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(Original Caption) Oscar II, king of Sweden and Norway. A son of Oscar I, he was born on January 21, 1829, in Stockholm. He recieved an education at Uppsala University and elsewhere and developed wide-ranging cultural interests. After serving in various military and naval posts, he succeeded to the throne after the death of his brother, Charles XV, in Spet. 18, 1872. Oscar's reign was taken up largely with friction betwen this two kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, which had been united in 1814 though with seperate constitutions and governements. Encouraged by Swedish bureaucrats and conservatives, and in time by the German Emperor Willam II, he resisted Norwegian demands for full equality with Sweden. he sought to check the democatic movement in Norway, while the Swedish partied of the Left backed the Norwegian demands. In 1885 the Norwegian parliament (Storting) compelled him to acce (Photo by �� Rykoff Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)