Way back, the forerunners of the Sami probably arrived in Norway around 9000BC, and visitors can still admire rock art painted around 4000BC near Alta in the far north. The Viking era began in the 8th century, with Norwegian longships eventually reaching as far as the Moorish shores of the Mediterranean and the east coast of North America, which they named Vinland. Trondheim became Norway's first major town, founded in 997.

The 14th century saw Norway lose its independence, becoming a pawn fought over by Sweden and Denmark for centuries until independence finally returned in 1905. Antipathy to its Scandinavian neighbours still lingers! Nazi occupation from 1940-45 sparked a fierce resistance movement whose heroic attacks crucially undermined Hitler's efforts to build atomic weapons. German revenge was brutal: hundreds of Norwegians were butchered, while swathes of the country were destroyed under a scorched earth policy. Faced with the threat of Cold War Russian expansion, Norway joined NATO in 1949. It has, however, twice rejected EU membership, in 1972 and 1994.