The Kalmar Union (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish: Kalmarunionen) is a historiographical term meaning a series of personal unions (1397–1524) that united the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway (with Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Shetland and Orkney) and Sweden (including some of Finland) under a single monarch, though intermittently. The countries had not technically given up their sovereignty, nor their independence, but in practical terms, they were only autonomous, the common monarch holding the sovereignty and, particularly, leading foreign policy; diverging interests (especially the Swedish nobility's dissatisfaction over the dominant role played by Denmark and Holstein) gave rise to a conflict that would hamper the union in several intervals from the 1430s until the union's breakup in 1523 when Gustav Vasa became king of Sweden. The union was never formally dissolved - some argue that its conception actually was never ratified either. Norway and her overseas dependencies, however, continued to remain a part of the realm of Denmark-Norway under the Oldenburg dynasty for several centuries after the dissolution. (Full article...)