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Swedish royalty to visit Philadelphia

King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia will spend two days here, celebrating the 375th anniversary of the New Sweden colony.

Mayor Nutter will be entertaining royalty Friday when the king and queen of Sweden visit the city, in part to commemorate the 375th anniversary of the founding of a "New Sweden" colony.

The two-day visit of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia will include an official welcome at City Hall and tours of the Barnes Foundation, Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and the American Swedish Historical Museum on Friday.

On Saturday, the king and queen are scheduled to attend a symposium at the Independence Seaport Museum on "Making It in America," to be joined by the Speaker of the Parliament of Finland, Eero Olavi Heinaluoma.

Swedes first arrived in the Delaware Valley in 1638, with Dutchman Peter Minuit leading a band of Swedish settlers who would buy 67 miles of Delaware River frontage from the Lenapes and establish the colony of Nya Sverige, or New Sweden.

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