History of Svalbard
The Viking S or the Russian probably discovered the Svalbard (archipelago called often Spitzberg in France) as of the 12th century.
There exists a country named Svalbard - literally “cold coast” - in the Scandinavian traditional accounts.
However, the first undeniable discovery of the archipelago was carried out by the navigator Dutch Willem Barents in 1596. The islands were used as a basis international for fishing for the Baleine at the time of 18th and 18th centuries. It is estimated that the Netherlanders alone killed: 60000 whales since their base of Smeerenburg.
They are also useful like base camp for many forwardings of exploration of the Arctique.
At the beginning of the 20th century, companies American, English, Swedish, Russian and Norwegian began the extraction of coal.
The sovereignty of the Norway was recognized by the Traité of Svalbard the February 9th 1920 with a clause which limited the military use of the territory and another which tolerated the colonies created by the other nations. Five years after, Norway controls officially the territory.
Some historians claim that Norway saw itself giving the sovereignty of Svalbard like compensation of the losses of its merchant fleet during the First World War, the Norwegian merchant fleet having played a big role by providing the the United Kingdom.
Svalbard was the theater of a fight ignored between the Third Reich and the Alliés for the establishment of weather stations at the time of the Second world war. A German garrison was expelled in 1942 by a small Norwegian force. The British made evacuate the civilians of the archipelago and destroyed the mining installations to prevent that they can be used for the enemy. The September 8th 1943, eight Armoured S German by which the Tirpitz and the Scharnhorst accompanied by nine destroyers shaved the remaining villages. The Alliés counter-attacked later and took again control of it. However, a team of Germans remained present in secrecy on an uninhabited part of the Spitzberg to transmit weather reports/ratios. After the German capitulation, he were discovered and went. It was the last German unit to go at the time of this war.
The complete geological investigation of the archipelago was carried out by teams of Cambridge and other universities, carried out mainly by the geologist W. Brian Harland between the years 1940 and 1980.
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