Norway Has a New King
By 
King Harald V passed away yesterday and has been succeeded by King Haakon VIII:
Haakon was born in Oslo on July 20, 1973, to Harald and Queen Sonja. He has an older sister, Princess Martha Louise. After attending public and private schools in Oslo, he followed family tradition and enrolled in the Norwegian military.
After graduating from the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, Haakon bucked the tradition of enrolling at Oxford University in England, like his father and grandfather had, and studied political science at the University of California, Berkeley. He then went to the London School of Economics, where he graduated in 2003 with a master’s degree in development studies, with a focus on international trade and African studies.
Like his father, he wedded a “commoner” — a person with no royal ancestor — but his 2001 marriage to Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby was not without controversy. She was divorced and had a young child from her first marriage, and the tabloids soon dug up details of her party-girl past. But the family stood by the couple, and Mette-Marit was accepted by the public.
In recent years however, revelations over her friendship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein soured public perception. Her eldest son, Marius Borg Hoiby, has also had run-ins with the law. In June this year, an Oslo court convicted Mr. Hoiby of rape, domestic violence and other charges, and sentenced him to four years in prison.
If you’re anything like me, it’s times like this where you think “welp, that’s the last King of Norway that’s gonna be older than me. And WTF Epstein??!?” Anyway, there was a time in this world where the return of a wayward Prince to England and the crowing of a new King in Norway would have aroused suspicion, but we have evidently left those times behind.
Photo Credit: By Michel Temer – 16-11-2015 Presidente em exercício, Michel Temer, recebe no Itamaraty o príncipe herdeiro da Noruega, Haakon Magnus, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45099150