Tomorrow is the 1st of December and we thought this year we would do a special Flatpack/Kingdom Christmas Calendar! 🎄🤶 So starting tomorrow, we will publish a Swedish history fact for each day of December, all the way up until the start of 2026. Hope you enjoy!

Along with the final part of our Birger Jarl trilogy, we've also released a brief update on the Flatpack feed, about our upcoming appearance at Intelligent Speech in February! Go to intelligentspeechonline.com and use the code SWEDEN to get 10% off your ticket. We're looking forward to it!

Tomorrow will be the last release of the Birger Jarl episodes on the Kingdom feed. Hope you have enjoyed the life story of this great man and the conclusion!

Attention listeners who use Spotify! 🟢 We have now updated our Kingdom feed so you can vote on each episode to say if you believe the ruler should receive the Three Crowns or not! 👑👑👑 We're excited to see if you agree with us or not...

Attention listeners who use Spotify! 🟢 We have now updated our Kingdom feed so you can vote on each episode to say if you believe the ruler should receive the Three Crowns or not! 👑👑👑 We're excited to see if you agree with us or not...

Chris is back in Colombia and we're back recording for our future Kingdom episodes 🎙 Sneak peak, we're recording well in advance for some episodes due out in January and February! 🫢

Today we've released part two of our three episodes looking into statesman and general puppet master Birger Jarl! We have some family trees on our website too, for episodes 37-41, which we created for our Flatpack series! aflatpackhistoryofsweden.com/about-the-po...

Tomorrow we release part two of our three part mini-biography on Birger Jarl on the Kingdom feed! We have a whole bunch of family trees on our website that hopefully make it a bit easier to understand this man's life. Here's a preview and a link. aflatpackhistoryofsweden.com/about-the-po...

November is the month of Birger Jarl! It started yesterday with part one of a three-part biography we're releasing on the Kingdom feed. The next two Sundays will see us complete the story and learn more about the man who later received a golden tomb outside Stockholm City Hall!

We're Chris and Åsa, hosts of A Flatpack History of Sweden and Kingdom: Swedish Rulers! We go chronologically through Swedish history and also rate and judge all the rulers of Sweden in our two podcasts. You can find all you need to know on our website! www.aflatpackhistoryofsweden.com

Sometimes the most important person in the kingdom isn't the monarch, but the one doing the actual ruling. That was definitely the case with Birger Jarl, so we're looking into his life in a three part series for Kingdom, republished from Flatpack! But no, he won't be getting a ranking at the end 😉

Chris has been running some errands in the old town of Stockholm, Gamla Stan. It's easy to imagine people 500 years ago in the time of Gustav Vasa doing the same, as they got on with their lives. The errands might have also included executing people back then, but close enough!

Chris has been running some errands in the old town of Stockholm, Gamla Stan. It's easy to imagine people 500 years ago in the time of Gustav Vasa doing the same, as they got on with their lives. The errands might have also included executing people back then, but close enough!

We're back with our next rulers. Our third King Magnus will be busy with everything from legal reform to building projects, but why does he get the nickname Barn-lock? Listen to find out 😊

We're back reviewing Swedish rulers on Sunday, after completing our First Era Review last time around. Next up is Magnus Ladulås; Cool name, cool beard. Even if it does make him look a bit like a Chinese warlord! Will this give him any extra points though?

Time for Chris to get some podcasting writing done whilst sailing through the beautiful Stockholm archipelago on the way back from Finland! 🇸🇪🇫🇮

Time for Chris to get some podcasting writing done whilst sailing through the beautiful Stockholm archipelago on the way back from Finland! 🇸🇪🇫🇮

We're delighted to say that we will again take part in the next online Intelligent Speech Conference on 28th February 2026! It’s where history podcasters and others join to present and discuss all things history. The theme of the 2026 conference is Companions and Rivals!

We have finally created score cards for all the rulers we have covered so far on our podcast Kingdom: Swedish Rulers! You can see the scores in each category and if they achieved the true honour of being awarded The Three Crowns! 👑👑👑 Check them out here: aflatpackhistoryofsweden.com/kingdom-scor...

We have finally created score cards for all the rulers we have covered so far on our podcast Kingdom: Swedish Rulers! You can see the scores in each category and if they achieved the true honour of being awarded The Three Crowns! 👑👑👑 Check them out here: aflatpackhistoryofsweden.com/kingdom-scor...

We've covered over 20 Swedish rulers so far on Kingdom. Some were bad, some were good, some had sex with nuns and some we crushed into meatballs. A select few given the honour of the Three Crowns. In this episode, we review where we've gotten to and what the scoreboard looks like for our rulers.

Last time on Kingdom, we covered king Valdemar, meaning we are one third of the way through ranking all of Sweden's rulers 😱 This Sunday we look back at the first of our three "eras" of Swedish history, which we have arbritrally created, and see who has been the best in our various categories! 🤔

Last time on Kingdom, we covered king Valdemar, meaning we are one third of the way through ranking all of Sweden's rulers 😱 This Sunday we look back at the first of our three "eras" of Swedish history, which we have arbritrally created, and see who has been the best in our various categories! 🤔

It's Sunday and time for the start of a new dynasty. In our longest episode yet we see an example of perhaps the biggest sex scandal in Swedish Royal history. Welcome to the reign of Valdemar!

More from Cartagena's beautiful old town! It was fascinating to learn about the city's history; from the role it had to play in the Spanish Empire and slavery, to pirates in the Caribbean and its contributions to modern Colombian history!

