King Harald V was born in 1937, the son of Crown Prince Olav and Swedish Princess Märtha. With Harald, Norway gained its first Norwegian-born prince since the 14th century, when his father Olav was originally a Danish prince.
Harald spent his early years on the Skaugum farm in Asker. At just three years old, his life took a dramatic turn when Nazi Germany unexpectedly invaded Norway in April 1940.
The royal family, the government and large parts of the Storting quickly fled Oslo by train. That same night, Swedish-born Märtha crossed the border into Sweden with the children and then on to the United States. Harald's father and grandfather - Olav and King Haakon VII - were not allowed to flee through Sweden, as the pro-German Swedish King Gustav V said no.
When Germany surrendered in May 1945, the royal family was able to return to Norway. Upon their return to Oslo, eight-year-old Harald and his family were met by a sea of people who welcomed them home in triumph.
Twelve years later, Harald, then 20, became Crown Prince when King Haakon VII died.
In addition to his royal duties, he was a talented sailor. He competed for Norway in the 1964, 1968 and 1972 Summer Olympics, and as recently as 2005, the King and crew won the European Sailing Championships.
In August 1968, the wedding in Oslo Cathedral with Sonja Haraldsen - later Queen Sonja - took place, however, after some resistance from father Olav, who is said to have hesitated about his son's marriage to a non-royal. The couple had two children: Princess Märtha Louise in 1971 and Crown Prince Haakon Magnus in 1973.
When King Olav V fell ill in the spring of 1990, Harald took over as head of state. Olav died the following year, in January 1991, and Harald became king.
The last years on the throne were turbulent. In early 2024, the king fell ill while on holiday in Malaysia and had a pacemaker implanted.
The same year, daughter Märtha Louise married the scandalous, self-proclaimed "shaman" Durek Verrett - and bonus grandson Marius Borg Høiby, son of Crown Prince Haakon's wife Mette-Marit, was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a girlfriend.
"Sometimes life is simply very difficult," said King Harald in October 2024.
In 2025, the criminal investigation against Marius Borg Høiby swelled, and in early 2026, another scandal erupted when documents from the investigation into sex offender Jeffrey Epstein revealed that Crown Princess Mette-Marit had had significantly more intensive contact with Epstein than previously known. She was forced to publicly apologize to the Norwegian people.
The scandals have caused Norwegians' trust in the royal family to plummet. But support for King Harald remained intact until the very end.
The then Prince Harald was born on the Skaugum farm in Asker on February 21, 1937, as the son of Crown Prince Olav and Swedish-born Crown Princess Märtha, who never became queen before she died in 1954.
Harald's father, Crown Prince Olav, who later became King Olav V, was born in Denmark and came to Norway after the dissolution of the union with Sweden in 1905, when Olav's father became King Haakon VII of Norway.
When Harald was born, Olav and Märtha already had two girls, princesses Astrid and Ragnhild, but until 1991, the Norwegian constitution stipulated that only men could inherit the throne.
After graduating from high school in Oslo, Harald trained in the military, but also spent a few years at Oxford where he studied political science, history and economics from 1960 to 1962.
In 1968 he married the future Queen Sonja and had children Märtha Louise and Haakon.
In 1991, Harald became King of Norway after the death of his father.
He had five grandchildren: Maud Angelica Behn, Leah Isadora Behn, Emma Tallulah Behn, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, as well as the bonus grandson Marius Borg Høiby.
Sources: Norwegian Royal House, NE
