Which country did Norway belong to before 1905?

In this section, you will hear five short news items.
Each item will be read only once.
After each item, there will be a fifteen-second pause.
During the pause, read the question and the four choices marked A， B， C and D, and decide which is the best answer.
Then mark the corresponding letter on the answer sheet with a single line through the centre.
16. Both Ireland and Norway are small countries on the fringes of Europe. Oppressed by the British since the 12th century, the Irish movement toward independence had never ceased until the founding of the Republic of Ireland in 1949. As for Norway, it became an independent kingdom in 1905, following its own history of being given to Sweden by Denmark in 1814.
17. The Internet is a busy place. Every second, approximately 6,000 tweets are tweeted; more than 40,000 Google queries are searched; and more than 2 million emails are sent, according to Internet Live Stats, a website of the international Real Time Statistics Project. But these statistics only hint at the size of the Web. As of September 2014, there were 1 billion websites on the Internet, a number that fluctuates by the minute as sites go defunct and others are born.
18. Overseas tourists will find it easier and faster to apply for a travel permit to Tibet this year as the regional government makes efforts to boost tourism. Tibet plans to brand itself as the world’s “Third Pole” and hopes to attract 40 million visits from tourists this year by providing more convenient and friendly services as well as significantly improving accessibility for visitors, Qi Zhala said in a government work report to the annual session of the regional people’s congress, which started on Thursday in Lhasa.
19. People from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan who live on the Chinese mainland can apply for teaching credentials for primary and secondary schools, giving them easier access to jobs. They can apply to take the teaching credentials test and work at kindergartens, primary schools, middle schools, high schools and secondary vocational schools, according to a guideline issued on Thursday by the Ministry of Education and the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Office and Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office.
20. When Japan selected a defining symbol to summarize the country’s 2018, it wasn’t surprising that they chose the Chinese character for “disaster”—the second time since 1995. Last year, the island nation was defined by unprecedented heat waves, storms and floods that resulted in hundreds of deaths and millions forced to evacuate their homes. More than 200 people perished in July in deadly floods that ravaged large areas of the country. Not long after, dozens died in a record-breaking heat wave that hospitalized more than 20,000 people.