Norway’s longest-reigning monarch, King Harald V, dies at 89

King Harald V of Norway, Europe’s oldest monarch, died Friday at the National Hospital in Oslo, according to a report by the Associated Press.

The palace said he died at 6:35 a.m. His son automatically became King Haakon VIII. Harald, who fled to the US as a child during Nazi occupation, was crowned in 1991 following his father King Olav V’s death. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre mourned him, saying he “demonstrated an unwavering faith in the Norwegian people.”

Harald reigned during an oil-driven economic boom, modernising the monarchy while wielding largely symbolic power.