to Dutch explorer William Barents, who landed here in 1596 when searching for the North-east Route. The name Spitzbergen comes from him.
From 17th to 19th century, there was a lot of hunting and whaling activity, in the area. It is interesting that there also was a war between England and Holland in 17th century, that never reached the european mainland. It was fought solely by whalers, in one of the battles 17 whaling ships was sunk.
In 20th century the industrialization reached the North and mining of local raw materials has begun. There was several "rushes", besides the classical gold one, there also was an iron or oil one. At the end, the only commodity really mined in significant amounts has been the coal.
The raw materials brought up tha matter of sovereignty over Svalbard. It was settled in 1920 by the Treaty of Svalbard. The sovereignty belongs to Norway, but about 40 other countries has the right to mine and use the raw materials.
During the gold age of the expedition to North Pole, Svalbard was a base to many expeditions.
Another war that visited Svalbard was World War II. Norwegians and Russians evacuated the islands and Germans took over creating the weather station serving their U-boats. The Allied operation recaptured Svalbard in 1942, but in September 1943 Germans came with the heavy ships Tirpitz and Sharnhorst and 9 destroyers to raze tho local communities to the ground (one of the mines was burning till 1960's). In 1944 german amphibious assault launched from U-boat, destroyed the community of Svea. Svalbard was then reconnected to the outer world as late as June 1945.
The memorial of WWII events near Longyearbyen
