This is a very, very short briefing about The history of Finland and the finns, actually this was a message from me to [Mirime] but I figured I should try to find some better usage for it. So, if you find out that I'm wrong somewhere (especially you, [Veltzeh] !), please just let it go. Unless you're sure about it ! Then you can correct it. Note also that a great part of the history has been left away, just to keep it short. You shouldn't really use this as a source of any kind, this is just meant for you to get the idea.



Err...
To be brief:
7000 BC the glacier retreated to the Skands and was melt away. Soon after the first finns settled at the current area, emerging from todays Russia, behind Ural mountains.
Then, around +1000 AD came the first crusaders from Sweden. The people were forced tobecome christians, though the worshipping of the old gods went on for several centuries. They are still not totally forgotten. Then, SW Finland became part of the Sweden and the ES was forced under the city state of Novgorod (the ancient Leningrad area). For many bloody years Sweden and Novgorod fought over the land, until a peace treaty was made. The border was moved treaty by treaty to the east and more areas from the north were inhabited. Finally most of the todays Finland was under the Swedish king. Then, the Russia (Novgorod had fell under the united Russia) attacked. The few troops trained from finnish peasants were crushed. Then Finland was an authonomical part of Russia, until the Soviet revolution created chaos big enough to us finns rebel. The revolution was at that time bloodless. The senate just gave the declaration and boom ! we were independent. The Soviets thought that eventually the people in Finland would do the same as in Russia, revolute into Soviet system and join the Union. The revolution came next year (1917) as the southern parts of Finland gathered their Red Militia. The other part, The Whites, fought back with overpower and better equipement, for the reds were commonly just some poor peasants. The war was quickly over and the battles didn't take nearly as many victims as the prison camps took. The leader of the whites was the White General, Mannerheim. Then 1939 Soviet Union faked an attack coming from us to them (same as the Germans did with Poland) and attacked. The numbers were quite uneven, as we had 200 000 men in arms, the Soviet Union marched as much as 1 000 000 men against us. They also had 1:50 overpower in tanks and 1:20 in airplanes. The attack was stopped like to an brick wall: at the end of the Winter War soviets had lost 500 000 men as we lost 24 000. One single battle took 20 000 soviets, and another one costed 9 000 soviet soldiers and it was the cost of 800 meters progress.
Later we allied witht he Nazis, in the hope of getting military assistance. Mostly we got AT weaponary, but nothing came as much as needed and the german troops didn't really do anything useful. Our president at that time was Ryti, he refused many of Hitlers demands, such as take part in taking over Leningrad. As Germany started falling, the Soviets could send more troops against Finland and we had to retreat around the current borders.
A peace treaty was made, and one of its demands was that the alliance with Germany had to be ended. To be able to break the treaty with Germany, the president Ryti first broke the contract and because the contract said it could not be broken, he had to resign. Mannerheim took the lead of the country from there. So started the war of Lapland, as we drove the germans towards the border of Norway. First the it was very friendly, the was no combat, but the soviet inspectors started threating with a new war if we wouldn't use more heavier hand in getting the germans out. The war took about 500 finns.