Gustav I of Sweden (Gustav Vasa)

Gustav I, born Gustav Eriksson of the noble Vasa family, is revered as the founding father of modern Sweden (landsfader). In November 1520, following the brutal Stockholm Bloodbath in which Danish King Christian II executed nearly a hundred Swedish nobles (including Gustav's father and brothers), the young nobleman fled to Dalarna, where he rallied the independent miners and peasants in an epic rebellion.

Elected King of Sweden at Strängnäs on June 6, 1523—a date celebrated today as Sweden's National Day—Gustav captured Stockholm, permanently breaking the Kalmar Union and securing Swedish national sovereignty. At the 1527 Diet of Västerås, Gustav broke the immense political and financial power of the Catholic Church, confiscating church lands to clear the national debt, introducing the Lutheran Protestant Reformation, and commissioning the first Swedish Bible translation (the Vasa Bible). In 1544, he transformed the elective Swedish monarchy into an hereditary kingdom, establishing the powerhouse Vasa dynasty that turned Sweden into a dominant European great power.