Trygve Lie

In 1921, he married Hjørdis Jørgensen. They had three daughters named Sissel, Guri and Mette. His wife died in 1960.

Trygve Lie died of a heart attack on 30 December 1968, in Geilo, Norway, at the age of 72.

Trygve Lie was born on 16 July 1896, in Kristania (present day Oslo,) in Norway, to Martin Lie and his wife Hulda. His father was a carpenter by trade while his mother ran a boarding house and cage. He had a sister.

In 1902, his father abandoned the family and emigrated to the United States. He and his sister were raised by their mother singlehandedly.He joined the Labour Party in 1916 while he was still in his teens. He graduated with a law degree from the University of Oslo in 1919. Soon after his graduation, he was named Labour Party’s national secretary.

From 1919 to 1921, he was editor-in-chief for ‘Det 20de Aarhundre’ ('The 20th Century'), a periodical published by the Norwegian Labour Party.

In 1922, TrygveLie became the legal advisor for the Workers’ National Trade Union and remained its advisor till 1935.

In 1922, he was made a member of the executive committee of Aker municipality council. He served in this capacity till 1931.

After the Labour Party came to power in Norway, Lie was appointed as the Minister of Justice in 1935 in the government headed by Prime Minister Johan Nygaardsvold.

In 1937, he became a member of the Norwegian Parliament after he won the election from Akershus.

In 1939, he became the Minister of Trade but served in that capacity for four months. In the same year, he was made the Minister of Supplies, a position he would hold for two years. In 1941, following the invasion of Norway by Nazi Germany, the Norwegian government in exile that operated from London named Lie as their foreign minister.

As the first Secretary General of the United Nations, Lie worked hard to turn the organisation into a respectable force in the world of diplomacy and built the sprawling building in New York even though when he started out the organisation operated from a tiny property.