Published 25 November 2022 at 18.19
Foreign. Researchers in Finland now claim to be able to prove that the Swedish warrior king Karl XII was killed by an enemy bullet.
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The shooting death of Charles XII during the siege of Fredriksten Fortress in Norway on November 30, 1718 has been a national trauma for over 300 years.
Innumerable theories about the death have been put forward. However, the question of who shot the legendary hero king – whether it was the enemy or one of his own – has never really been answered.
But now researchers at the University of Oulu in Finland claim to have solved the mystery.
The researchers have test-fired different types of ammunition and concluded that Charles XII must have been killed by an iron ball with a diameter of over 20 millimeters. Considering the bullet hole, the bullet should have had a speed of about 200 meters per second.
According to the researchers, this proves that the killing bullet was fired from 200 meters away, from the enemy's fortress – and therefore not by one of his own soldiers.
Karl XII's grave in the Riddarholm church in Stockholm was opened in 1917, and then the corpse was X-rayed.