If your system of government puts all the power in the hands of one man, you’d better hope the man holding all that power knows what he’s doing. If he doesn’t, things can quickly turn ugly. Unless, of course, there’s someone else standing in the wings discreetly guiding the power-holding hand to avoid disaster.

The Age of Liberty wasn’t only corruption, palace intrigues and failed wars. Thanks to a policy encouraging science and industry, significant progress was made, and some of the discoveries and inventions from those days are still with us today.

When the result of the War of the Hats became known in Sweden, it was met with dismay. Not only did the Russians take even more territory, but they also wanted to decide who’d be the next king of Sweden. In Dalarna, people weren’t having any of it.

In 1741, the Hats finally got the war against Russia that they’d been working so hard to achieve. Finally, they’d be able to recapture the territory lost during the Great Northern War and restore Sweden’s honor. Unfortunately, it soon turned out that even though they had spent years trying to start the war, they had done little to make sure that the army in Finland would be ready for it.

After the death of Karl XII, Swedish monarchs lost almost all their power. Instead, the Riksdag asserted itself as the most influential body in Swedish political life. Among bribes, personal vendettas and dreams of reestablishing the empire, two political parties emerged.

From the 16th century onward, Denmark and Sweden increased their efforts to assert control over northern Scandinavia, a territory where few Scandinavians had ever gone, and even fewer lived. But that doesn’t mean the region was uninhabited. The Sami people lived there, and as the Norwegians, Swedes and Finns moved north, the Sami way of life came under threat.

In the 18th century, when the triangular trade between Europe, Africa and the Americas was booming, Denmark and Sweden established footholds in the West Indies. They tried to make money on trade, buying and selling sugar, tobacco, cotton–and people.

In the 1600s, both Denmark and Sweden joined the race to establish colonies overseas. The Danes returned to Greenland, but also set up outposts in India. These colonial projects were quite successful. The Swedes, on the other hand, were less fortunate trying to gain a foothold in North America.

In the early 18th century, Denmark was ruled by absolute monarchs, whose personalities left their marks on the country. When Frederik IV was young, he didn’t say no to anything life had to offer. In old age, he turned to religion, and demanded that the rest of Denmark do the same.

Karl XII had failed to get the Ottomans to ally with Sweden in the Great Northern War, but that didn’t mean he was willing to throw in the towel. As soon as he returned home, he decided to go back to fighting. This time, he had his sights on Sweden’s traditional enemy–Denmark.