We've been to visit Cartagena on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where we went to see the home of Rafael Núñez, the first President of modern Colombia! He helped write the first Constitution, the lyrics to the national anthem and much more. Very interesting place!

On Sunday we went to the Gold Museum in Bogotá, which is home to the world’s largest collection of pre-Hispanic gold artefacts. Over 55,000 pieces of gold and metalwork are displayed, crafted by Colombia’s oldest cultures. Some of the pieces are truly stunning.

When the rebels against King Erik XI look at Knut's credentials, they see that he is very tall and he's been in the regency council. But will this make him a good ruler himself? Time to find out!

Happy birthday to one half of the Flatpack duo 🥳🎂🎉 Here Chris can be seen, earlier this year, buying more history books to enjoy 😊

Yesterday the 2025-26 session of the Swedish Parliament was opened by the King and the Speaker of the Parliament, marking the new parliamentary year! You can see some pictures from the occasion here! www.kungahuset.se/arkiv/nyhete...

On Sunday Chris went back to the beautiful Mariefred (more pictures later in the week!) and whilst on the steam train he went past a plaque dedicated to the Polish submariners who were interned there during WW2. On the other side of the tracks is the place where the boats were kept.

New episode out today! A six-year-old Erik receives a letter whilst living in exile in Denmark, asking him to become king of Sweden. His reign will be marked by powerful jarls, a tall rebel and expeditions to the east. It's time to check out the latest edition of the Erik Dynasty!

In episode 95 we talk about the the Danish flagship Gribshunden that sank just off the coast of Blekinge in modern day Sweden. Thanks to it being so well preserved, it is still teaching us new things today, as this article in @svenskhistoria explains: svenskhistoria.se/gribshundens...

In our Kingdom: Swedish Rulers podcast, we're judging and ranking all the Swedish rulers from Olof Skötkonung to Carl XVI Gustaf and we've already published the first 19 rulers! 😵‍💫 Check out the points on offer here and the podcast wherever you tune in to listen to pods! 🎙

Whilst Chris was visiting ships and fortresses in Gothenburg, Åsa went to the National Museum in Bogotá to visit their permanent exhibition on pre-colonial Colombian history 🇨🇴😊

Whilst Chris was visiting ships and fortresses in Gothenburg, Åsa went to the National Museum in Bogotá to visit their permanent exhibition on pre-colonial Colombian history 🇨🇴😊

Right now, the over 110-year-old church in the norhern Swedish town of Kiruna is being moved. It's quite the endeavour to preserve this culturally, historically, and spiritually important building in the face of new city planning due to expanded mining in the area ⛪️

Chris stepped back in time to visit the 17th century New Älvsborg Fortress whilst in Gothenburg! Once a guardian against Danish attacks, today it’s a living reminder of 17th-century naval history. You can even still see the cannonballs in the tower wall from a Danish assault!

Chris is in Gothenburg and has been to the ship of the same name! The ship is a full-scale replica of an 18th-century Swedish East India Company vessel that sank in 1745. The current ship was built using traditional methods and is actually the world's largest ocean-going wooden sailing ship.

This Sunday we'll see the reign of Johan I, probably the most successful baby we've seen so far 👶 A few episodes ago, Johan's father Sverker II made him the Jarl when he was just one year old! Sverker was then deposed by Erik X, but now he's back in charge for real, how will it go for Johan?

Coins have returned recently to our Kingdom episodes and that means we got to rank Sverker II's coins in his recent episode to see if he got any Carving Their Runestone points. Chris thought this was a horse, maybe a chicken. Åsa just called it a blob. What do you think??

We're back with a new ranking episode of Kingdom tomorrow and it's going to be fun! We already saw last time how Erik managed to kick Sverker II off the throne to violently bring back the Erik dynasty. But what will happen in the rest of his reign and how will we score him?

For our northern hemisphere listeners, here are some summer reading tips! 📖 All the sources we use are our website, from niche academic articles about Bronze Age rock art in Bohuslän, to general histories about the Viking Age. Some faves in this thread! 🧵 aflatpackhistoryofsweden.com/sources/

We're taking a brief summer break from ranking this weekend, but instead, we're diving back into the Flatpack archives to release something highly relevant. The last few rulers have been doing their own deep dives into Law and Order, so we're doing the same. Enjoy Part 1 and 2, both out today!

We've released an update on the Flatpack feed today 🎙 Mainly to share that we've had the pleasure to be on the Presidencies of the United States podcast recently and to say thanks for all the kind messages we've received since we announced our move 😊 Listen wherever you find your podcasts!

The Sverker dynasty is back on the throne and in today's episode, we see a cunning plan from Sverker the Younger to make it stay that way 👑 But making his toddler son the Jarl might not be the best decision ever...

It's a new week and that means another part of our talk with Jerry from @presidencies.bsky.social about JQA! What a way to celebrate #4thJuly for our American listeners! 🥳

Non history content! ⚠️ We saw this turtle on our last day in Curaçao! Super cute!

After meeting up in Bogotá, we're off on a trip to the Caribbean island of Curaçao! 🇨🇼 What luck to find this excellent fort, right as we listen to the latest pirate episodes of @totalusrankium.bsky.social!

No new episode this weekend, but last week's episode saw a first for Kingdöm; we disagreed about if Knut deserved The Three Crowns. Whose side are you on and why?