History
According to the sagas, Halfdan Hvitbeinn (Whiteleg) was the first Yngling in Norway. He conquered Romerike, part of Hedmark, part of Vestfold, and Toten. He was killed in Toten around the year 740.
In 1021, according to saga, King Olaf (reigned 1015-1028) converted Toten to Christianity. Also, King Håkon IV (reigned 1217–1263) came to Toten around the year 1226 to settle local unrest.
Christian II (1481-1559) was a Danish monarch and King of Denmark, Norway (1513-1523), and Sweden (1520-1521), under the Kalmar Union. Prior to becoming king, Duke Christian was sent to Norway in 1506 by John II (also called Hans), King of Norway (1483 – 1513) to take charge of the kingdom. In 1507, he became aware of a revolt in Hedmark. In early 1508, he took a force there, routing the rebellion. He then rowed across lake Mjøsa to Toten, capturing residents, imprisoning them in the vaulted cellar of the rectory in Østre Toten and torturing them there. As a result, he determined that Bishop Karl of Hamar had been behind the rebellion. With Bishop Karl as his captive, he was able to suppress the unrest.
Toten was a part of Akershus county until 1756, when it was reassigned to Oppland county. Lauritz Weideman, Corporal Peder Balke, and Nels Dyhren from Toten attended the 1814 constitutional convention at Eidsvold.
Vestre Toten was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 (see formannskapsdistrikt). The areas of Kolbu and Eina were separated from Vestre Toten on 1 January 1908. Eina was, however, merged back into the municipality of Vestre Toten on 1 January 1964 (and Kolbu was merged into Østre Toten at this time also).
Read more about this topic: Vestre Toten
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)