A Brief History
On August 24, 1743, the army of Sweden surrendered to the Russians at Helsinki, effectively ending The War of the Hats. (We have previously discussed odd names for wars, battles and weapons, as well as riots.)
Digging Deeper
This particular war actually had nothing to do with hats, as in coverings for your head, but rather the name of a Swedish political party that sought to regain Swedish lands lost to Russia during the Great Northern War.
As with many wars, the country that started this one, Sweden, was ultimately sorry they had done so, as Sweden ended up losing even more territory to Russia. The War of the Hats lasted from 1741 to 1743, ending with Treaty of Åbo. Oddly enough, Abo is the Swedish name for a city that is now in Finland, Turku.
Question for students (and subscribers): What war do you believe has the goofiest name? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Surhone, Lambert, editor. Russo-Swedish War (1788–1790): Russo- Swedish War (1741–1743), Russo- Swedish War (1656–1658). Betascript Publishing, 2010.
von Kienlin, Sabine. Sweden (Spectacular Places). Koenemann; None edition, 2020.
The featured image in this article, an image of a hat preserved in the Swedish garrison, is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
You can also watch video versions of this article on YouTube.
